It will be the end of a teaching era this week when dozens of Brunswick fifth-graders and their instructors gather on the athletic fields beside the Harriet Beecher Stowe School to stage their final re-enactment of a Confederate infantry assault during one of the Civil War’s most famous battles.
Lou Sullivan, who began teaching fifth grade in Brunswick in the fall of 1990, said about 175 students will participate Friday in the school department’s final Pickett’s Charge – an assault that took place during the Battle of Gettysburg.
In addition to the Pickett’s Charge re-enactment, students dressed in Civil War-era clothing will spend most of the day demonstrating what a Civil War encampment looked like, the style of music played at Civil War camps and the food that soldiers ate.
Students will also perform a skit demonstrating what life as a slave was like. A stage show will be held in the school’s gym. A game of Rounders (Civil War baseball) will be played. There will also be artillery demonstrations and a small group of tents filled with sympathizers of the Underground Railroad.
“This will be the last fifth-grade re-enactment,” Sullivan said in an email. “While I will miss teaching this fascinating and heart-wrenching era, I am looking forward to further developing our Colonial unit.”
Sullivan said he and two other fifth-grade teachers, Rayle Ainsworth and Donna LaPierre, established the event 20 years ago at the former Jordan Acres School. The re-enactment, which grew in popularity over time, was moved to Harriet Beecher Stowe School in 2011 after Jordan Acres closed. Harriet Beecher Stowe School is located on McKeen Street.
Sullivan, a member of the district’s social studies curriculum committee, said the committee decided that this would be the last year that fifth-graders focused on Civil War studies. The Civil War is taught extensively at the eighth-grade level. Students’ focus will now shift to the American Revolution.
“It seemed natural to have fifth grade end after the American Revolution,” Sullivan said. “We weren’t being steered away from the Civil War so much as trying to trim down the amount of content and repetition.”
Sullivan said the re-enactment allows students to take on the roles of both citizens and soldiers who lived between 1861 and 1865.
Students get their costumes from a variety of sources. Some students from past re-enactments donate their uniforms. Cartridge boxes are made out of cereal boxes and black masking tape. Mess kits are made from tin cans with coat hanger handles. Students will often purchase soldier caps and other accessories such as belt buckles.
The teaching effort not only includes fifth-grade teachers but teachers from the district’s music, art, physical education and library departments. School administrators have supported the event by dressing up as historical figures, ranging from Harriet Beecher Stowe and Civil War Gen. Joshua Chamberlain to Union Army Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
Sullivan said the Civil War learning experience has been invaluable.
“Students gain an appreciation for this tumultuous time in our nation’s history,” Sullivan said. “In the end, the most common reflection is an acknowledgement that this was a fascinating topic, yet the reality of what happened causes them to wish it never occurred.”
The event, which starts at 9:30 a.m. in the school gym with a stage show, is free and open to the public. Pickett’s Charge is scheduled to start at 1 p.m.
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