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USA – CONFEDERATE PASSIONS Sept 1999 DUR 13’50” BATTLE SCENE FROM “SOUTH” STORY – GUN BARRAGE, UNION CHARGE ETC. “SOUTH” Rob Hodge in vision C/A’s other re-enactors Name super: ROB HODGE Re-enactor CIVIL WAR MAP SHOWING WASHINGTON, CINCINNATI TILT DOWN FROM SUN TO FREEWAY POND MEN SLEEPING, MEN BY FIRE, COFFEE POURED DRUMMER LOOKS AT DRUMMER STARTS MAN WAKES UP MAN PULLS BOOTS ON Men straggle towards muster OFFICER IN VISION W/S BEHIND OFFICER TILT UP FROM BARE FEET TO FACE OFFICER TICKING OFF IN BOOK PAN TO ROB HODGE ROB in vision CONFEDERATES MARCHING Company faces and drummer marching Crowd continued or squad marching away down road Name Super: JEFF McINTYRE 5th Kentucky Infantry C/A to other people eating etc. MCINTYRE ARTILLERY DISPLAY INFANTRY RUNNING CASEY WOLFHEIM ON P.A. INFANTRY WHEELING AND MARCHING OFFICER IN VISION FIRING volley RELOADING MINSTREL SHOW NAME SUPER: CASEY WOLFHEIM Living History Organiser CONFEDERATES MARCHING JONATHAN PTC AT MANASSAS NATIONAL PARK Name Super: JONATHAN HOLMES ROB HODGE AND JH IN PARK W/S BEHIND JH AND ROB JH AND ROB THROUGH GRASS APPROACHING GUN MOUTH OF CANON POV JH INTO REVERSE Q ROB IN VISION JONATHAN BATTLE SCENES AT BUFFINGTON ISLAND BATTLE CONTINUED TRUCK PULLS OUT 3 SHOT TONY, ROB, JONATHAN ROB AND TONY 2 SHOT JH REVERSE QUESTION RE-ENACTORS AND UNION FLAG CONFEDERATE FLAG 3 SHOT JH, TONY, ROB DANCER MUSICIANS JEFF MCINTYRE BACK TO DANCE WALTZ ROB AND CASEY WATCHING WALTZ |
BATTLE FX – BUGLES ETC. In the crucible of the war between the states, historians say, modern America was forged; the heat and the pain of it were terrible. Yet now battle by battle, weekend after weekend that war is refought – for thousands of Americans it’s become a mass obsession. For some, especially in the south, these mock conflicts keep the old cause, and the old enmity, alive. GRAB What we were after
then is a lot of what you fight for today – states rights, individual
freedom, and you fight for it today at the ballot box, back then they took it
to field. But for the true re-enactor, the pursuit of accuracy, the passion for reconstructing the past, has become an end in itself. You’re on a quest,
and you’re trying to reach a goal, which you’ll never attain. You know you don’t
have to get into the political things, you know I didn't live then so who am
I to judge about things, I just look at it as an observer and I think it’s a
neat subject. START
BANJO/HARMONICA MUSIC On the beltway around Cincinnati Ohio, it’s seven o’clock on an August morning in 1999. In the quiet haven of Sharon Woods Park, it’s September of 1862. MUSIC For a company of the 4th Arkansas regiment of the army of the Confederate States of America, it’s time for another day of scouting behind enemy lines. DRUM ROLL If they look ragged, and dirty, and ill disciplined, it’s because they intend to. In fact, this little company is an elite. Each member is here by invitation only. ATTENTION COMPANY! Their qualification: a fanatical attention to every detail of dress and equipment, from the soles of their boots – if they have them – to the sweatbands inside their hats. OFFICER SO-AND-SO CORPORAL SO-AND-SO No one has pursued the grail of authenticity with more intensity than Rob Hodge. He’s been at it for seventeen years. ROB HODGE: I mean this is all
cottage industry stuff, this is a beaver-fur felt hat based on an original
that was made by a guy named A.J. Dellaschmutt of Frederick Maryland, and you
can find business records in the National Archives on this guy. These are Semac
trousers, buddy of mine in North Carolina made that and these are based on
originals at the Museum of Confederacy// And this is a
standard Confederate shell jacket and this one was made for Western
confederate soldiers in Columbus Georgia, very common hub of clothing at the
time, um let’s see these are Jefferson bootees or brogans, standard Federal
shoe and of course Confederates would be wearing a lot of captured Federal
gear, shoes would wear out in about 2 weeks on campaign (2 weeks?) Yeah. CONTINUE V/OVER// I
