Changing of the Guard

As part of our quest for homeschooling endeavors, we attended a Civil War re-enactment over in Lyme, and I have to confess, I was not as enthused as I could have been. I guess (incorrectly) I sort of grouped the Civil War re-enactment crowd with the Medieval/Renaissance re-enactment crowd, sort of fringe-ish and perhaps a little eccentric. Well, I have to say, I was wrong on a number of counts.

First off, the act was pretty cool. Sure, it’s a bunch of middle-aged guys wearing uniforms and shooting guns, but they did a nice job, and the really rewarding part for me was talking to them and learning about the conditions. Not only was it informative, but the actors were very knowledgeable and not pretentious. I learned a lot, and the kids had fun. I’ll say this much, I never had fun learning history in school, and I think seeing it and talking to the people (even though they’re actors) makes a big difference. We even got to eat hard tack, which for the record is pretty nasty stuff.

All in all, I highly recommend attending one of these shows, they do a great job and you sure learn a lot about a really significant part of this country’s history. Also, the mom and the kids went to the Precision Museum and learned about Civil War weapons, many of which were made up here for use in the Union Army. That’s kind of cool, isn’t it?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Don Shall for the pic.