Reenactors bring Civil War history to life in Hainesville

HAINESVILLE – Like many involved in Hainesville’s annual Civil War Encampment & Battle, Wayne Carle said his job is to make sure history is told.

The Antioch man has taken part in Civil War reenactments for almost three decades and has helped organize Hainesville’s event as military coordinator since its beginning six years ago.

“It’s always been my passion, the history of it all, and reenacting just follows that line,” said Carle, who has gone up in rank through the years. Playing a Union soldier, he started as a private and now serves as a major.

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 12

Candace H. Johnson for Shaw Local News Network Union soldiers advance against the Confederates on the battlefield in the narrated battle (Battle of Shiloh AKA the Battle of Pittsburg Landing in Tennessee - April 6-7, 1862) during Hainesville’s Civil War Encampment & Battle hosted by the Northbrook Sports Club in Hainesville. (10/16/22) (Candace H.Johnson)

“It’s a pinnacle time in our history,” said Carle, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps. “A lot of those involved, they either had a great-great-grandfather or someone that was in [the Civil War] or they like that they get to run around with cannons or muskets.”

Carle estimated Hainesville’s event, which took place Oct. 15 and 16 at the Northbrook Sports Club, drew up to 150 reenactors, all volunteers. In addition to soldiers, there were merchants, craftsmen and women and children portraying how people lived during the Civil War era.

The event included a narrated battle with reenactors portraying the Battle of Shiloh that took place between Union and Confederate uniformed military forces April 6 and 7, 1862, in Tennessee.

With encampments featured, spectators saw battlefield surgeries, undertakers and period medical displays.

Period-dressed presenters took on the roles of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, politician Elija Haines, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionist William Irving Kirk and Thomas Morris Chester. An African American war correspondent, lawyer and soldier, Chester served as a recruiter of Black troops during the Civil War.

Spectators were encouraged to ask questions of the presenters and reenactors, said George Duberstein, a Hainesville trustee who organizes the event on behalf of the village – the oldest village in Lake County. The event grew out of a smaller gathering in 2014 at a Hainesville park. In 2016, the Northbrook Sports Club agreed to host the larger event, Duberstein said, and it’s been taking place annually since.

It typically draws about 1,000 spectators, he said, and takes a yearlong effort to organize.

“It’s a significant time in our history, and it’s a great history lesson,” he said. “It’s also very interesting. You can find out a lot about the time and the people in it from the reenactors and learn things you may not have learned.”

Duberstein served as an officer in the U.S. Army for 27 years, completing tours during the Vietnam War.

“Obviously having a military background, I really have an affinity for what’s going on. I like history as well, and this is a defining moment in the country, for the country,” he said. “That’s why we’re doing it. People really get a better feel for what really happened.”

Stuart Stefany of Waukegan, a member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and an art teacher at Woodland Middle School in Gurnee, displayed a sculpted monument he’s created to honor Civil War veterans buried in London as part of an effort by the Monuments for UK Veterans of the American Civil War Association, www.facebook.com/groups/themonumentalproject/.

He’s raising funds to cast his sculpture in solid bronze, buy a pedestal and have it permanently placed in the Islington and St. Pancreas Cemetery in London by the summer of 2023.

Among those in attendance, Lori Saunders of Round Lake Beach teaches about the Civil War as part of her fifth grade social studies class at Beach Elementary School.

She’s gone to the Hainesville event the past couple of years with her family and was joined this year by Jose Luis Ruiz, a visiting teacher from Spain who is partnering with her to teach two bilingual classes at the school.

Both felt like the event helped them better understand the Civil War.

“It was just something I was interested in experiencing on a different level,” Saunders said.

She uses photos and videos as part of her lessons and will uses pictures from the reenactment in class.

“It brings it alive for them,” she said.

Many reenactors, such as Brad Hodge of Bloomingdale, take part in events annually.

Hodge is a Union sergeant, a role he’s played for almost 20 years at reenactments throughout the country. This was his first year taking part in the Hainesville event.

“There’s a definite value to teach people the true history,” he said. “American history is good and bad, but we can’t pick and choose what we’re going to believe and not believe. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Modern Civil War reenacting is thought to have begun during the 1961-1965 Civil War Centennial commemorations. It grew in popularity during the 1980s and 1990s due in large part to the success of the 125th anniversary reenactment near the original Manassas battlefield, which was attended by more than 6,000 reenactors.

The Hainesville Civil War event is believed to be the only reenactment event in Lake County following a cancellation in 2019 of a larger Wauconda event.

“This is the end of the season for a lot of us,” said Carle, who looks to recruit reenactors and draw more spectators to the Hainesville event every year. “We always try to have the biggest for the last. … We put on a good show. I think for a lot of people that’s what it is. They like to hear the roar of the cannons.”