To begin the recap of my summer 2015, in late May, the Elmbrook Historical Society in Wisconsin, held its annual Civil War Reenactment on the grounds of the Dousman Coach House Museum. The Coach House was once a working farm in the Milwaukee suburb of Elm Grove, and is now a museum to how life was like in the 19th to early-20th Century.
The reenactment itself consisted of many interesting tents displaying what life was like during the Civil War, from cooking over an open flame to the popular sports of the day to how household items were packaged including baking vanilla (pictured below).
One of the most fascinating tents was the medical tent, where a real (retired) physician gave a talk on how war wounds were handled at the time. He even displayed the types of bullets used on the battlefield and the instruments used to extract them from the soldiers.
The reenactment even had a tent where the Undertaker gave a talk on how they handled the bodies of soldiers transported back to their hometowns to be buried. I found out that the Cargo train cars were created because they used to transport the dead soldiers on the trains along with the live travelers and the odors would be blown into the open windows of the travelers' cars.
The most interesting part of the reenactment was a speech given by a woman who acted as Mary Todd Lincoln. I was lucky enough to get a candid photo of the actress bonding with a service dog.
I've always been a history buff, and I found the Elmbrook Historical Society's Civil War reenactment very fascinating. I will definitely try to make it to their event next year.
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