Civil War Re-enactors

I had some Civil War Re-enactors in my school last Thursday. Two of the boys were sons of Julie Rowand, a teacher at Taylor County Middle School. She came to me several months ago and asked if she could have her family do a presentation for my students. So last Thursday I had all the 8th graders during their West Virginia Studies period to go to a colleague's room to see the presentation. Drew Rowand is a Junior in High School and Zack Rowand is in seventh grade. Their friend, Jesse, graduated from South Harrison High School last year.
They did a great job describing how a soldier from the Union and Confederate sides would live on the battle front. They brought in paraphanalia of soldiers. They were dressed in garb of the time and even brought in weapons of the time.
I learned a lot about this time period. I taught about the battles in the classroom but I didn't teach about the lifestyle of the time. It is very improtatn for the students to see up close how people lived then. Since it is hard to take students on a field trip, this is the next best thing. This is a perfect primer for me when I go to Gettysburg in July.