Civil War reenactors bring winter camp to life at Spiegel Grove

FREMONT - A Civil War winter camp event, held at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums on Saturday, featured reenactors, a military band and demonstrations on how soldiers set up winter camps during that era.

This event in Spiegel Grove brought visitors back in time to the Civil War. It was made possible by Mike Fahle who started building the Civil War camp in 2019 and kept adding to it to get down to the authenticity of the way it would have been built in the 1800s.

Fahle proposed the camp to the Hayes center years ago

“I kind of pitched this idea to the presidential center years ago, and they gave approval for it very graciously,” said Fahle, creator and builder of the event. “I think it was important to bring back that aspect of Hayes' life. There used to be the old Civil War reenactment here that went on for years, and that kind of aspect of his lifetime and period was lacking. And I thought it would be more important than to bring back a reenactment and battle when people weren’t just playing guns. But turn it into a highly educational program that tells you about Hayes and how he lived in the war.”

The Winter Camp was built with tents and some shacks made out of mud. The reenactors stayed in character throughout the event. They also stayed overnight and functioned as if they were in a real-life camp back in the Civil War.

Musicians did not carry weapons in the war

Shane Anderton, bass drummer and volunteer for the 8^th Ohio Infantry, was cleaning his plate in the woods with a leaf.

“Most of the time you had a brush with you, but you used what you had to clean and musicians didn’t carry any weapons; they were like the cell phones in the army. They kept time, and if there was a call the colonel needed to give to the entire regiment, he would go through the drummer and say, 'Hey, I need you to do a corporal call,'” Anderton said.

“The drummer instinctively knew what command he had to play. He played the unit or the drum beating. Everybody in the regiment would hear it and they recognize exactly what it was and respond accordingly. So, if it was time to strike camp, colonel would say, 'Hey, I need and I order you to play it's time to strike camp, we're marching out.' We played an important part in the war.”

The camp was filled with many different men from different ranks and some who were higher up had better quarters than others. The camp also featured the gunnery and the kitchen tent. Each tent and cabin was open to the public to step in and see what it was like to step back into the past.

“I home-school my kids and thought this would be a great history lesson for them,” said Jyn Vara, who attended the event with her sons.

Fahle plans on doing more events involving the winter camp in the future.

This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Visitors step back in time at Civil War winter camp at Hayes Center