did a 50-mile march in Louisiana this spring and I wore ‘em down pretty good. DRUMMER For the Living Historians representing the 4th Arkansas this weekend, it all has to be right. Uniforms of the right cloth, dyed with the right dye, buttoned with the right buttons. The right muskets and blankets, canteens and haversacks – above all, the right attitude. VOICE OVER It’s being as close to
the real soldiers as humanely possible, and if that means sleeping out in the
rain without a tent, bivouacking in the woods at night// we do that a lot, a
lot of us here will sleep in the rain// And I figure if a
person can’t do that, can’t choose to portray a civil war soldier – if you’re
gonna choose to get into this – and can’t do that for three days then you
don’t have any business being out here, you know. GUN FIRING The re-enactors here
are living historians you know, er, //putting together their uniforms by
hand, doing the research. There’s another test the true living historian must pass. Is he willing to turn out, not just for the big battles with thousands of participants, but for a small weekend display in a corner of a northern state? “THREE ROUNDS” FIRING AND LOADING The search for authenticity sometimes leads into perilous territory. “ANGELINA BAKER” SONG Late at night, long after the public have left, the 4th Arkansas is entertained by a troupe of what in the 1860’s they would have called nigger minstrels. SONG ENDS – White men with corked faces, exchanging bad jokes in bad black accents. EXCHANGE OF BANTER In today’s America, it would be considered worse than bad taste. In some places it would cause a riot. DIXIE SONG STARTS But as the organiser of this weekend somewhat defensively points out, this is how the Confederate Army kept itself amused. DIXIE SONG ENDS We’re not trying to
portray any type of racist image or anything like that I mean that’s not in
our nature at all, but more or less just an accurate portrayal of history. JONATHAN Among the thousands
who like to dress up as confederate soldiers, there undoubtedly are a few
redneck racists left – but not many. The vast majority of re-enactors on both
sides have the kind of political innocence that you find in rabid enthusiasts
of all kinds, from stamp collectors to computer geeks. But some like Rob
Hodge have found that their passion for the civil war and its battlefields
have led them to engage in a very modern struggle – a glorious, and perhaps
doomed attempt, to take on the twenty-first century itself. What you have is
James Longstreet’s Confederate Wing 30,000 strong. The battlefield of Manassas, scene of two separate Confederate victories. In places like this, and with a guide like Rob Hodge, you feel you can almost see and hear the bloody struggle that took place a hundred and thirty seven years ago. ROB: And so they
begin swinging around, swinging around, and just start rolling up the Federal
line, reinforcements come in for the Federals, but it’s piecemeal, they fight
very well. You can imagine you
know the Federal piecemeal reinforcements coming in from this direction and
they come in and they attack nobly and die nobly and retreat, probably not
nobly but… Hodge can put on the same impromptu performance at any one of thirty of forty battlefields, from Chiquemauga to Gettysburg. So Longstreet’s
troops were coming up here but they hit these guns, six guns from Lockyer’s
main battery, and they’re loaded with double canister and they’re ready to
fire//and Alexander Hunter of the 17th Virginia talks about how
these grim black mouths of these tubes of the cannon barrels, he could see
‘em and they were loaded and he knew what was going to happen next// and he
was praying that he wouldn’t get hit. JH: And what
happened? RH: The discharge
goes off, there’s tons of carnage right out in front about ten paces out from
the guns. Hunter luckily is unscathed. REVERSE Q: Rob the
way you talk about it, this really is sacred ground for you isn’t it? RH: Yeah they’re
cemeteries without headstones and they are, in my mind, and hopefully in
