Union Forever

It’s an unseasonably hot October afternoon in Greendale, and Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant are holding a press conference. Looking appropriately pallid and drawn, Lincoln dabs at his brow and scans the crowd, patiently awaiting the next question. Minutes pass. Flies plow through the humid air. People shuffle their feet uncomfortably and General Grant looks like he’s going to pass out. Finally, a doughy, middle-aged man in Packers-flavored Zubaz raises his hand and breaks the silence.

“Mr. President,” he begins. “Which battle of General Grant’s recent campaign do you feel has been most important for the Union?”

Lincoln clears his throat and starts to answer, but his words are lost on me (something about Pittsburgh?) My brain – usually a finely furnished warehouse of post-collegiate knowledge and Full House trivia – is currently nothing more than an aching, throbbing, hung-over mess from the night before. Now, half-asleep in an overcrowded barn, listening to the Great Emancipator himself yammer on about an ancient, tide-turning battle (Vicksburg?), the events of the past 24 hours begin to blend together. One second it’s “We will never forget the sacrifices of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,” the next it’s “I now pronounce you husband and wife through the authority of the Universal Life Church of Modesto, California.”

Eventually, the two men finish things up and the crowd breaks into applause, snapping me back to the re-enacted reality at hand. I’m at the 4th Annual Civil War Encampment at Trimborn Farm, located in charming Greendale, Wisconsin – a five-minute drive from the Southridge Olive Garden. It’s a quaint event, and not nearly as kitschy as one might expect: basically a home-brewed Renaissance Fair with slightly more historical significance and a lot less jousting. As always, I’m accompanied by my long-suffering girlfriend, who, like myself, finds any event whose itinerary includes the words “Press Conference with Abraham Lincoln & General Ulysses S. Grant in the Threshing Barn” simply too good to pass up.

Leaving the confines of the Threshing Barn behind, we take in the sights. Horses stand tethered to trees near a clutch of Union tents and lean-tos on the farm’s west end. The Confederate camp lies 100 yards to the east, just beyond a stone root cellar and an entirely authentic Cousins Subs cart. Barefoot children in Huck Finn suspenders dart past period-costumed women tending to small pit-fires across from a dilapidated pump house. A vintage baseball team playing sans gloves – The Milwaukee Cream Citys BBC – puts on an exhibition near the Jeremiah Curtin House (free tours all year round!). The sound of snare drums and harmonicas is inescapable, and the air is thick with the smell of gunpowder and horse shit.

We sit down in the grass near the main field for an infantry firing demonstration. As we watch the “troops” go through an endless series of formations and exercises (prompting one snot-nosed weasel to shout, “Start the war, already!”), I’m struck by the precision, the exactness, the reverence of their actions. It’s a singular, strange bit of ceremony painstakingly performed by a singular, strange group of people in order to remind us that these things are Important, and Not To Be Forgotten.

Flash back 24 hours, and another ceremony is underway, this one at the palatial of the Astor Hotel, where my dear friends, Ross Bachhuber and Annie Killelea, are getting married. The booze is free and the guest-list stellar, well-stocked with high-caliber Milwaukee (and former Milwaukee) characters: poet Matt Cook and wife Meredith Root, as well as American Movie and The Pool director Chris Smith and his girlfriend, producer Kate Noble. Sarah Price – of American Movie and Summercamp! fame – performs the ceremony, while Flavor Dav, Andy Noble and Brent Goodsell provide the music. The one and only Troy Freund serves as the official wedding photographer. (In your face, Boris and Doris!)

It’s a beautiful evening, made even more memorable by a heated, drunken argument with a parking checker whilst loading out at the end of the night. (“I’m a wedding DJ,” I protest. “Now what the hell kind of excuse is that?” she retorts.) It’s a ceremony that functions in much the same way as the one I’ll be attending the following afternoon. Not only do they both memorialize, but they also give us a chance to step out of our respective skins – to assume, if only for a few hours, new personas: Yankee, Confederate, bride, groom. This column, too, acts as a sort of ceremony, providing both a prescribed form and a larger context for events that might otherwise slip through the cracks: a trip to a record store, a late-summer block party, a drunken night out with friends. Things we hope are Important, and Not To Be Forgotten.

Flash forward back to the Civil War Encampment, where President Lincoln stands outside the Threshing Barn, posing for pictures. Wholly authentic cell phone cameras click away as children stand in line, waiting their turn as they might for Santa Claus. A young woman walks by, amused by the scene, and calls out to Lincoln, “Don’t go to the theatre!”

A few people chuckle, others groan. The man playing Lincoln just smiles and gives her a wink, pretending her prescience is real, pretending it’s a gift.

VS