Battling to Get Civil War Memorabilia

It has been more than 130 years since Gen. Ulysses S. Grant cornered Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox Court House and forced his surrender, yet the Civil War thrives--as a business.

Hundreds of retailers across the country have turned America’s bloodiest war into a marketing opportunity.

Feel like a loyal Southerner? Show your pride by buying a pair of glow-in-the-dark boxer shorts decorated with the Confederate battle flag. Or a Santa Claus carrying a Confederate flag, or even a Confederate bikini.

Tourists can travel the routes of old marches and visit battlefields. Serious collectors spend thousands of dollars on everything from swords to old belt buckles, while those who want to relive the days of the war spend thousands more on recreated uniforms and weapons.

“Even without the kitsch, the Civil War has never been more popular,” said John Coski, a historian at Richmond’s Museum of the Confederacy. “It’s a neat thing. It’s romance, like cowboys and Indians. The figures are larger than life, and most of them are Southern.”

Many people in the business of selling the Civil War--the War of Northern Aggression, as some Southerners still call it--do it for love, not money.

“It’s not a moneymaking scheme. You can’t make a living from it,” said Mike Bradley, the owner of Uniforms of Antiquity in Mena, Ark.

Bradley, an Englishman, makes reproduction Civil War uniforms and sells them throughout the United States and as far away as Germany. The uniforms cost as much as $5,000 each.

Bradley rides with the 1st Arkansas Cavalry and takes part in re-created battles around the country.

“Sometimes I’ll hand out a business card in the middle of a battle,” he said.

Rafael Eledge, owner of Shiloh’s Civil War Relics in Shiloh, Tenn., became fascinated by the war as a teenager when he saw a man cleaning bullets found on an old battlefield. The next weekend, the man took Eledge out with a metal detector and he was hooked.

“We do shows all over the country, [and] it seems like the attendance at the shows is up,” Eledge said. “It seems a lot more people are interested in their history.”

Americans have always been interested in the Civil War, but it received a huge boost from Ken Burns’ acclaimed television documentary series “The Civil War” and the 1993 movie “Gettysburg,” many Civil War vendors say.

“It goes in waves every couple of years,” said Coski. “I don’t think it ever left the shelves. It’s certainly at a high point now.”

David Gallagher, publisher of the Civil War Courier in Buffalo, N.Y., a newspaper packed with hundreds of ads from merchants selling Civil War-related items, estimated there are about 500,000 hard-core Civil War buffs in the country.

“In the South, they’re much more into it than in the North,” he said. “I think they feel they had much more of a cause than the North.”

“The Civil War had a tremendous impact on the South and on the country as a whole,” said Suzanne Savery, museum manager for the Petersburg Museum.

The museum has developed an automobile tour with 22 stops along southside Virginia that traces Lee’s final retreat in 1865, culminating with his surrender. The route opened in 1994.

While dealers such as Eledge and Bradley sell weapons and uniforms, there is also a big market for depictions of the Old South.

Prints showing a stern-faced Lee or other Southern commanders or bloody battle scenes are big sellers, said Robert Overstreet, who runs Prints South in Chickamauga, Ga. The prints sell for about $150 each.

“The market is tremendous,” he said. “The most popular ones are the battle scenes. Lee is also popular. You can’t sell many Shermans in Georgia,” he said. Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman torched Atlanta.

In Bruce, Miss., the Cavalier Shoppe affords recalcitrant rebels who are not content to reenact history the chance to defy it. Store owner Rex Jarrett sells most everything a die-hard Dixiephile could want, from Confederate flag bedsheets to a T-shirt depicting an astronaut planting the Stars and Bars on the moon.

“My type of customers are not radicals or rednecks,” Jarrett said.

“I have people tell me that the Confederate flag is the most beautiful flag in America and they want to have one.”