‘A rare occasion’

MONTPELIER STATION — A dozen or so local Civil War re-enactors converged in the cold Saturday on the original site of the 1863 to 64 winter occupation here to recreate the huts in which South Carolinian soldiers and officers lived and slept.

As the modern-day men dressed in blue and gray uniforms rolled large tree trunks from the surrounding forest, one got a sense of the hard work that went into creating the temporary, yet fortified lodgings.

“It is a rare occasion that Montpelier is inviting troops to do this,” said re-enactor Dave Peterson of Charlottesville, regimental surgeon with the group, representing the Army of Northern Virginia’s Third Regiment, companies 13th A, 19th G and 7th A.

The huts, once completed, will stand on the Montpelier property —located directly behind the Gilmore Cabin and Farm along Route 20 in Orange – for many years to come, he said. Re-enactors eventually plan to use the cabins for camping out overnight and hosting living history events.

A release from Montpelier described the eventual camp as “the base of operations for Civil War re-enactors.”

“This is a wonderful opportunity for people to see how soldiers built their huts and what their living conditions were like during the Civil War,” said Matthew Reeves, director of archaeology at Montpelier, the newly restored estate of President James Madison, located a short distance from the camp site across Route 20.

“Montpelier’s archaeological site is easily the largest and most pristine example of a Civil War encampment site in the nation on protected land.”

The Montpelier Archaeology Department located and surveyed nine Civil War regimental camps and 12 company camps on the property as well as four hut sites within a camp occupied by S.C. General Samuel McGowan and his troops 145 years ago.

From this discovery, Montpelier archaeologists established the architecture of the huts and what types of material goods soldiers used to survive the harsh winter.

Meanwhile, 20 miles away in Culpeper, more than 100,000 Union troops set up camp for the winter on the county’s farm fields and hills.

At Saturday’s rebuilding event, the re-enactors used brute strength, chains and axes to transport and shape the oak logs that will form the first hut’s foundation. Bill Graham, a longtime re-enactor from Madison, expected many more weekends ahead of the same.

“We’re going to be here a while,” he said.

And that’s to be expected considering the workforce today is much smaller than it was in 1864.

Peterson expected it would take re-enactors until summer to finish building the scaled-back camp, consisting of two officers’ quarters and four soldiers’ huts. The group returns to the site Feb. 7.
The public is invited to come observe this unique reconstruction project at Montpelier and interact with Civil War historians.