Nick Priddy squinted through steel-rimmed glasses so tiny they barely covered the twinkle in his blue eyes. He stood at his makeshift camp, a blackened pot bubbling with coffee hanging over the fire and hardtack available for hungry skirmishers.
“It tastes like shoe leather,” he warned.
Union soldiers dunked the hardtack–a mixture of flour, salt and water baked into wafers–in their coffee or used it to sop up bacon grease from the morning meal, softening the unleavened bread enough to eat, explained Priddy, a history teacher at Bolingbrook High School and a member of the North-South Skirmish Association.
Priddy, of Channahon, was dressed in Civil War-era clothing, including a pair of glasses made in 1830 and still with the original prescription lenses. “They just happened to work for me,” he said.
He could see just fine as he walked up to the firing line at the Illinois State Rifle Association range in Kankakee, adjusted the sight on his musket and fired at a target 100 yards away. A puff of white smoke rose from his gun as the black powder exploded and sent the lead ball tearing down the range, disintegrating the clay target.
A stranger who wandered through the grove of pine trees and into a clearing at the front of the firing range might think he’d gone back through time. The musty smell of damp needles was sweetened with smoke that settled over the range, and the reports from the muskets echoed off the high dirt banks that bordered it on three sides.
The men and women on the firing line were dressed in the colors of the 46th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Company, the 36th Illinois, the 29th Wisconsin and the 1st U.S. Sharpshooters, among others. Their uniforms were not the earth-toned fatigues of Desert Storm, but the blue wool of the Civil War; their guns not the rapid fire of automatic weapons, but the two-shots-per-minute of individually loaded lead minies tamped down with a steel rod.
The dry pages of history are not for people like Priddy and others from the southwest suburbs. They prefer it in living color, and the sights, sounds and smells of a Civil War battlefield came to life for a weekend in Kankakee as members of the regiments recently gathered for a competitive skirmish.
The troops are part of the Western Region of the North-South Skirmish Association, a national organization headquartered in Winchester, Va., with more than 3,000 members east of the Mississippi River, where most of the Civil War was fought. Eight companies attended the recent shooting competition, nearly 200 men and women from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, said Andy Gelman of Highland Park, a recruiting officer for the 46th Illinois and an officer in the Western Region.
“It’s a live-fire competition,” he said, explaining the difference between skirmishing and re-enactments. “Each club represents an actual Civil War regiment, but skirmishing is a shooting sport, while re-enacting is playing out a scripted battle scene.”
Many of the skirmishers also are involved in re-enacting, and regiments from the Western Division recently attended re-enactments at Pea Ridge, Ark. Both groups are concerned with authenticity but tend to have different conceptions of each other’s adherence to historical accuracy. The only difference, Gelman said, is that skirmishers are also interested in weapons.
As a member of the 46th Illinois, a company that formed in 1861 and fought at Ft. Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg, Gelman wore a dark-blue wool jacket called a shell that was decorated with nine buttons, epaulets and two belt loops distinctive of the original regiment. In addition, he wore sky-blue wool trousers and a wide-brimmed black hat called a Hardee hat.
“When people think of the Civil War, they think of the forage cap,” Gelman said, referring to the dark-blue short-billed headgear worn mostly by Eastern theater troops.
“Western troops were known for their pigheadedness,” added Jack Rosecrans of Sleepy Hollow. “The hats showed we were rough and ready soldiers.”
Accouterments included a leather cartridge box to carry the .58-caliber ammunition, a breastplate and a cap box clipped to the waist belt that was filled with tiny gold caps used as firing mechanisms for the Civil War-era muskets. And a bayonet sheathed in leather was attached to the belt. Regimental soldiers also carried the same type of canvas haversack that was slung over Gelman’s shoulder, in which they kept personal items, from extra socks to cloth-covered journals.
A bearded and imposing Ray Cooper of Lockport was the kind of man the soldiers would turn to when they needed a new hat or haversack. As the 36th Illinois Regimental sutler, Cooper sets up store at skirmishes where club members can purchase original and reproduction items relating to the Civil War. Prices for his goods were modern-day; a leather wallet goes for $22, a tin cup for $10, Civil-War era eyeglasses for $30 to $60, and a leather sewing kit for $12.
In 1861, according to Cooper, the military attached sutlers, or private merchants, to all regional battle authorities. “The soldiers had to buy everything the army didn’t issue,” he said.
One of the most popular items with Civil War soldiers was a sugar cookie, nearly 8 inches in diameter and a half-inch thick. “It only cost a penny, which seems inexpensive until you realize they made only $13 a month,” Cooper said.
Cooper, 48, who works in the business office at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, got involved in skirmishing after participating in a few “buckskinner” meets, which mimic the gatherings of fur trappers and other mountain-man types. In 1983, he opened his specialized supply shop based on historical research, and sells period items.
The sutler also carried replacement military items, from shirts, pants and hats to bedrolls and brogans (heavy work shoes). Muskets and ammunition were issued by the military, although the sutlers did deal in weapons.
Bill Osborne, 45, of Racine, Wis., has been skirmishing since 1971. He’s a member of the 29th Wisconsin and has an ancestor who was a captain in the 33rd Wisconsin. “I skirmish, re-enact and collect,” he said.
