Confederates In The Attic: Dispatches From The Unfinished Civil War

After the dark themes presented in Chapter 5, in Chapter 6 Horwitz returns to the more light-hearted aspects of his Southern journey, the aspects of reenacting which prove popular for many residents of the American South. Horwitz gets back in touch with Robert Lee Hodge, and the two make plans to attend a reenactment for the Battle of the Wilderness, which Rob claims will be “a total Farbfest” (125), an allusion to the notion that the vast majority of the participants will not be “hardcore” reenactors like himself but rather people who are just going through the motions of reenacting without the back knowledge that a “hardcore” member like himself possesses.

During the Chapter, Horwitz goes on to discuss the history and background pertaining to the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864, and he undertakes his first, real attempt at becoming a bonafide Civil War reenactor. While doing this, Horwitz meets with other reenactors, each of whom has their own reason for being there, yet the common thread seems to be echoed by a young man named Butch McClaren, who says “if I could trade places with my great-great-grandpappy, I’d do it in a second…he knew what he was living for” (133).