WESTERLO — Gunshots rang out at Westerlo Town Park Saturday afternoon. Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address. And the Knox Traditional Strings, made up of musicians from in and around the Helderbergs, played on through the mighty, pouring rain.

The Civil War Re-enactment and Encampment, sponsored by the Westerlo Museum Board, was a fund-raiser for the future home of the museum that is being restored on Route 401.
"We were very happy with the event," said Raye Saddlemire, a member of the Westerlo Museum Board.

Tents were pitched atop the park’s hill; Old Glory was flying, the 125th Regiment’s flag blew alongside it, and a number of soldiers and women dressed in period clothing graced the town park.

Throughout the day, re-enactors entertained and educated the public. Women, who portrayed laundresses and cooks, made camp, spun and wove, and tended to their washing duties. Soldiers displayed their weapons and ammunition, drilled, fired their muskets, and invited the public to drill and march with wood rifles. By ten o’clock Sunday evening, all was quiet in camp.

The future home of the museum, The Myers House, Saddlemire said, is thought to be the oldest house in the town. Though more funds need to be raised, she hopes restorations will be completed by next year.

Many locals displayed talents on Saturday appropriate to the Civil War era; on hand was a blacksmith, weavers, spinners, quilt-makers, and musicians. Kate Latham, of Westerlo, displayed her signature quilt, and told The Enterprise it’s open for more signatures.

Patrick Testo, of Westerlo, who asked questions of re-enactors throughout the day, received a Civil War statue made by world-renowned sculptor, Ron Tunison, who was on hand for the event, Saddlemire said.

Lessons from a surgeon

Ken Nichols, playing a surgeon who gained experience in the Crimean War, showed the crowd a bullet — how it is loaded, and primed, and, ultimately, what it did to bones upon impact.

Nichols has been a re-enactor for eight years, and said he loves teaching and learning on his own.

The character he portrayed was born in New York, and had the funding and support of his parents, who came to America from England, to obtain a superior education.

A surgeon’s role within the regiment, he said, was an important one.
"A surgeon could tell the general what to do and where he could go," Nichols said. "Because each day the general would ask the most important question: ‘How many men do I got"’
"Six-hundred-and-fifty-thousand died in the war. Two-thirds were because of disease," he said, and added that 50,000 could have been saved had surgeons amputated sooner and known what infections they were dealing with.
"Everybody had anesthesia," he said. "They didn’t have anesthesiologists, but they had chloroform, and they had ether. They’d give a guy a shot, and they had 15 minutes to operate, but it only took them a matter of minutes to amputate."

Nichols clarified misconceptions and pointed to Hollywood sensationalizing as a root of the public’s ignorance.
"All the screaming you see in the movies of the guy about to get his leg chopped off, where he’s screaming, ‘No, no, don’t cut off my leg’ — that’s not how it was. Well, that happened, maybe, but everybody had this stuff," he said, as he raised his bottle of chloroform, "and they used it."

Boiled horse hair and silver was used to sew wounds, he said.

Sanitation, he said, was poor throughout the war.

Rags for cleaning the wounds of patients, he said, were often used many times or not cleaned well, he said.

Men would often use a river or stream as a toilet, while others would be down-river filling their canteens, he said. Soldiers, rather than walking out to the woods away from the camp to relieve themselves in the middle of the night, would just stop a pace or two from their tents, he said.

Nichols went into his tent, and emerged bearing a notebook; he read a three-page list of causes for death during the Civil War, most of which were diseases.
"They were pretty unsanitary conditions," he said. "We learned a lot from the Civil War."

Nichols said the war, after all the battles had been fought, had three major impacts on the daily lives of Americans.
"We got the frock coat," he said. "The policemen wore them after the war. We became much cleaner, medically. And we got camping."

Following the war, Nichols said, there was a movement of men and families who wanted to camp. Never before, he said, did people have the idea to sit around a fire together.
"Guys missed that," he said.
"It’s like you’re there"

On Friday evening, Rich Talay and Ed Marchand, the two eldest members of the re-enactors, chopped wood and hammered stakes into the ground to secure their regiment’s tents. They attended to their tasks dutifully. The men were sweating as the sun beat down, but, dressed in full uniform, they continued to prepare firewood and secure the tents. They did not shed any of their clothes.

Talay, who is retired and lives in Athens (Greene County), was a construction engineer for the state’s Department of Transportation. Marchand, who is also retired and lives in Cropseyville (Rensselaer County), worked for the federal government for 40 years.

Marchand and Talay, re-enactors who have devoted much of their time to become experts on the Civil War era, replicated a company street, with two sizes of tents lined up neatly on each side.
Marchand pointed to the tents, and said, "The larger tents were hauled in wagons, but, after a while, they went to dog tents. Each man carried half a tent, and each tent held two men."

Talay explained what the soldiers did while not engaged in combat and during the winters when their regiments were unable to move.
"They played baseball, football, cards," he said. "They wrote a lot of letters, and they drilled a lot"Very few got fire practice before going out to battle."

War, as he described it, was chaotic. Confusion, inexperience, and poor visibility added to the horror of battle.
"There was a lot of smoke in the field," he said. "You couldn’t see who you were shooting at, and most of the guys went into battle not knowing how to fire a weapon. The veterans knew how to fire, but the new guys were just issued guns and put into the field"A good shooter could load and fire three times in a minute."

Weaponry and combat, he said, was much different during the Civil War than it was it was during the Revolutionary War, less than a century before.
"[Soldiers] stood shoulder to shoulder, two ranks deep, to get enough fire power into an area"The muskets used in the Revolutionary War weren’t very accurate. A bayonet was used more often, and a lot more charges were made," he said.

The rifles used in the Civil War, he said, were much more accurate and able to shoot up to 400 or 500 yards.
"Ninety percent of the charges made in the Civil War failed," he said. "In the Revolutionary War, they made a lot of charges. Not in the Civil War."

Some women, Talay and Marchand said, rode with the regiment and helped with cooking and laundry.
"And some of the wives rode with the soldiers," Marchant added.

Early on in the war, each army had one laundress per 20 men; they were women trying to support themselves or were traveling with a male relative.

Women also served as cooks and made flags for the regiments, Marchand said.

Marchand, who has been a re-enactor for 13 years, said he has always been interested in history. He has two sons, a grandson, and two granddaughters who also re-enact.

When asked why he does it, Marchand was at a loss for words.
"I cannot explain it," he said. "The feeling you get when you’re sitting around the campfire"it’s like you’re there 150 years ago, in battle. It’s kind of eerie," he said, "and at times it can get kind of boring, but there are those two or three times a year when it’s amazing."