Red Badge Revivalists

On August 8th and 9th this year, several thousand Americans gathered at Cedar Mountain, in Virginia, to commemorate the 125th anniversary of a battle that occurred there during the Civil War. The commemoration took the form of a huge re-enactment of the battle with over 3,000 'soldiers' participating. These re-enactor soldiers were armed with reproduction nineteenth-century military rifles, were capable of complex infantry drill and were supported by cavalry and eighteen full-sized working artillery pieces, some of which were drawn by six-horse gun limbers. Together, they presented a marked contrast to the usual Hollywood 'cavaliers' and probably gave as realistic an impression of nineteenth- century fighting men as we are capable of today.