Today was a beautiful day for a battle…..a civil war reenactment that is. At a local park just outside of Madison city limits, the Union and the Confederate soldiers clashed. In the real event, the fighting started around 4:30 in the morning and lasted after the midnight hour, until the battlefield fell silent. The confederates retreated to a new line of works 800 yards to the rear. Suddenly the silent post midnight air was broken by the sound of a Confederate band playing “The Dead March” from Handel’s Saul, followed by a Union band playing “Nearer My God to Thee“. The Rebel band answered with “The Bonnie Blue Flag” with the South proudly sharing “Dixie Land” and the North ended the concert with “Home, Sweet Home,” which brought a tear to many an eye. The numbers of dead, wounded and captured combined for over 20,000 people for this one evenings battle with the fighting lasting about a weeks or so, with the numbers of those lost upwards to 70,000. The best part for me was that I arrived early and was able to stroll around both camps and pick the brains of the participants, and they were quite convincing in their roles. I learned about the many behind the scene aspects of equipment, artillery and certainly most of interest to me were the people and their facts….
