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.

Meet the People

The menu of Dino’s Italian Restaurant devotes a full panel to pizzas—predesigned pies or create your own. I’m waffling over toppings and the promise of leftovers based on what size I order when my server, a plump wild-haired blonde, drops by to check on me.

She props pen to pad. “Decided what you want, hon?”

“Um, yeah. But, first, what’s the difference in size between the small and medium pizzas?”

“Well, sweetheart, the small has six pieces and the medium has eight.”

I choke back a laugh. Okaaaaaay. Maybe they measure things differently in Kentucky. I try to get her to divulge the dimensions, but pizza-diameter estimation was a weak subject in school, so she falls back on the idea that a small serves one to two people, a medium three to four. I order the medium and polish off a third of it. It’s good pizza. My favorite combo of pepperoni, garlic, olives, mushrooms. Fresh-made dough. Thin crust. Great leftovers.

From my first night here, my time in London, Kentucky, has me talking to people. In restaurants. At the state park. Especially at Berea, a college-artisan town 45 minutes north in the foothills of the Appalachians.

The main college building in Berea; many nearby dorms and outbuildings are also brick.

Loved this tree and school entrance.

Berea College doesn’t charge tuition. Instead, students work 10 to 20 hours per week for the school—making rugs or pottery or wooden utensils to sell at the school’s shops, serving in administration or budget offices, working at the college-owned Boone Tavern Hotel and Restaurant, and so on. Under the guidance of their advisor, students must find the work, contract for it, and keep up good standing with both their job and their studies or be dismissed from the school.

Sounds like a pretty good system to me, especially because it helps folks who might not otherwise afford college to get there and graduate. Like the Negroes of the 1800s, who were the college’s primary clientele when it started in 1855. To this day, the school has great renown for its “longstanding tradition of diversity, social justice, environmental responsibility, and community service” (so says the brochure). What I saw was eco-tourism, decent weather, public art, small-town college energy, a sustainable-living mentality, clean neighborhoods, a statewide artisan guild, and an emphasis on hand-craft instead of mass production. Berea is a place I could live.

One of the many craft-selling shops run by the college or its alumni.

A modern sweat shop? This is one of the student work buildings for weaving.

Public art abounds.

Frontyard food and flower gardens are common in the heart of town.

Buttons and bumper stickers of this were everywhere. I think I just missed some sort of summer celebration.

Picture me here...

I go twice to Berea, and both times I spend hours ambling through the studio/stores and talking with people. I meet whittlers (oops, they’re called “carvers” nowadays) on the front porch of a house near the train-depot visitor’s center. John Adams, a wiry man with twinkling eyes and white stubble along his jaw line, puts pocketknife to raw square pegs to make long ornaments called “Santa-cicles.” Next to him, Ray is “chipping”—digging quilt patterns and complex geometries out of the surface of coaster-size squares. Over there, a fellow is carving chained links from a single length of wood, and another is chipping out an intricate floral pattern on the faces of a folding bible stand, its hinged-together top and bottom cleverly carved from a single plank.

Women are armed with knives, too, sculpt-carving birds and squirrels and cutting open-design flatwork they back with stained glass. A duck decoy takes shape on another table, and a completed collection of whimsical mountain men stands for sale. The carvers amuse themselves over visitors who try to figure out how an inch tall wooden heart-and-arrow got into a Coke bottle through a 1/4-inch hole, or how a round wooden ball got to rattling around inside a pair of interlocking cubes—the whole thing also made from one block of wood. All the artisans are in their fifties or older, and they banter as if they carve together all the time—which they do, several days a week.

Jimmie Lou, owner and creator of Hot Flash Beads nearby, politely calls me “ma’am” even though she’s easily fifteen years my senior. She wears safety goggles and a big white smock with a pink Breast Cancer ribbon as she works at a Bunsen burner and turns fragile glass rods into delicate and colorful beads, no two quite alike. She’s a cancer survivor and used to work as a lab technician examining pap smears—a highly stressful job because of all the cancer patients she was around. She started making lampwork beads when the hot flashes of menopause began (hence her shop’s name). Now she can’t stop. “It’s my therapy,” she says through a booming laugh. “Cheaper than a psychiatrist!”

Jimmie Lou at work.

Making beads two at a time means earrings usually match well.

Beads go into an oven for several hours of tempering and cool-down.

