DatelineCarolinaRe-enactor brings Civil War history to life

Re-enactor brings Civil War history to life

By Halley Nani
Edited by David Purtell

Cannons from another era blast while men and women in Confederate uniforms bellow rebel yells and yip like dogs, marching in pairs snakelike to meet their Union foes in the middle of a 150-yard field. Near the front is Gary Byrd, captain of the 20th South Carolina Infantry, a Civil War re-enactment troop from Columbia.

Byrd, 56, lives to step back in time and immerse himself in an 1860s state of mind.

Eight weekends a year, he isn't the hearing specialist with a practice in Greenwood, but a Civil War re-enactor.

Byrd estimates that he has attended about 350 re-enactments. When he was younger, he says, before he married and had two children, he ventured to about 25 a year.

Now, refereeing high school football and high school and college wrestling take up much of his time.

Byrd says his goal is foremost to maintain accuracy and educate spectators about what life was like for the average soldier in the 1860s.

Re-enactors "can give answers to questions you didn't even know you had questions about," Byrd says.

Byrd says he is not only interested in the Civil War, but also the Revolution, Spanish-American and Mexican-American wars, and World War II. He says he has participated in re-enactments of the Revolution and World War II.

But it is "the War Between the States" that captivates him.

"It's the most pivotal portion of the history of the entire country," Byrd says. "Virtually everything that we are today, you might be able to trace back in some form or fashion to experiences in that war."

Byrd says re-enacting is a great way to combine his love of history with being outdoors and to use "the minuscule amount of expertise that I have to educate individuals about what it was like for a common soldier during the war."

As a re-enactor, Byrd is skilled at getting people interested in the war's details, according to Weldon Hill, 37, of West Columbia, one of the men in Byrd's unit. For example, if you go to Byrd's Columbia-area house and visit his "war room," a room he says every hardcore re-enactor has, he will pull out sabers, guns, bullets and rifles and explain who used them and where.

Byrd jokes that he became the captain of the 20th because he was "the last man standing."

"You basically learn the ropes. You need to know what you're doing in order to be put in charge," he says.

That means knowing all the necessary commands "so that you can spit them out at a moment's notice" and being able to lead a company of 30 to 50 people.

In 1961, when Byrd was 6, the nation marked the Civil War Centennial. His family visited relatives who lived near battlefields in Manassas, Va., and Shiloh, Tenn., and Byrd got his first taste of re-enacting as a spectator.

Some relatives, like his great-grandmother, had lived during Reconstruction, and were candid in their recollection of living under Union occupation, he says. They told him "living under Yankee oppressors" it must have been like what the East Germans went through after World War II under communist rule.

Byrd says he was fascinated with the Civil War through childhood and throughout childhood he was repeatedly taught that the South should be proud of its past, and not shy away from it.

"The period of time in which I grew up, we were educated that the South was right and had nothing to be ashamed of, and, point of fact, we don't, and we didn't," he says.

After graduation from Columbia's Dreher High School, Byrd went to The Citadel, South Carolina's military college, where he majored in history. He says he enjoyed the military aspect, especially the Friday parades, but did not focus on trying to attain rank because he didn't really plan to pursue a military career.

During college, he saw a small newspaper ad for a re-enactment at Historic Brattonsville, about 10 miles south of Rock Hill. Curious, he went to the public library to get more information and says he was instantly hooked. He says he chose the 20th unit because it was the local Columbia unit.

Byrd says he began going to re-enactments, sometimes every other weekend. He says that he would pull out a map of where re-enactments were happening and go, sometimes with members of the 20th, sometimes by himself.

"You're never far from friends," Byrd says. It's easy to meet up with others you've met at re-enactment events, and they'll put you under their wing for the weekend, he says.

The Civil War remains a heated topic 150 years after its start at South Carolina's Fort Sumter. But Byrd says the 20th isn't political, and that members try not to mix politics into the hobby, instead sticking to facts they can ascertain about the war.

Mark Watts, one of Byrd's fellow re-enactors in the 20th, says people "would rather talk about cartridge boxes than politics."

"The real re-enactors are just historians," says Watts, "We don't ally with politics. We recognize that the Civil War was, and that the time period happened, and we can't change it, but we can represent it, and that's what the 20th does."

Once the multiple 150th anniversary re-enactments are over, Byrd says he may hang up his Confederate uniform. But he says his love of history will last a lifetime. For now, he continues leading fellow history buffs into skirmishes and enlightening spectators about the Civil War.