Osborne also restores antique weapons and is the proprietor of a business that restores and sells Civil War guns to skirmishers. His display of muzzle-loading muskets, both originals and reproductions, included an 1855 musket with a relined barrel that was originally made at Harper’s Ferry. Costs range from $600 for a good reproduction to about $1,500 for an original.
The guns may look quaint compared with more recent vintage short-barreled semi-automatic weapons, but there’s firepower in a musket. “Someone said a musket could shoot through 6 inches of pine at 100 yards,” Osborne said. “But we don’t shoot that sort of powder.”
Originally, 60 grains or more of black powder were dumped down the barrel, followed by a molded lead bullet. The skirmishers, many of whom make their own bullets, use 45 or 50 grains of powder, or a little less than a teaspoonful.
Tom Shedd of Villa Park likes the smoke the powder sends out from the barrel as the skirmishers fire their weapons. “With modern ammo, you just get that little flash,” he said. “I like the smoke on the range.”
He has been skirmishing for 10 years and even worked as an extra in the 1985 movie “North and South, Part 2” which was filmed in Natchez, Miss. “The set was a half-mile long. The director would say charge and we’d run screaming, yelling and blazing away,” he said.
The skirmishes, which are held at ranges in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and at the national headquarters in Virginia, are competitive events. Eight-person teams line up across the range and shoot at targets. The goal is to destroy all the clay tiles on a target before the other team completes its target. The lowest time wins, and scores are cumulative. “It’s like a bowling league,” Shedd said.
And though historical accuracy is important, it is not so paramount as to keep women off the firing line. “We’re not authentic in that respect,” Gelman said.
The Kankakee skirmish was hosted by the 1st U.S. Sharpshooters. Originally an elite group that culled marksmen from each regiment, the group still tries to maintain its image, said 15-year-old Samantha Darnieder of Milwaukee, who has three years of competitive shooting under her belt. “Skill is what gets you into the Sharpshooters,” she said.
Darnieder also pointed out that the regiment’s forest-green uniforms, which stood out among the Federal blue, helped to conceal the marksmen who were positioned as snipers close to enemy troops.
Dave Lindstrom, 16, of Lockport bravely wore gray in the sea of blue. He belongs to the 15th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry and takes a regular ribbing from the Yankee troops. His father, Alan Lindstrom, researched the history of the 15th when the region decided to form another regiment for its growing membership.
“The regiment was made up of Illinoisans who didn’t agree with the Union. So they marched down to Tennessee and volunteered,” Alan Lindstrom said.
He said his interest in skirmishing grew from his fascination with the Civil War. “The sport really grows on you.”
Skirmishing attracts all types of people–gun aficionados, Civil War buffs, would-be actors. Cindy Candos, 34, of Orland Park is a preschool teacher and a member of the 36th Illinois Volunteers. “They wouldn’t believe this at school,” she said.
Candos joined the regiment at the urging of boyfriend Don Esser of Chicago’s Northwest Side, who has been re-enacting for three years and recently started going to skirmishes.
“I’ve always had an interest in the Civil War–not so much on the generals but what was the feeling of the individual, what did the guy on the line feel, like when somebody made a charge at you,” Esser said.
Most of the skirmishers have researched the local regiments, sometimes even tracking down descendants of the original company commanders.
“Any American who can trace his genealogy back four generations has a chance to have a relative who fought in the Civil War,” Gelman said. “We’re all historians, too. It’s not just the shooting competition.”
Priddy appears in full regalia when he teaches a section on the Civil War in his 11th-grade American History class. “At first the kids are in shock, then extreme curiosity takes over. They ask a million questions,” Priddy said.
Bonnie Schuenke, 38, of Waukesha, Wis., was literally born into skirmishing and has a lifelong love of the sport and the history surrounding it. One of five daughters, she would travel to skirmishes and re-enactments all summer long with her parents, who dressed their daughters in period clothing. “I even met my husband through skirmishing,” she said.
Her father, Lance Herdegen of Milwaukee, has co-authored two books on the Civil War and recently appeared on the Arts & Entertainment cable network’s “Civil War Journal.” Herdegen helped form the Iron Brigade Guard based on information in a Civil War soldier’s journal he discovered during research for the book “An Irishman in the Iron Brigade.” Herdegen co-wrote that book with fellow regiment member William Beaudot of Milwaukee.
“The Civil War is an accessible war, an all-American war. There are no good guys and bad guys,” Beaudot said. “Within the last 20 years, artifacts have been available and affordable.”
“It refreshes itself,” Herdegen said. “So much new material has shown up. Another diary or journal surfaces.”
Wanting to understand history, what was going on in the minds of the average soldier 130 years ago, seems to drive many of the skirmishers, said Jim Wilson.
Wilson, of Mt. Prospect, is originally from Virginia and belonged to the 49th Virginia. He moved to the Chicago area three years ago and was “forced” to join a Yankee regiment and now serves in the 46th Illinois. “I have friends back home who won’t talk to me,” he said, laughing.
“I was raised in Manassas and an hour away from Fredericksburg. My great-great-grandfather belonged to the original 49th. I always loved history. I grew up in the middle of it.”
