David Chaltus
Hail Columbia
Dixie and Bonnie Blue Flag
Battle Hymn Quick Step

CHICKAMAUGA — Civil War author Edward Aronoff said he doesn’t know how or why it happened — he has no relatives who fought in the War Between the States — but his life-long interest in the country’s bloodiest conflict began around age 14.

“There is a romance attached to it,” he said. “The people’s names, even — Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. There is a mystique about them that lingers on.”

Mr. Aronoff is one of thousands in Walker County, Ga., this week to attend the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga, a three-day living history event and re-enactment that is open to the public beginning today.

Vice President Dick Cheney, whose great-grandfather, Samuel Fletcher Cheney, fought in the Battle of Chickamauga, will attend the event, speaking at the noon opening ceremony.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the event was open only to students, living historians, re-enactors and those posing as sutlers — civilians who, during the war, would set up tents or huts to sell items to the Civil War soldiers.

Visitors will have an opportunity to watch five battle re-enactments today, Saturday and Sunday. A grand ball and ladies tea will show life beyond the battlefields, and the 8th Georgia Regimental Band will perform a concert of Civil-War era music with instruments authentic to the time period.

Chattanooga and Northwest Georgia are ripe with history from the war. The presence of sites such as Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park and Lee and Gordon’s Mill — just two of the area places where Civil War soldiers set foot in the 1860s — help ingrain history into the minds of children who grow up in the area, said Beth Hicks, a senior at Gordon Lee High School in Chickamauga.

But battle re-enactments draw visitors from many states, and Chickamauga City Manager John Culpepper, who helped organize the event, said some are coming from as far away as Europe.

And while much blood was spilled during the conflict, it’s the blood of family that lures some into re-enacting the Civil War.

“Some of my ancestors that fought on sacred soil,” said David Chaltus, who is portraying Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the event. “I guess it is part of running in your blood,”

Mr. Chaltus, wearing a thick white beard, a long sword at his hip and an old-fashioned black hat, said he wants to pass on his passion for the past.

“We are torch passers,” he said. “We are wanting the future generation to grasp the knowledge and realize they can do whatever they choose to, and to remember our heritage — that in our country, freedom is paid in the price of blood.”

Joshua Frye, 22, from Mobile, Ala., said he became interested in the Civil War era when he was 12. Mr. Frye is portraying a private in the Confederate Army’s 58th Alabama Corps. Dressed in thick wool clothes and carrying a satchel called a haversack, in which soldiers carried food and eating utensils, he also smoked a cigar and carried a wooden canteen.

The reason the time period resonates with so many is because Americans were fighting Americans, with brothers battling brothers on their own soil, Mr. Frye said.

The war left about 620,000 dead, and more Americans died fighting each other than have ever died fighting an outside opponent, experts said.

Historian Lee Harford from Atlanta, who portrayed a Union soldier Thursday, said people are interested in the war because the stakes were so high. There was no compromising, he said, and people put their principles on the line and died for them.

The Civil War also shaped today’s America, Mr. Harford said.

“If you look at the country before the Civil War, it is completely different from after the Civil War,” he said. “Before the Civil War they used to say, ‘These United States.’ After the war they said, ‘The United States.’ It is a subtle thing, but it is not really subtle. It has really deep, hidden meaning.”

Re-enactors at Chickamauga Thursday said they’re members of a subculture, one which is as complex as the time period they portray.

Some women get involved because their husbands do, they said. Others just respect history. Some make a living creating and selling Civil War-era items at re-enactments.

Sutlers’ tents on Thursday sold items such as frybread, homemade rootbeer and handmade period clothes such as bonnets and hoop skirts.

Toys, such as “church dolls,” also were available. The rag-type dolls got the name because they are soft and, if dropped in church, they would not make noise.

Many re-enactors try to live through the re-enactments as their relatives lived in the Civil War. They wear wool uniforms, which would have protected soldiers from the sun, and sleep outside. They eat homemade food, sometimes only made over a fire.

Re-enactors introduce themselves as their character, and Thursday men crossed fields on horseback, making way for large, black cannons.

Not everyone stayed in character or true to the time period, though. Mr. Harford looked the part — in a shiny general’s belt, which he said they wore to be easily identified — but he also had a digital camera handy.

Luella Miller and her family, from central Texas, have attended a re-enactment every weekend for the last four weekends, she said. She sells homemade food and her daughter designs period clothes.

Mrs. Miller was brought up in an Amish family, who later became Mennonites. Although not involved in either faith now, her family still enjoys a simpler way of living, she said.

“I still cook on a wood stove in the winter,” she said.

And it’s just easy to get hooked on the history, Mr. Chaltus said.

“It is just like tasting your first steak, you want more,” he said.