A Kentucky Fifth

No, I’m not talking about bourbon.

I’m talking about war. The Civil War. The only war that still seems to be waged in memory and sore feelings and Southern pride everywhere I’ve been east of the Mississippi. I’m talking the 5th Kentucky Volunteer Confederate Infantry.

The annual Laurel County Homecoming is this weekend at Levi Jackson State Park, where I’m staying. Held since the 1930s, this event draws local-borns—many otherwise scattered to the winds—back to their home town for four days of entertainment (foot-tapping fiddlin’, youth talent contests, country rock bands, gospel choirs), flea markets (traveling garage sales set up under tents and trees), and food (on-the-spot grills care of rotary clubs, schools, churches). All free except the food.

The part that catches my attention most is a civil war campsite that slowly takes shape over three days near the main road. At first it’s only two guys sitting in two Civil War era tents. Eventually a large grassy space fills with a dozen cubes of overly-clean muslin canvas propped on poplar poles, tethered by ropes and iron stakes, pulled taut by wooden blocks.

A 9-pound artillery gun from Buckner’s Battery stands on guard.



Stickers of traditional Confederate flags show up on every pickup and cargo carrier that has hauled the stuff in. Real flags flutter lazily from poles lining the front of the camp—“Baby Blue” the first Confederate flag, blue field, one star; a 9-star flag, an 11-star flag, then a 13-star flag—each successive banner notes the number of states that joined the Confederacy.


Over the four days of the festival, I spend several hours with a core group of people who commemorate, and are descendants of, the 5th Kentucky Volunteer Confederate Infantry. This weekend is mostly about education about the Civil War; most of these folks attend 16 to 35 re-enactments a year. They are happy to share their hobby to passers-by at the park.

JW McGestry, CSA 5th Kentucky Chaplain.

John W. (“Call me JW”) McGestry is a minister and a talking Civil War encyclopedia—just the kind of person who has tons of insights to share, but also the kind whose preachy delivery makes history boring instead of interesting, and confrontational instead of conversation-provoking.

Each time I engage him in talk, he spouts Civil War facts and figures and politics—many of which I’d never known or heard. He compares how much Jefferson Davis and Lincoln had in common, his manner simultaneously elevating Jefferson’s accomplishments and downplaying Lincoln’s to level the playing field of history.

I learn that 300 battles were fought in Kentucky, including the Battle of Camp Wildcat, just up the road a piece (I never realized there had been so many in KY). He’s particularly eager to talk about a group called Kentucky’s “Orphan Brigade.” Kentucky was a border state, and many families split over the war. When those who went to fight for the South returned, they were often shot instead of allowed back in. Those who survived became the “orphans” of the war because they had no state to call their own after it was over.

Point of view is everything in a conflict, and clearly JW doesn’t take to the warm fuzzy feelings about Lincoln, the Union’s “rightness,” and Civil War lore that many of us from the west and north were taught in schools of the 1960s and 70s. He states, “Lincoln was a hypocrite. He didn’t care about slaves—freeing slaves was nothing but an economic ploy,” pointing out the North still had slaves, Mary Todd had slaves in Lincoln’s home, indentured servitude was still legal, and only the rebel states were told to release their slaves.

He calls the Civil War a “Northern aggression” not a “Southern secession,” and prefers the term “Southern independence” over “secession” when talking about the South’s motives and goals. “The North attacked us first,” he says, pointing at me with a thin cigar pressed between two fingers, “no shot in the South was first.”

“Ah,” I say, feeling a little provoked at this (albeit quite possibly accurate) stream of on-the-offensive lecture, “you sure that wasn’t just the North making a ‘preemptive strike’?”

That stops him cold, and he frowns at me, first in confusion and then dismissively as a smart-ass, for my implicit comparison of the North’s (to him) distasteful actions against the South to what I suspect is local universal approval of Bush’s actions against Iraq.

My suspicions about his preference toward war are later confirmed when JW points out that when Pearl Harbor was bombed, 80% of the people who signed up to help the war were from the South. “The South has always been the first to defend this country,” he says. “The South supported a united country. They fought because their rights were being taken away to rule themselves. According to the Constitution, the states were sovereign above the federal government. The federal government was to be a servant. That’s the way it was set up. And look at the mess we’re in now.”

