Published: April 26, 2008 07:17 pm         

Not only is it fun, it’s important to all of us

Tell me if this wouldn’t make a great poster:

Gen. George Armstrong Custer is talking heatedly into a cell phone, and he’s saying, “Hell, YES, I found ’em!”

The Custer I saw with a cell phone was talking to his lady back home in New York. He was just one of many fascinating characters I met last weekend at Gettysburg.

Two friends of mine go to the battlefield a few times a year to wear the uniforms of second lieutenants in the Union Army and do “living history,” and this time they took me along. Folks there treated them like old friends and soon began acting that way toward me.

They and their people go to the summit of Little Round Top (the left flank of a ridge where Union soldiers repulsed numerous Confederate assaults that could have changed the outcome of the battle and the Civil War itself) to station themselves at a battery of vintage Union cannon and talk to tourists.

These men take what they do as seriously as Hugh Hefner takes blonde hair. One refreshed his memory by re-reading five books before leaving home so he could give people good information. If they don’t know the answer, they admit it and tell the questioner where he can find it.

Their woolen uniforms and other equipment are authentic in all respects and cost thousands of dollars. They stand for hours at a time in the heat and cold, tearing up their middle-aged legs and backs and are paid absolutely nothing, but it didn’t take me long to figure out why they do it. Not only are they sharing the lore of something that’s important to every American, but — as Bill Cosby used to say in the Jell-O pudding commercials — it’s more fun than playing in water. I enjoyed just standing off to one side, watching my friends and their admirers.

Waves of tourists showed up, most of them wanting to talk to the two bluebellies who explained that they had been in the Fifth Corps with the 20th Maine, but were reassigned to Gen. George Gordon Meade’s staff when he was made commander of the Union Army. (Meade was there too, and so was Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood’s character. Meade told Hood, “It’s about time one of you got to see what it looks like from up here.”)

The visitors came in all sizes, shapes and ages, and it didn’t matter whether they were men or women, or if they were Americans, Australians or Japanese, they wanted their pictures taken with my friends.

Several girls who looked to be about 12 or 13 huddled together about 30 feet away, looking at my buddies and whispering to each other. Finally I walked over to them and said, “They’d love to have their picture taken with you,” then scrambled to keep from being run over.

Numerous modern-day American soldiers came by, some with groups from the Army War College. Soldiers from other free countries (Estonia, Israel and South Korea among them) come here to learn from the best — ours. One American colonel told us there’s no better place in this country to study infantry tactics than Gettysburg because of the variety of actions fought there, and because you can look at the terrain and immediately see why one thing worked, but something else failed.

Little kids came running to my buddies. Lt. Carter sat one astride the cannon barrel and the kid fought hard to keep a straight face for the camera (soldiers of that era didn’t smile when they were having their pictures taken, and neither did my friends), but when he put his cap on the kid’s head, the little one broke out in a grin nothing could have contained.

One lady came up to have her picture taken with my friends and their cannon, and Lt. Corley told her, “Come on, ma’am. Get in here next to this big gun.” I whispered to him that if I said that to a woman, she’d either slap me or fall over laughing.

I already knew a good bit about Gettysburg, but my friends taught me plenty more. Some folks asked good questions — like the Scoutmaster who wanted to know why the Parrott Rifles in Little Round Top’s battery were stamped 1864 when the battle was in 1863.

It’s because when the Union troops left Gettysburg, they quite reasonably took their artillery with them. After the war, the surviving cannon were collected in one central place, and some were reissued when battlefield memorials were dedicated. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s men might have used our cannon to put fire down on Atlanta.

My friends said some folks ask why it had been so difficult to move troops, supplies and heavy cannon when there were all those paved roads, or if the soldiers took cover behind the monuments. Those monuments are one reason why many scenes in the movie “Gettysburg” were filmed in places that look like Gettysburg, but aren’t. And no, the battle wasn’t fought there because it had a shoe factory.

Most folks listened to my friends like they were youngsters hearing Grandpa tell a wonderful story.

When you meet a re-enactor in his Civil War uniform, you are introduced to him in his role. Being in civilian clothes and unable to give a military salute, I did it the old-fashioned way by tipping my hat with my left hand and extending my right for a handshake while nodding my head. I apparently endeared myself to Confederate Gen. Lewis Armistead’s character when I called him by his nickname: Lo. He said it was the first time anyone has ever called him that.

Eventually, you learn their real names — General Custer and General Hood are both named Dave. Custer/Dave was a hoot. He imitated Star Trek characters, and tolerated people asking him if he was wearing an Arrow shirt.

The story is that he was wearing his Custer uniform when a little kid saw him and came running up to him, pointing and saying, “I know you! I know you!” Dave grinned and asked “Really? Who am I?” and the kid hollered, “You’re Colonel Sanders!”

I had hoped to meet the fellow who plays Confederate Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson and is said to look just like him, but he wasn’t there. I wanted to say, “Cousin Thomas, it is an honor and a pleasure to meet you.” (Jackson, who was wounded at Chancellorsville and later died of pneumonia, never made it to Gettysburg. He refused to accept “Stonewall” as his nickname and acknowledged it only in reference to his men — “the Stonewall Brigade” — as a tribute to their steadfastness.)

For some unknown reason, I felt more empathy with the men who were dressed like Confederates than I did with the Union guys. The Rebel officers’ flamboyant uniforms made them look dashing in comparison to the Federals in what looked like business suits.

I told them, “If my cousin Thomas had been here, you men wouldn’t have had to worry about that damn little hill because he’d have had boots up there long before the Yankees ever found it.” (And that’s true. The war wasn’t won at Little Round Top, but my friends’ 20th Maine kept it from being lost there.)

They liked that, and they really smiled when I told them about my 87-year-old golfing buddy whose father was a Confederate soldier. Al’s dad was just a kid when he joined up near the end of the war and was well into his 70s when his children were born. I’d like to see some of these folks who are arguing about the Confederate flag ask Al about it. He and his family actually lived the history they claim to know so much about. They didn’t care what color their neighbors were, because they were all poor and needed each other just to survive.

Women are also involved in this. One told me she and her friends can count on taking three hours to get dressed. (“At least three,” her Union lieutenant colonel husband tossed over his shoulder.)

It involves climbing into a corset, pantaloons, stockings, at least seven petticoats and a combination of hoops, plus they have to put on those high-top button shoes and lace them up (my Grandmother Jackson had some of these shoes, and she wore them) before the dress goes on. Then they arrange their hair and pin a hat on it. Makeup is minimal, but still necessary.

Considerable practice is required before a woman dares to sit down publicly in this getup, otherwise the skirt turns into a parachute and flies up in front — just like on the Carol Burnett Show — and getting into an automobile can be a real treat.

As far as I was concerned, the result was worth the effort. These women were all lovely, and I could easily picture myself waltzing them around a dance floor, having the most elegant time of my life. Which uniform I’d be wearing, I haven’t decided.

One general’s wife came to Little Round Top at sunset, to sit in her bonnet and dress at the base of a monument to Pennsylvania’s troops while strumming a guitar and singing vintage songs like “Tenting Tonight,” the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (including the verse many folks have never heard) and the haunting “Aura Lee.”

A pretty lady, she had a soft, sweet voice that made you want to hum quietly along with her, and I thought it was a shame more folks weren’t there to hear her.

As it turned out, she may have had a bigger audience than I realized — but that’s a story for next week. When dusk comes to Gettysburg, it helps to be among friends ... particularly those you cannot see.