The Civil War isn’t the only thing Americans recreate. The Pig War Re-enactors manage to do it with a straight face.
For those who don’t know, the “Pig War” was a long standoff between Canadian/British and US troops one a disputed San Juan island. It happened right around the Civil War. It is called the Pig War because the conflict started when one farmer shot another’s pig… and because the pig was the only casualty.
When the NPS was better funded, we often had the San Juan group over to our site (geographically, they are closer to us than the rest of Canada!). If you’ve never seen Site Superintendent Mike Voori’s “An Evening with George Pickett,” you’re really missing out–a brilliant performance, covering Pickett’s time in charge of the US outpost on San Juan, as well as his more-famous Charge.
This year, we are doing special re-enactments of the battle of Varus against Arminius (2000 years ago).
There’s also a medieval knight tournament each year at Kaltenberg, although those are professional stunt groups and criticzed by real medieval societies.
Re-enactment of general medieval meetings with some show fights are done regularly, but re-enactments of WWI or WWII wouldn’t be well received in Germany.
Just had a thought.
An entire battalion of Elvis ipersonators re-enacting the battle at Little Round Top. Maybe the 1968 leather-clad Comeback Specials vs. the 1976 Cheeseburger King.
That would be worth seeing.
In the UK there are The Ermine Street Guard, Britannia and Comitatus at the very least. Members of the Ermine Street Guard turn up frequently on Time Team when they are dealing with Roman archeology.
And apparently my lunch break is insufficently valuable to me. 
A bunch of friends of mine do War of 1812 re-enactment. From the looks of their gear, they definitely fall into the “trying to get it as right as possible” camp.
Now that would be a creative anachronism.
They’re a very interesting sub-culture. They range the gamut- there are black Confederate re-enactors, both male and female, and there are white supremacist re-enactors. Some actually do put themselves through hardships as much as possible by camping out and eating hard tack and bacon grease for a week or two if they have the free time, others don’t.
One thing all the units are anal about is gear. Everything has to be period authentic, the only exception being that you can have plastic lenses in your glasses, but the glasses frames have to be period style, and I’m assuming (I don’t know this) that if you wear a hearing aid or a prosthetic device you’re allowed to keep that. No polyester Halloween costume uniforms or modern day undershirts or Nikes allowed. OTOH, what’s hysterical to me is that half of them are 50 pounds or more overweight, and if you know anything about the Civil War you’ll know that obesity wasn’t a problem on either side.
Anyway, there are some American Revolutionary War reenactors. They’re not as numerous and they’re hampered by the fact that there aren’t enough people willing to be British to have any good battles.
There’s a group of volunteers in Alabama that does “historical interpretation” of life at the rebuilt Fort Toulouse, an 18th century French fort near Wetumpka, a city 15 miles north of Montgomery. Some are French soldiers, some are Creek Indians (who I think must be Creek Indians to participate), some are traders, but all are period authentic.
A couple of weeks ago there was an 1836 Creek War reenactment at Westville, a “fictional” 1840s town in Georgia (the buildings are all antebellum but they were moved from other parts of the state into a town setting) and historians oversaw accuracy in dress and actions. And of course there are lots of living history interpreters from Plimoth Plantation (said to be the most accurate living history exhibition in the country- so much so they have disclaimers up reminding people that these people are interpreting the early 17th century, so don’t be offended if they refer to savages and Papists) and Williamsburg and throughout the nation.
lol i am so going to use this on matt next time i see him =)
There are Anglo-Zulu and Anglo-Boer War re-enactors, both here in South Africa and in the UK. I know a UK troop came out to South Africa for a battle re-enactment.
I do Cold War reenactments by sitting in my basement and cussing the Russians while chain smoking cigarettes and stockpiling Thalidoreffic! cereal for the 2.9 kids.
There certainly are, here in Maastricht, the south of the Netherlands. They just parade around, though, and do not re-enact battles.
We have something else, and I don’t know if that exist in the USA. We have whole re-enacted villages from the Stone Age, Bronze Age etc. Volunteers live there for a couple weeks/months. People do it for fun, but also for research, and usually while they live in these huts tourists can come and look at them. For instance, we have Archeon in the Netherlands and, among others, Lejre in Denmark.
There are re-enactors of the Texas Revolution. Representing both sides!
We have Colonial Williamsburg, but that’s a perpetual re-enactment and I think they’re all professional rather than “just for fun”.
There are also smaller operations, such as Old Bedford Village in Bedford, Pennsylvania.
I think there was some hubbub not too long ago about a reenactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (near Quebec). I think that it was generally regarded as a dick move, and eventually called off. That’s all I can recall, though.
Why would it be regarded as a “Dick Move”? 
This being Texas, I wonder if they use live ammo. 
The descendants of the losing side threatened to cry and sulk.
This isn’t quite the same thing, but I know in the early 1990s, they re-created the events leading up to the American takeover of Hawaii at all of the appropriate historical spots in downtown Honolulu, to commemorate the 100th anniversary.
Right. But why would that generally be regarded as a Dick Move? I mean, there are plenty of people who enjoy dressing up as German Soldiers and they were- to quote Arnold Rimmer- “The Runners-Up During World War II”.
And people still dress up as Confederate Soldiers- again, they did kind of lose the whole US Civil War thing.
So why would it be such a Dick Move- and be generally regarded as such- to re-enact a battle in Quebec just because the French lost?
