To my dearest, brave war hero,

I send you all my love -- to my one true sweetheart. Thanks for protecting our family, our land and our great nation. Everyone here is so very proud of you. You are so brave!

-- Janet Calhoun to her husband, Pvt. Brad Calhoun, Company C, 7th West Virginia Regiment, Union Army Brad Calhoun's radio is willfully set to a classical music station. An Ansel Adams print pretties his living room wall. A living room. What is that? And the sofa, it's soft and bloodless.

Hey, soldier, you think they had classical music and living rooms and sofas at Gettysburg? Ansel Adams never photographed a battlefield, now did he?

You tell me you live in Columbia? Where and what is that? About that dog. Nice dog, Alex is the name. But you think they named dogs Alex during the War Between the States? Should have named your dog Jeb, or Pickett, or Beauregard.

A good thing you signed up for camp, a four-day, $985 camp called "Civil War Adventures." It's for folks like you -- 37 years old, all shy on the outside, an electrical engineer for the Department of Defense, somebody who one day just might become a hard-core Civil War re-enactor. You, Brad Calhoun, can pretend to be shot and left for dead. And stand guard. And not shave. Not even (heaven help him) pick up a newspaper all weekend.

"I feel like a new recruit, and I just want to measure up," says Calhoun, the day before he leaves Columbia for camp. "The Civil War is such a fascinating time ... the fact men would line up and just pummel each other. Would I have had the guts to stand there and have people shoot at me?"

Calhoun has something to prove, or maybe he's looking to test himself. "I think," says his wife, Janet, "this was something he needed to try."

Calhoun had watched from the sidelines in July, when 15,000 re-enactors staged the Battle of Gettysburg on the 135th anniversary of what's considered the greatest battle fought on this hemisphere. The event nearly moved him to take up arms himself.

"I don't think you'd describe me as a Civil War fanatic," he says. "I think this weekend is to decide whether I could become one."

On a Thursday morning in mid-October, the electrical engineer reports (early) to camp near Winchester, Va., southwest of Hagerstown. He parks his Jeep Grand Cherokee and surrenders his suburban life for a fall weekend -- circa 1863. Based on his philosophical bent, Calhoun chooses a Union uniform: wool pants, suit coat, cap, braces, boots and a haversack for carrying rations.

In short order, Pvt. Brad Calhoun is sworn in, taught to salute, ordered not to make eye contact with officers and learns to keep his uniform buttoned at all times.

Before he hugs Janet and pats Alex goodbye, he agrees to act as a field correspondent. As he heads into the encampment on a 60-acre farm in West Virginia, he tucks a notebook into his haversack.

Oct. 8 -- First Day.

After all recruits had arrived we began learning the basics of formation and marching. ... All the veteran soldiers introduced themselves. Feeling caught up in the moment, I quickly developed a life story. I said I had aspirations of being a writer and thus intended to keep a journal about my war experiences ...

-- Pvt. B. Calhoun

One hundred and thirty-three years after the fact, the Civil War has become one of the hottest games going. If men aren't golfing or computering, they're picking up single-shot, muzzle-loading reproduction Enfield rifles and forming companies, gnawing at hardtack, swapping prisoners and listening to some fiddle-playing corporal around the campfire. Women and kids play, too.

They rise and shine to fife and drum, form skirmish lines on make-believe battlegrounds, and stay in "first-person" all weekend. The present is forbidden. Talk is of Lincoln, not Lewinsky. Grant may be an embarrassment to the country, but not Clinton. Say you're from Ellicott City? You mean Ellicott Mills, as it was called last century, right?

"You wouldn't bring up the Atlanta Braves," says Bill Holschuh, publisher of the Ohio-based Camp Chase Gazette, the official magazine for Civil War re-enactors. His magazine lists more than 300 re-enactments a year, such as those held recently at Taneytown and Boonsboro. Holschuh figures as many as 40,000 people call themselves re-enactors.

"We don't know why it's so popular," says Holschuh. "I was a Civil War buff and avid reader. It seemed re-enactment took it to the next level -- closer to the experience." But he's since retired from full-time re-enacting.

"Re-enactors have the average career of a [National Football League] running back -- about five years," Holschuh says.

The Civil War, according to the Library of Congress, is the subject of 4,395 books. One of the most heralded books of recent times, Charles Frazier's 1997 "Cold Mountain," is a novel account of a wounded Confederate soldier clawing his way home during the war. But no other source captures the rich and slightly warped culture of re-enactment better than Tony Horwitz's 1998 "Confederates in the Attic."

