A couple weeks ago, my father and I headed to Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park after he saw a sign mentioning a reenactment was occurring that weekend. While we weren’t visiting on the exact day of the massive reenactment, the state park had everything set up in anticipation for the following day.

Olustee is the site of Florida’s largest Civil War battle, situated near Lake City. The last time I visited this park was on a field trip when I was 10 years old, so it felt odd coming back more than 15 years later.

Many canvas tents dotted the landscape, each featuring shops and period-specific setups to take visitors back to the days of the battle. From leather boots and authentic gowns to antique items, it was all there.

Many reenactors were already setting up for the day, so it felt strange seeing men in both Union and Confederate uniforms as well as women in large-hooped dresses with their hair tightly pulled back in 19th-century fashion.

© Alexander Liess | Dreamstime.com

We had a great talk with one man who was a reenactor of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first Black regiments to serve in the war. They fought in Olustee and, following the Union defeat, retreated with the rest of the Union army back to Jacksonville.

We also spoke to a woman who is a descendant of a Civil War soldier whose family has called Lake City home for many generations. She sat outside a recreated scene of an infirmary and surgeon’s office in which she detailed how primitive surgery and healing care was not that long ago. Essentially, she emphasized how prevalent opium and laudanum was at the time for soldiers to cope with the pain. No wonder many wounded Civil War soldiers died, as we got a look at the instruments, and it’s shocking to see how common infections would have been.

— Aoife O’Riordan, associate editor