A final step in bead preparation for her jewelry: drilling out the “bead poop” that can crust up the holes.

Down the street, a bell tinkles as I open the on-the-corner door of Weaver’s Bottom Studio, and I hesitate to walk across the beautifully sparkling rag rug that greets me from the floor. It shimmers with light from fabrics that are usually relegated to princess costumes, ice skating outfits, and cheerleading squads.

I am about to take a larger-than-life step to avoid the rug when a man laughs from somewhere behind an enormous loom and a rack of woven placemats and towels.

“It’s OK to walk on it. Come on in. That’s what rugs are for.”

A stocky fellow with a long graying braid, deep dimples, and a hang-loose disposition comes down the narrow aisle of the store.

“I’ve never seen one of these with glitter in it,” I marvel, still entranced by the rug.

“My wife does that. She says everyone should have some sparkle in their lives.”

I spend a good half hour here, talking to Neil Colmer about his product. Wool skeins line the walls. Six feet of glass case and a cash register are nearly hidden by racks and stacks of woven dish cloths; bins of rag rugs and piles of placemats cover the floor and tables and a tall bookshelf.

Neil was almost always smiling.

He has four or five looms in the shop, each for different kinds of work, including a double-backed weave that uses over 200 thread shots before the pattern repeats. This kind of loom is so complex that it requires a narrow strip with little brads to activate the 16 frames that move up and down in the required sequence; it reminds me of a player piano’s pegs getting activated by hole-punched paper, but the strip runs vertically, looking like 9 yards of peaceful ordnance for a decommissioned machine gun. It can take days to set up this loom for a pattern.

A double-weave loom makes a pattern on both sides of the fabric, for reversible use. It takes 16 frames...

...all lifted and dropped in the proper sequence and combination by an advancing strip of carefully placed brads.

The gorgeous weave of this particular brad pattern.

Neil demonstrates on both this loom and another that has a pulley-based shuttle thrower, and happily answers gobs of questions from me and a couple of other visitors. Like many other craftspeople I end up meeting, he’s a Berea graduate, and has worked in numerous artistic fields, including music. He prefers traditional equipment over the modern industrial looms he’s worked with.

“Modern looms go so fast they have to keep cameras on them,” he says. “When a machine goes down, the factory guys can slow down the videotape and see what happened. Otherwise they’d never know what went wrong. And rather than send a shuttle back and forth, air shoots the thread across, and the machine mechanically ties and tucks and snips the ends all in one motion.”

It’s a long way from the swish of hand-shot shuttles, the dance of tennis shoes on foot pedals, and the clack of warp frames rising and falling in the looms of Neil’s shop. He even carves his own shuttles when he needs them.

Neil can quickly churn out yards of multicolor towels on this pulley-based loom.

Across the street in a pewter studio, I’m invited by the cashier to talk to the craftsman, John Gastineau. “I think he’s still in there, but maybe he’s already gone for the day. Go check.”

She points to the door of a narrow workshop that’s half the depth of the studio’s building and fronted with a counter that keeps visitors from some serious-looking metal-working machinery. A large-screen computer dominates a tool-littered table, and the dust and detritus of pewter design, casting, and shaping is everywhere.

At my timid “Hello?” a white-bearded, cotton-smocked man turns to greet me like a just-rousing bear, and I sense he really doesn’t want another visitor. Nonetheless, he speaks cordially enough, and I ask a question or two about the 3D hummingbird image that’s on the computer, and what kind of drawing software he uses. My computer knowledge and interest seem to warm him up.

“You’d be surprised how many people think ‘true’ craftsman shouldn’t use computers,” he grumps as he puts hand to mouse, “but it’s a tool that saves me a lot of time and lets me control exactly how something looks.”

John at his drawing software.

He zooms in on the hummingbird and scrubs the pointer across the screen, pulling up new windows and dragging points and selecting complex-looking options to demonstrate how easily he can reshape the picture and its 3D profile, then he points to the various machines that convert the drawing into working pewter molds. I’m soon fingering blanks and templates and castings and trying to keep up—he’s explaining the process a little too quickly for me to fully absorb all the tasks, but he’s definitely happy to be talking.

Molds and test casts and other intermediate steps on their way to pewter medallions.

