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The Gettysburg reenactment from the eyes of the reenactors

GETTYSBURG, Pa. – If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be a reenactor, it can be done with or without picking up a rifle for firing a ca...

GETTYSBURG, Pa. - If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be a reenactor, it can be done with or without picking up a rifle for firing a cannon.

Just ask Charles McDermott, a reenactor from Michigan who portrays a chaplain's assistant.

"I do everything the chaplain needs me to do but I wouldn't preach," he said as he was cooking fried chicken and corn. "But I would have to know how to preach just in case he gets shot or gets called off to another unit."

Many of the men and women here put in plenty of research, like Earl Weaver, who has portrayed Confederate General Robert E Lee for six years.

"I read about a hundred and fifty books," he said. "[Six years] might not sound like an awful long time, but you've got to get gray enough to do this job, and you actually have a short window in your life before you get too old."

Some of the volunteers who reenact what it was like at the Battle of Gettysburg have done it for many years in the hopes that visitors will enjoy themselves and learn something at the same time.

"It is interesting and you get a lot of enjoyment out of teaching people stuff they didn't know anything about or were afraid to ask," said Ralph Aitkin, a reenactor from Lewistown who portrays an embalming surgeon.

And with a crowd of spectators that come to central Pennsylvania from around the world, the reenactors say it's high stakes to get it right with high emotional rewards.

"Gettysburg is Mecca," Bill Hallett, a reenact or from Massachusetts who portrays a war correspondent, said. "I mean if you're into the Civil War, Gettysburg is the place to be, and if you're interested in American history and if you love talking to people about things explaining how things worked back then, this is the place to do it."

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