Fort D event demonstrates military life during Civil War

It's rare to see a campground from the 19th century set up in the middle of a neighborhood in South Cape Girardeau. It's even rarer to hear the cannon fire that boomed throughout the day Saturday. But that's exactly the scene set up on Fort Street during Memorial Day weekend.

Local re-enactors from The Turner Brigade, the largest Union re-enacting group in eastern Missouri, set up camp for the weekend as a living history demonstration.

About 15 homemade tents were assembled outside Fort D, with around 35 men, women and children dressed in the traditional garb soldiers and their family members might have worn during the war.

Men sat on homemade benches conversing and drinking from tin cups, while women in large hoop skirts and bonnets hustled from tent to tent preparing for the day.

The sergeant of the camp, Scott House, set up his tent for himself and his wife Thursday night, and intended to stay throughout the weekend.

"We're re-enacting garrison life in Cape Girardeau during the Civil War," House said. "We're not being campaigners and were not fighting a battle. We're basically showing people about how life in Civil War Cape Girardeau would be like for the soldiers, because [the city] was only attacked once during the Civil War."

House said most of what the re-enactors spent their time doing was essentially getting up, completing drills, and just living their lives from day to day. Since only a small portion of the Civil War occurred in Cape, the soldiers had a lot of time to spare.

"Boredom was probably their No. 1 enemy, along with disease," he said.

In addition to living history, the re-enactors also participated in other activities. They informed attendees about the cannons they were using and how to fire them, as well as showcasing soldiers from different eras.

"Basically, it was just people came through and the soldiers with rifles, the engineers and a couple of our infantrymen described the manual of arms, how the rifles were loaded, the muskets were loaded at the time. They did a firing demonstration and those of us in the artillery and sometimes the engineers demonstrated how to load and fire civil war muzzle loading artillery," said Capt. Randy Baehr. "While we had the crew going through the drill on the guns, our first sergeant took over explaining the steps and why we did them."

House also mentioned two re-enactors who attended on Friday to display New Zealand uniforms worn during World War II. The soldiers' uniforms and routines were different from those of U.S. soldiers. House said Friday's events acted as a "timeline of wars throughout history," while Saturday was just going to be garrison life during the Civil War.

Meanwhile, House's wife, Patti, said approximately 415 people attended Friday's festivities.

She and her husband have been involved in re-enacting since 2005, although their appreciation for it began much earlier.

"In 1989 when we were married, we would go to the re-enactments at Pilot Knob, Fort Davidson near Ironton [Missouri], and we would always say, 'Yeah, that looks like a lot of fun, we should do this,'" she said. "Well, we were both teachers and we both thought we just didn't have time to do it."

But in 2005 she and her husband got involved with local people and the City of Cape Girardeau to begin fixing Fort D, which at the time was boarded up. In 2006 the Houses began re-enacting.

"The Turner Brigade has really, really supported us and come to these Fort D days," she said. "So that was 2006; 2007 we did it again and then we went to every other year. So 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 were our Fort D days. Then we just did living histories on the off years. Well, this year you can see, this is our off year, but we had all these kind people come and want to participate. Which is wonderful."

The re-enactors will remain at their camp from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday. Admission is free, but souvenirs are available for purchase.

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Smaue@semissourian.com

Pertinent Address:

920 Fort St., Cape Girardeau, Missouri