Library to Play Host to Scenes From Civil War : Battlefield re-enactments will coincide with the opening of an extensive exhibit at the Reagan presidential facility near Simi Valley.

Most people believe the Civil War ended 130 years ago. It really didn’t. The war rages on in endless overtime from sea to shining sea as re-enactors try to bring back the bad ol’ days of 1861 to 1865 with a goodly amount of awe and admiration for those who were there.

This weekend, scores of re-enactors are expected outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley to play army and scare some of the bunny rabbits that live under the blue-flowered ceanothus shrubs surrounding the parking lot.

Everything will look authentic at the Gipper’s hillside bivouac except for the bullets and all that blood. Inside the museum, everything not only looks real, it is real. The library has assembled an impressive array of artifacts the likes of which have seldom, if ever, been seen in the West. While the warriors will leave after the weekend, the indoor exhibit will continue through October. For any Civil War enthusiast, this is a must-see.

The prewar stuff includes Sen. Henry Clay’s original hand-written copy of the Compromise of 1850, which succeeded in prolonging the inevitable showdown over state’s rights between slave and free states.

Six years later in the Senate, leading abolitionist Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a speech on Kansas and, in the process, insulted one of his political enemies, Sen. Andrew Butler of South Carolina.

Rep. Preston Brooks, Butler’s nephew, assaulted Sumner and conked him upside the head with a cane so severely that Sumner nearly died, and was unable to resume his duties for three years. He should have worn a hard hat, but the soft hat in his possession on that fateful day will be on display.

The Civil War had its own soundtrack, little of which holds up well today. One exception is “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which Julia Ward Howe created by adapting new lyrics to the soldier’s favorite, “John Brown’s Body.” She was paid a grand total of five bucks by the Atlantic Monthly for the song as musicians got the business from the music business even then. Ward’s original hand-written copy is on display.

There are plenty of original uniforms to see, most courtesy of Las Vegas attorney and Yankee re-enactor, Joshua Landish. There are five or six mint-condition Confederate uniforms, which are extremely rare because as the war dragged on, the rebels began to look more and more like shoddy vagrants outside a second-hand store.

Civil War soldiers were, for the most part, little guys--the average was about 5-foot-6 and about 120 pounds. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s frock coat, immaculate and itty-bitty, will be on display. It’s heavy and made of wool, making Sherman the sweatiest army commander to ever pace nervously outside Atlanta in the summer of 1864. Also on display is Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s saddle, also small, and looking only slightly more comfortable than an iron lawn chair.

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The Civil War, the first war to combine modern weaponry and old-fashioned tactics, resulted in massive casualties unrivaled until World War I. A graphic example from the first big battle of the war in the West, Shiloh, is a tree trunk taken from the Union position on the first day, aptly nicknamed the Hornet’s Nest. Misshapen and splattered mini-balls cover the surface of the tree, a very dangerous place to be near in April, 1862.

There’s plenty of Civil War weaponry on display, including Springfield and Enfield rifles, John Brown’s rifle from Harper’s Ferry, and even a musket thrown away by a Yankee soldier fleeing the field of First Bull Run in 1861. Also, there are bayonets, sabers and all sorts of artillery shells and related tools of the trade.

Because a .58-caliber slug put mean holes in soft bodies, arm or leg wounds often resulted in amputation, while body wounds were often fatal. There will be an authentic surgeon’s tent, but fortunately, no pile of mangled arms and legs. The medical kit would fit easily inside a contemporary doctor’s Porsche.

Clara Barton, who went on to found the Red Cross, was a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, and was actually under fire at Antietam as she tended wounded from the 21st Massachusetts. On display is Barton’s trunk bed, an apparatus so diabolically uncomfortable that it could put Nurse Ratchet in a worse mood than Kathy Bates in “Misery.”

Among the more than 200 artifacts on display is a large painting of Burnside’s Bridge at Antietam, a structure the rebels held so long that Gen. Robert E. Lee was able to reinforce his lines from that sector, thus averting disaster and an end to the war on Sept. 17, 1862. The scene was painted 30 years later by a Union soldier who was there.

Dysentery, measles and smallpox, which combined to kill far more Civil War soldiers than bullets did, will be mercifully absent.

Also absent are ample parking spaces. Early arrivals and car pooling are encouraged, at least for this first weekend.

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Details

* WHAT: The Civil War exhibit and re-enactment.

* WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Indoor exhibit continues through October.

* WHERE: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 40 Presidential Drive, near Simi Valley.

* HOW MUCH: $4, adults; $2, seniors; free for children, 15 and under.

* CALL: 522-8444.