Teacher Tales and Surprise Soldiers

The road ahead curves under a thick canopy of trees. I’m in Germany. It’s 2004. As I drive around the bend, two dozen Confederate soldiers walk out of the brush. I look in my rearview mirror. Yes, those are Confederate soldiers, carrying muskets. I roll my window down and yell, “Was machst du da, Kumpel?” (“What are you doing, pal?”) They yell back, “Gettysburg!” It turns out, reenacting the American Civil War is a thing in Germany. —Thomas Brown Clermont, Georgia