(Or, What Kind of People Actually Do This?)
Our members come from all walks of life. Among our members are medical professionals, computer jockeys, craftsman, students, PhDs, and businessmen. We are folks who live in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. Some are natives of the South; others are transplants.
The thing that we all hold in common is the preservation of the history of America's greatest conflict. The Civil War determined what sort of nation we would be. The men who fought and died on both sides are deserving of our reverent and perpetual memory.
Each of us became a Civil War reenactor for his own reason. Some simply honor an ancestor. Some honor an idea. Some joined up to put an edge of reality on their book learning about the Civil War. Some joined up because it's just such a blasted fun thing to do.
We are time travelers in a sense. We go to places where time and space intersect -- where you can stand today and feel yesterday looking over your shoulder. You can see it played out in front of your eyes, hear it roaring in your ears, and smell its stench in your nostrils. When a "magic moment" reaches out and grabs you, the present falls away in a lurch and you're left standing smack in the middle of the past as it roars around you.
And at that moment, you are in the past.
And that's why we reenact -- to honor the brave soldiers on both sides who fought for what they thought was right, to learn their travails, to revel in the brotherhood of the campfire and the battlefield, and to time travel.