Altogether, a pretty fair assessment, and one that makes me wish I’d been taught more even-handed perspectives about the Civil War. Prejudice and beliefs are instilled early, and too often as children we’re handed only one short-sighted lens through which to see the world.

I more enjoy talking with Moses Hamlin, JW’s camp neighbor. He has a soft smile, kind eyes, and is more easy going, less full of spleen that needs to be vented about the war and its effects. He’s famous in these parts as woodcarver, banjo picker, singer.

Moses Hamlin, CSA 5th Kentucky.

“He can do anything,” brags JW from his folding canvas chair at the other side of the tent. “He's modest, is Mo. He’s a world class carver. Won lots of awards. Makes instruments, too…banjos, psalters, guitars. He makes me sick, he’s so good.”

I ask Moses to show me the carousel horse he’s carving, then he gets up to pull out a magazine that has an article about him. “I put in maybe four or six entries in each show,” Moses explains without boasting, “and come out with at least four ribbons at every one. Dollywood, other places.”

“He made a wood-top banjo,” says JW. “Real unusual.”

“I just wanted to see if I could do it.” Moses pulls a scraped-up banjo case from his tent. The instrument is simple and clean, without all the usual screws that clamp a banjo’s skin into a ring of metal.

He finger-picks a bright, quick, but seemingly tuneless rhythm on the metal strings, then starts singing the theme song to “The Beverly Hillbillies,” perfectly timed with what he’s playing. I had been looking for some front porch pickin’ for the past two days and kept missing opportunities. And here I get my own solo performance on a handmade instrument!

Moses gives me a souvenir $100 Confederate bill. “It’s a copy,” he points to the word on the paper, so I understand it’s nothing valuable. “From Mississippi. Every state made its own money.”

JW’s wife is Donna. Their camp is gussied up with an iron bed in the tent, a 30-year-old bedspread, table linens. I comment on her polished silver set on the table. “You can tell the camps that have just the men,” she says, as we eye other setups down the row. “Stripped down, nothing fancy. Look around and you know which ones have a woman in ’em.”



The second time I see her, she’s dressed in a gorgeous navy blue silk hoop skirt and thanking God that their current tent is broad enough to move around in as she dresses. “We used to have an A-frame. You haven’t lived until you’ve put on a hoop skirt in an A-frame,” she laughs.

Donna, CSA 5th Kentucky Chaplain’s wife

Donna’s former A-frame, now serving as the chaplain’s tent.

A solo re-enactor, Carrie, has her own tent. The first day she’s dressed in a prairie dress, bonnet, and a holster with two Colt 45s. They are heavy in the hand. I try to engage her in talk about women’s roles in the army, but something doesn’t click…she merely answers questions, rather than volunteers information and enthusiasm about her hobby like the others do. I see her the next day in a soldier’s uniform, hair folded up into a Confederate cap, CSA buckle around her midriff, suspenders hooked to her wool trousers, shirt sleeves rolled up against the heat, the same two Colt 45s at her hips. She’s grinning and chatty and looks downright cute in that outfit, and I say so. She fills me in with all kinds of information about women taking up guns in the army. I think she likes this role a lot better.

Carrie, CSA 5th Kentucky infantry.

John Kuhn, also from Kentucky, happily shows me his camp. “We’ve got five steamer trunks, three of ’em still at home in the hallway,” he says. They’re the kind that open standing up, with drawers in one side. This tent seems the closest to authentic, with no visible evidence of modern conveniences. “You won’t find anything plastic or synthetic in here,” he states proudly. “Except,” he points to a plain wooden box, “the propane tank hidden in a storage box, the cooler hidden in the wicker basket, and the thermos in the fake secretary….”

John Kuhn, CSA 5th Kentucky Sergeant

100% of-the-era materials on the outside...

...100% modern on the inside.

“I’m amazed at how much effort people put into all this,” I say to John. “What makes this so fun for you all?”

“Three reasons.” John grins and ticks them off with his fingers. “We get to play with guns. We get to camp. We get to kill Yankees.”