Before I know it, John has grabbed a shiny 4-inch disc of pewter and is clamping it at the base of a solid, flared cylinder on a lathe. He turns on the machine, and as he and I avidly discuss Berea, politics, and the world’s changing (as in declining) values, he presses a wooden stick to the spinning disc and deftly folds the disc over the conical form to create a pewter cup. He gives the cup a rolled edge, removes it from the lathe, and hands it over for my inspection—I hold a warm, slightly oily, perfectly formed pewter jigger, made in less than ten minutes while we talked. I decide to buy this one, and he etches its bottom with a computer-controlled engraver. The jigger is perfect for margaritas.

Disc centered in lathe.

Coaxing it onto the form.

Guiding the progress and keeping it round.

Nearly all the way down the form.

A lucky candid shot; he had no idea I was taking it because I was holding the camera so casually.

Rolling the top edge.

My handcrafted cup, hot off the lathe.

“Berea is an island of liberalism in a sea of Kentucky Republicans,” says Theresa, a potter who now co-runs a shop with a silversmith. She’s been here nearly twenty years, a Berea graduate. “Not all of them make it,” she says. “It’s a tough school.” She and two other women started an artists’ co-op years ago that’s still thriving. “Everyone today is worried about money. How to make it, how to make more of it. We started that business with almost nothing.

“Our accounts were all on paper then, and Joan was always worried about the money. Linda would wave her hand and say, ‘Oh, money is only jots on paper,’ and not worry about it at all. But now it’s all electronic isn’t it? E-mail, bank statements, online transactions. Joan still worries about money, but now Linda says, ‘Stop worrying! Money is just bits of light on glass!’”

Adopting her blithe approach to cash flow, I decide to skip a sandwich dinner and treat myself to a white tablecloth meal at Boone Tavern. This place is celebrating its centennial thanks to a recommendation by a certain Duncan Hines. Yes, he’s a real person, and he created the first ever restaurant guide as he traveled the US during the 1930s. His Adventures in Good Eating also recommended the Sanders Café—of later Kentucky Fried Chicken fame—in nearby Corbin. Both restaurants, among many others in the pre-interstate days, went on to success because of his good opinion.

Boone Tavern is an outgrowth of the home-cooked meals and lodging that the college president and his wife used to provide to college visitors.

As much as possible, the food here is supplied by Berea student farms, including the vegetables, fruit, lamb, beef, and pork (but not the chicken—odd). I have the crab cakes and salmon, which are of course imported (Atlantic). The orange marmalade vinaigrette dressing for the salad is tart and sweet.

Mmmm, salmon. My first fish since leaving the west coast for the heartland.

Steven, a spiffily-dressed assistant server who watches over water and coffee levels and distributes fresh helpings of hot spoonbread, tells me there’s a Spoonbread Festival every September at Boone Tavern.

“It’s what we’re famous for here. We’ve been serving it for 100 years, ever since we’ve been open.”

Basically it’s a squat cornmeal soufflé—scooped up from a casserole dish and served as a substitute for bread. It’s smooth and creamy and begs for a fork instead of fingers. Steven brings me a recipe card to keep. It’s time-consuming to cook (think risotto), but would be yummy made with the freshly ground cornmeal I bought at McHargue’s Mill.

Steven with hot, fresh spoonbread.

I’m in a dry part of the state—from here to the southern KY border—so there’s no wine with dinner, although it is allowed for the restaurant’s cooking (e.g., filet mignon with burgundy). As during Prohibition, that which is outlawed becomes more desirable, so many Kentuckians head north to Richmond (local billboards announce: “We Sell Liquor! Exit 90”), drive south to Tennessee, or make moonshine on the side.

“It’s the real stuff I wish they’d sell,” laments a big-bellied man who stops next to me later in the specialty foods section of the Kentucky Artisan Center just north of Berea. He grimaces toward the bottles of bourbon-spiked sorghum I’m looking at. “That stuff’s the only way liquor is available here.”

The man calls his young son back from a rack of handmade wooden toys and turns again to me. “If you ever see a sort of mist coming out of the woods and it’s not a foggy day, don’t go near them places. They’ll shoot on sight!”

I picture a circle of shaggy, wild-eyed men bunkered under pines at a belching still, rifles at the ready. “Uh, right,” I say. “Thanks for the tip.”

I edge away from the fellow and head for the cashier with a bottle of bourbon sorghum, sure that, at the very least, that’s one encounter with Kentucky locals I won’t be having.