Re-enactors reminisce at Fort Knox 20th Maine group gathers passionate participants

PROSPECT – Though the ammunition isn’t live, field amputations are unheard of and the enemy Confederate troops are fellow enthusiasts from all over Maine, the life of a Civil War re-enactor is not without its own perils.

Lois McKeering of Hartland, decked out Saturday afternoon in an elegant day dress and a dainty bonnet in front of her canvas tent that perched on the battlements of Fort Knox, remembered some of the more dangerous moments in her 15-year career as a supporter of the 20th Maine.

“We’ve been in a microburst, one step below a tornado,” the civilian camp follower said. “It was a thunderstorm that turned unbelievable. There were four people in a tent and it took all of them to hold it down.”

That wild weather moment, which happened during a northern Maine regimental camp-out three years ago, reminded the Civil War buff of a scene from a movie – but not from “Gone With the Wind.”

“It was just like the movie ‘Twister,'” McKeering said as her hoop skirts swayed in the gentle breeze that blew in from the Penobscot River.

The wind carried with it the sounds of banjo music and the smell of smoke from cigars, corncob pipes and the cooking fires scattered around the encampment as the 85 or so participants relaxed after that afternoon’s skirmish and prepared for dinner.

Welcome to the unusual world of Civil War re-enactors, who plunge wholeheartedly into the lifestyle of the 1860s whenever they can – and love every hot, dirty, smoke-saturated minute of it.

“It is a passion, yes,” McKeering said. “I would say it’s almost full-time. Between research, sewing, getting ready for re-enactments, we dedicate a good part of the week to it.”

She and her husband, Denis McKeering, both retired from the jobs of their modern lives, have found a second home with the 20th Maine and two other regiments of re-enactors. At the Fort Knox encampment, Lois McKeering spent her days demonstrating intricate Victorian arts such as the making of hair jewelry and her nights sleeping in a twin-sized cot near the other ladies of the civilian camp. Her husband, 60, fought in the skirmishes and bunked with the rowdier male tent camp found within the old stone walls of the fort.

A group of men eating a hearty dinner of beans and franks out of tin bowls and cups ignored the plastic tub of butter on the wooden table and described what drew them to the re-enactments as they teased each other mercilessly.

“It’s fun,” Duane Wardwell of Orland said. “I always call it our answer to cowboys and Indians for grownups.”

Wardwell, who works construction when he’s not donning the blue woolen uniform as a private in the 20th Maine, said that he had spent a busy day in battle.

“I had guard duty today, and I went into battle,” he said. “We lost and I was taken prisoner.”

Wardwell estimated that the regiment participates in events two weekends a month, all year long. While the sense of camaraderie and fun pulls him in, the history does, too.

“I’ve been to events that had 25,000 [re-enactors], and then you realize what it was really, really like.”

Paul Dudley of Easton agreed, saying that reenactments allowed him to physically experience Civil War history – within certain parameters.

“We can’t all have diarrhea and fleas and lice and get shot at and march 20 miles in the snow,” he said. “We’re keeping the memory of not only the 20th Maine, but all these soldiers, alive.”

The re-enactors were part of a greater event over the weekend, the annual Fort Knox Bay Festival, which had many components across the Penobscot River in Bucksport.