CIVIL WAR: History Buffs Don Blue and Gray to Show That North-South Conflict Was No Picnic

Roland Barajas strutted around the sunlit Civil War battlefield in his self-styled Confederate uniform, anticipating mortal wounds.

“Today,” he said, “I’m going to die a glorious death.”

In fact, Barajas was killed twice that day in skirmishes with Union forces, but no matter.

“I remember getting killed four times in one day, and they were all glorious,” he boasted.

Barajas, who lives in Anaheim, was on the battlefield as a member of Terry’s Texas Rangers, known more formally as the 8th Texas Cavalry. It is a ragtag unit of 21 men from Orange County who help to re-create the fighting of the Civil War in a field at Fort Tejon State Historic Park, near Gorman in the Tehachapi Mountains. Their audience of several hundred had paid $1 apiece and settled down with picnic lunches to watch the combat.

A Call to Arms

It began with a bugler’s call to arms and booming cannon fire. As smoke from the guns engulfed the field, the cavalry charged, but the mounted soldiers confined themselves to a nearby fire road to avoid the gopher holes.

At the same time, foot soldiers massed shoulder to shoulder in the military patterns used then fired black-powder rifles and pistols, reloading after each shot. And young drummers kept up a mournful drum roll.

Nurses grasped their hoop skirts and ran across the battleground to aid the wounded of both sides.

Then, on command, all firing stopped, all wounds healed and the dead stood up to break for lunch. All 120 or so soldiers would be back on the battlefield in an hour to fight two more skirmishes that day. Their weapons, fired without shot, were emptied of powder charges as they left the field.

The battles, sponsored by the 500-member Fort Tejon Historical Society, are re-enacted on the third Sunday of each month from April through October.

‘Tuned In to Civil War’

“We’re all history buffs,” said Kelly Farrah, a free-lance artist from San Juan Capistrano who commands the ranger unit. “In particular, we’re tuned in to the Civil War. Up here, it gives us a chance to make a living history out of it all. Most of us are here to have a good time while we’re performing our part in history.

“We’re also a bunch of hams.”

Jan Richter, 21, a student from Long Beach who dresses as a man for her role as commander of Stuart’s Horse Artillery, said there are on record about 40 accounts of women who dressed as men and fought in the Civil War. Most were found out only after they suffered wounds.

The hobby is fun, Richter said, but it is also expensive. Although the society’s membership fee is just $10 a year, “it can cost a couple of thousand dollars to outfit a soldier with a uniform, boots, guns, tents and other gear. But, she added, “they can save a lot of money if they make the uniforms themselves.”

Details are important, the soldiers say. Bill Desmond of Fullerton, a supervisor at Knott’s Berry Farm, said he altered a modern uniform by replacing the zipper with buttons. “Zippers hadn’t been introduced until later, and we have to be authentic.”

Twice during the year the society gives a full-dress ball, Richter said, “and that’s when I dress up in a gown.”

The society’s members represent about 30 of the estimated 1,000 units who fought in the Civil War, she said. “Just about every hometown had its own militia back then.”

Barajas is a part-time actor who studied history at Cal State Fullerton. “You have to be someone other than yourself when doing living history,” he said. Most of the time I like to make a grisly death scene. When we do battle and I take a hit, I want people to see that war is not nice and it’s not fun.”

Soldiers use the honor system if they are “hit,” Barajas said. “If it looks like we got shot, we fall down and make it look realistic.”

In the Civil War period, 1861 through 1865, an estimated 500,000 soldiers on both sides lost their lives through battle or disease. Farrah explained, “That’s part of the history we try to relate.”

Most Accurate History

Joe Sours, 40, a salesman from Huntington Beach and a member of the ranger unit, also emphasized the importance of realism: “Living history gives you an accurate picture. Most kids learn from movies, which are incorrect, or from school books, which are not always right.”

As the second skirmish was about to begin, Farrah explained that since his unit had won the first battle, “they get to win the second one.”

Miguel Rivas of Westminster, another history buff, said his wife and parents “think it’s kind of strange and sort of silly for a grown man to run around like this.” But he added, “More parents should bring their kids here, so they can get an idea of the way it really was.”

As the Blue and the Gray retired to their camps, the crowd applauded and one wag hollered, “The South shall rise again!”