Authenticity key to re-enactment
Hand-sewn clothes, salted pork stew and personal grooming harken back to 1777
Trees with leaves hinting at the arrival of fall gave way to the wide, green meadows in Saratoga National Historical Park on Saturday as Paul Tofani marched alongside his comrades.
Clad in Revolutionary War-style clothes, the war re-enactors were busy at work, some with muskets slung over their shoulders, others cooking, washing clothes or doing other typical chores in a Revolutionary War camp.
“To be able to step where they stepped, and be able to camp and live like they did and get the true feeling of what it was like in 1777 is really a gift,” said Tofani, a New Jersey native who has been traveling to do s for seven years. “Luckily what we have here is a very good image of re-enactors who really relish in what we do.”
The focused not on a single battle but rather on the daily life in camp during wartime. There were two different stops, one an American camp and the other British, signifying the sides that clashed on this battlefield in the fall of 1777.
Some of the re-enactors showcased medical equipment of the time, others showed what a soldier on horseback would use and others even hawked vegetables at a wooden stand.
Most of the participants’ clothes are hand-sewn or custom-made, and historical accuracy is paramount. The male re-enactors are all clean-shaven, as they would have been in 1777, and the group set up camp Friday night, sleeping on straw and eating salted pork stew — all in the name of authenticity, several said.
Aimee Toms, a student at Western Connecticut State University, said she spent 30 hours tailoring her own historically authentic dress — which she uses in events once a month.
“I’m not as great as I’d like to be,” Toms said jokingly, gesturing to a hole in her outfit’s sleeve. “Everything about it is hand-sewn.”
Dozens of people visited the two camps at separate spots in the park, and one visitor, 7-year-old Oliver Theibault-
Dean, strutted around in his bright red coat and authentic outfit.
The boy, well-known for being a Revolutionary War buff, got into history during a project in preschool.
“I got interested in George Washington, then I learned he was in the Revolution. Then my mom started buying a bunch of books, and I started reading,” Theibault-dean said, admitting his historical interest led him to wear one of his two revolutionary-era outfits to school for picture day.
The re-enactors travel throughout the East Coast for events like this one, with some coming from Buffalo, New Jersey and Massachusetts, among other places.
Some have been doing re-enactments since the 1970s, and others have even completed the 11-mile trek from Trenton, N.J., to Princeton in the middle of a wintry night to recreate George Washington’s march in late 1776.
“We do this because we learn what it was like to do it, but we do it so we can present to the public,” Tofani said. “It’s up to the re-enactor and the living historian to work with historic sights and museums to be able to bring that story to the public the best we can.”