Soldiers switch sides in Massena's Civil War

MASSENA — There wasn't much of a difference between those who wore Union blue and Confederate gray Saturday at the Civil War Re-enactment Weekend at Robert Moses State Park.

Some of them even changed sides before any skirmish could take place.

"We're a little short of men so they're going to send over a few galvanizers," said Peter A. Gilbert Jr., Tupper Lake, a first sergeant with the 55th Virginia Volunteer Infantry at his Confederate camp, a few paces from the tents of his Union counterparts. "Galvanizers switch sides. It's a re-enactment idiom."

It wasn't uncommon for friends and neighbors in the real Civil War to choose different sides. One of the war's most celebrated Confederate generals, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, often visited a friend in Watertown before the war kept them apart.

That's the kind of example that illustrates how divisive the war was to the country, said Steven C. Smith, a lieutenant with the 55th from St. Albans, Vt., who grew up in the South.

"When the war starts, suddenly your friend is your enemy," he said.

About 100 re-enactors are participating in the 7th annual Civil War weekend sponsored by the St. Lawrence County Historical Association. The military camps are open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today. There will be informational talks until 1 p.m., when a mock battle will take place.

Picking which side to portray sometimes comes down to a particular unit but is generally a personal choice, said Burdell E. Waffler, North Ridgeville, Ohio, a brigadier general with U.S. Volunteers, one of the national organizations that represents re-enactors. Mr. Waffler usually sides with the Yankees of 2nd Michigan Co. E Re-enactment unit, which hosts the two-day event.

"I have family on both sides. There's room in this hobby for both," he said. "You usually start to learn history by reading about it. When people run into us, there's a chance to experience it."

Ottawa resident Jeff W. Card has been tempted to join up.

"It has not become an obsession yet," he said.

Mr. Card wasn't sure what side he would pick to represent.

"I like them both. I'd have to think long and hard about it," he said. "The union cause is just. For the southerners, it's the underdog, the glory. There's an admiration for the aristocratic lifestyle."

Mary Ann Mercier, Keswick, Va., became a Union soldier because she liked the story of Pvt. Franklin Thompson, whose real name was Sara Emma Edmonds.

Sara Edmonds fled to the United States from Canada to escape an unhappy marriage. She pretended to be a man to sell Bibles in Michigan and enlisted to thank her adopted country. She deserted when she contracted malaria because she knew she would be discovered to be a woman. She spent the rest of her life as a nurse.

Another member of the original 2nd Michigan served as a medic, dragging the wounded in from the battlefields in her skirts, Ms. Mercier said.

"There were probably 400 to 1,000 female soldiers," she said.