Anyone related to a Civil War soldier can join the Laurel County Civil War Re-enactment Group. Moses is in charge of the Fifth’s membership. “Nearly every American today is related to somebody who fought in the Civil War,” he says. “You just have to go back far enough.”

Membership requires only a small donation. The larger the donation, the higher the rank you can play; many start as privates and get promoted to a corporal or lieutenant by making larger donations. Each person provides his own costumes and equipment, which can run into the thousands of dollars for cavalry or artillery spots. Many take on the specific persona of actual Civil War people and enact them many years in a row. “Breckenridge came that year,” I overhear Moses talking with the others. “No, he was playing McDermott then,” replies Donna. Moses nods. “Oh, yes, that’s right.”

Rachel Kuhn, CSA 5th Kentucky Gaddis Battery

I ask a woman dressed in a maroon-colored hoop skirt (John’s wife, Rachel, I think her name is) about the 9-pound gun standing sentinel nearby. “Let me show you.” Her voice is scratchy and brittle, probably from the cigarettes she smokes even while in costume. She takes a final pull from one and pitches the cigarette butt to the ground. I stub it out. “Thanks,” she smiles. “That’s hard to do without catching my skirts on fire.”

Donna and Rachel are long-time CSA friends.

Her dress sways and swirls as we approach the artillery. “This gun belongs to one of the other re-enactors,” she explains. “I’ve got one in the Gaddis Battery. Mine’s a boy. This one is a girl.”

I laugh and lean in to whisper, “Uh, how can you tell?”

“Here.” She points to an oval brass plate riveted to a cross member. “Every gun has a name. This one’s name is Emma. So it’s a girl gun. Mine’s name is Gabriel, so it’s a boy gun.”

She’s smiling, but also dead serious. She keeps Gabriel in her garage, covered with canvas, polishes and cleans him every time he’s used. “I take care of Gabriel better than I take care of my car—or my husband,” she laughs throatily.

Working her ample skirts sideways for access to the fuse end of the gun, she shows me the fuse pin and explains the whole process of set up at a re-enactment—the barrel loading and firing, the barrel cooling with a wet swab on a pole, the need to stand next to a loaded and fused gun with a pole standing straight up so others know it’s armed, the need to be far away when the fuse is lit. She says that the percussion of this gun with even a half charge (wrapped nowadays in foil) can pulverize someone 20 yards away. So they have to be very careful at the re-enactments, and operators must be licensed to discharge them (she is). Good thing.

Fuse pin, one use only, like a grenade.

Robert E. Lee joins the group on Saturday. He poses for pictures, talks to the infantry, takes coffee with the sergeants. Everyone I’ve met before he arrives speaks highly of this re-enactor.

Robert E. Lee, CSA General.

“He doesn’t just look like Robert E. Lee,” says John. “He is Robert E. Lee.” The man apparently plays the role fulltime in life and is deeply involved in local community support, which includes running a place to rehabilitate youth that no one else will take.

Tony From Ohio (as he introduces himself) says he came to be with the Eagle scouts—or something like that that I can’t quite make out. He’s a simple, somewhat retarded man, difficult to understand because he mumbles, laughs at his own jokes, and holds out, child-like, aluminum “Kentucky 1-800-JOIN NOW” tokens from a leather satchel for people to look at. Catching my eye a few times as I work my way through the camp, he eagerly waits for me to come over so I can photograph the “grave” he has set up near his tent. “I have a Confederate flag and a Union flag,” he points out proudly, “in case someone needs to be the other side.”

Tony From Ohio, with CSA and Union flags.

No one really enjoys Tony’s presence at these events. I ask Donna about him and she grimaces. “His mother just drops him off at the registration table, hands us a baggie, and says ‘Make sure he gets his medicine.’ We’re not his babysitters.”

Simple as he his, I’m intrigued that Tony is the only one to display a grave and to acknowledge both sides of the conflict. While the others are heavy on the play-acting, the camps and costumes and guns, the recounting of battles and motives and grievances and heroics, his little tent is the only one that depicts the sad, sobering, inevitable outcome of war: the death of so many who do the fighting.