Civil War re-enactors visit RCC

Re-enactors from one of the most famous units in the state shared history from the Civil War with students at Rockingham Community College and members of the community during a special presentation Friday.

Ronnie Overby and Cecil Galloway, both members of the 26^th North Carolina Regiment, brought a variety of weapons, cooking utensils and even dressed in authentic wool uniforms of the Confederacy while explaining some of the day-to-day activities of soldiers during the war.

The duo spoke during one of Mark Sattler’s history classes at RCC. Overby said he operates as a first lieutenant and adjutant in the regiment. He said he does all the paperwork and operates as the colonel’s secretary, which is a daunting job.

“He’s always with the colonel right out in the front lines between the lieutenant colonel and the colonel,” he said. “In real life, the 26^th NC adjutant survived the whole war and surrendered at Appomattox.”

Galloway portrays a private, which is also called a musket carrier. He takes all his orders from the captain lieutenant and does all the shooting.

Overby said soldiers had to regularly put up with horrible conditions, including being outside in 102-degree heat with a wool uniform on. He said soldiers regularly died from heat exhaustion and heart attacks related to heat.

Both Overby and Galloway said North Carolina’s role in the Civil War was monumental. Overby said one out of every four soldiers that died at Gettysburg was from North Carolina.

“Gettysburg is one of the most monumental battlefields…there’s more history in Gettysburg than you can shake a stick at – it’s everywhere,” he said. “If you never go to another battlefield, you need to go to Gettysburg. There are even buildings there still standing that were there when the battle took place. You can still see the bullet holes.”

While on the road, Overby said soldiers would march 20 miles a day and have very little to eat. Meals usually consisted of water, or whiskey if they were lucky, corn meal made into corn cakes and apples, when they could be found. He said many soldiers were plucked right from the farm with no idea how to fight.

Galloway demonstrated how guns were loaded from paper cartridges where the gun powder was dumped out and the balls were loaded in. He said many soldiers didn’t carry much, but most of the gear included a small sack for gun powder, a bedroll which included a tent, and some cooking and eating utensils.

Someone from the crowd asked how many soldiers from North Carolina died in the Civil War, which is still a highly protested question. Overby said poor records on deaths were kept and historians may never figure out an exact number of how many perished on the battlefields. He said it was widely believed for a long time that North Carolina had the most deaths in the war, but Virginia was actually found to have lost more people based on population.

Both Galloway and Overby said they really enjoyed this hobby, although it can get a little expensive. Galloway said they don’t do it to cause any controversy, but only to remember those who went to war.

“We do it to honor the people that fought – it’s our history,” he said. “There’s nothing political about it. You meet a lot of great people doing this.”

After a brief history lesson in the classroom, Overby and Galloway took the crowd outside to practice marching and maneuvers. The first exercise was to line up by height and learn how soldiers during that time marched.

To find out more about the 26^th North Carolina Regiment, visit www.26nc.org.