other minds, places worthy of being protected. So far, this battlefield has been protected – it’s a national park created by the very federal government the South rebelled against. But it’s only forty kilometres west of Washington DC, and the suburban sprawl that covering more and more of northern Virginia is crowding right up to the boundaries of the park. And to Rob’s disgust, the narrow roads which meet in the heart of the battlefield have been allowed to become major commuter arteries, and now the park has agreed to widen the main intersection beside the famous stone house. ROB: When you're
looking at a map of the battlefield, this is smack dab in the middle so the
widening of the roads here is kind of the stake to drive into the heart of
the battlefield. What is our legacy
going to be – is our legacy just going the convenience of getting from point
A to point B, come hell or high water, and ruin the cultural significance of
things that have happened to us that are monumental and important to
understand. I’m hoping to change
our legacy to be a generation of caring and I don't see the caring with
people speeding through the intersection, no reverence. All I’m asking is for
some sort of questioning of it all, let’s think about these things. FIRE! FIRE! The next weekend, Rob Hodge is back in battle again. BANG BANG It’s the re-enactment of the only civil war battle to take place north of the great Ohio River. On July of 1863, a brigade of Confederate raiders led by John Hunt Morgan was driven back by overwhelming Union forces. It’s a small affair, by re-enactors’ standards; and anyway, as Rob admits, after seventeen years the thrill of this kind of thing has begun to wear off. ROB V/OVER No doubt what this
is// it’s an extension of adolescence. I mean if you’re going out on the
field and you’re shooting black powder at each other and aiming guns, what is
that? And I have to admit that it’s not all that exciting for me anymore, at
least that aspect. TRUCK ENGINE NOISE This is the real reason Rob has come north again to Ohio – the Shelley gravel company has bought up a substantial chunk of the Buffington Island battlefield, and intends to mine it for gravel to pave Ohio’s roads. Leading the local resistance is a stalwart of the local re-enactors, Tony Tem-Barge. Rebel and Yankee are allies in the preservation struggle. ROB: And how many
bodies are buried in the general area round here? TONY: There could be
50 or more confederate soldiers buried in this land. ROB: It almost seems
like developers are magnets for battlefields sometimes// You can get upset
about it and it is upsetting but getting upset about it doesn’t do anything
and I kinda like the approach of trying to realise that that’s life and you
have to try to find a way to deal with it. JH: What do you
think the soldiers who fought here would say if they knew that 120 years
later a guy dressed in a Confederate uniform and a guy dressed in a Union
uniform would be standing here together arguing about how to preserve this
battlefield? ROB: Well I like to
think that they would think it’s neat, that they would think that somebody
cares, somebody gives a damn about it. TONY: Oh I think//
this is what they fought for// a free country where Americans could think and
act as they wished. JH: It’s what your
side thought… TONY AND ROB: Both
sides… both sides were fighting for the same thing. That might come as a surprise to some – especially to the descendants of the slaves that the War Between the States set free. But many of these re-enactors told me that reliving their old battles makes for reconciliation, not division. MCINTYRE: Personally, without people realising it, I
think this is all a big healing process of our country – the fact that we can
do this, real Southerners, real Northerners, getting together and doing this
– I mean after a battle you see everyone shaking hands and exchanging numbers. CONTINUES V/OVER I
think this is something that’s good that’s come out of something that was
horrible. Those who forget the past, they say, are doomed to repeat it. But with so many determined to remember, making war on each other is one tragedy Americans seem most unlikely to repeat. DANCE ENDS |