Horwitz, a journalist with Bosnia and the Middle East on his resume, tracked re-enactors from battleground to battleground throughout the antebellum South. The Civil War, he finds, is far from over. In his travels, he also discovers a hard-core hobby.

"A generation ago, a young person with a keen interest in the war would have likely have joined a Civil War 'roundtable.' In the 1990s, the same person was more likely to join a re-enacting unit, perhaps with his wife and kids," Horwitz wrote.

Among other finds in "Confederates," the writer encounters the word "farb" -- an acronym that stands either for "far-be-it-from-authentic or foolish-and-ridiculous-bastard." The word, Horwitz discovers, proves quite versatile -- as in "fat, flaming farb," "farbfest" and "farbism."

Simply, "farb" is the worst insult that can be hurled at a re-enactor. It's aimed at those (clearly not "hard-core") who are not sticklers for authenticity. According to Gazette publisher Holschuh, farbish infractions include: wearing modern eyeglasses; slipping out of character and analyzing Ally McBeal's receding hemline; drinking from an aluminum can; allowing "Coleman" to be visible on your cooler.

"Oh, and getting caught with a wristwatch," he adds.

Hard-core re-enactors, on the other hand, don't use even such decadent luxuries as tents. They don't wash their uniforms between events "to give it that nice, battlefield aroma," Holschuh says. Hard-cores live on beef jerky and hardtack, which is like eating tile. Anything else is farb food.

Jack Foley has witnessed his share of farbs. The 51-year-old cable administrator for Howard County has been a Civil War re-enactor for 17 years.

"I have," Foley says, "a deep personal identification with that war." Foley is a hired gun for Civil War Adventures, a Washington state-based outfit that's been holding re-enacting camps for two years. Foley -- rather Captain Foley, Union Army -- staffed the recent camp in West Virginia. He rounded up 14 re-enactors to set the stage for the 10 "guests." Foley would soon be giving orders to Calhoun, who had the hard-core sense to leave his camera, watch and electric razor home.

In truth, Foley lives a few townhouses from Calhoun in Columbia. They also share a childhood love for and fascination with the Civil War. This, though, is Calhoun's first re-enactment experience.

"We had a slot open for him," Foley says. "I knew he would do

well. He's a bright guy. But Brad doesn't strike me as the type who would go out and join a re-enactment unit."

You never know about these electrical engineers. The weekend is young.

Second Day

Toughest thing is having to ask permission to go to the sink (bathroom) ... A snappy march to Widow Barfield's cook house brought another fine meal. Pork chops, applesauce, slaw, corn bread. Capt. Foley says we'll be serving guard duty tonight.

Guard duty -- 45 minutes alone in the dark and cold. Saw and heard lots in my imagination. It's the guard's job to challenge everyone who approaches. They must know the countersign ("The widow's food is grand").

I'm proud to say, I carried out my duty in good order.

Foley's report on Calhoun's performance follows:

Doing well. "Threw himself into it." Complained about about not having enough time to write in his journal. Finally was issued a pencil, so he could drop that farby Bic pen. Performed well on guard duty.

As for the private's performance in battle: "My second lieutenant, who had been close to Brad while the fighting went on, said he was just loading and firing to beat the band. His blood was up," Foley says, chuckling. "You never know -- they turn into maniacs."

When Bradley Harold Calhoun was a pup in Knoxville, Tenn., he wanted one thing for his 10th birthday. And Brad indeed took delivery of Francis A. Lord's "Civil War Collectors Encyclopedia," a heavy-set, grown-up book, a Sears-Roebuck catalog of Civil War stuff. "It was over my head," he recalls. But he grew into the book. He was, he felt then and now, a Civil War soldier in another life.

In this life, Calhoun manages 130 other engineers at his government job. Excitement there, he says, might be good news about a software project. He's not complaining. No, it's hard to imagine Calhoun losing his cool, getting "his blood up," or aiming a rifle. But clearly the engineer's alter ego marches to a different drummer.

3rd Day Sat.

4 of us are captured. Spend several hours in Rebel camp before we are exchanged ... I am accused by one Reb of being a horse thief. He wants to kill me. Later, Rebs attack our camp. We quickly muster and advance to drive them off. We lose one man ...

In his journal, Calhoun dispassionately reports passing tent inspection, and he volunteers again for guard detail. The nights are cold.

Spirits jump Saturday during Mail Call. Calhoun receives a letter from home. Janet Calhoun's scripted words appear on period stationery. Despite using a farby pen, she stays in character: I can't wait for you to return home. I'll be wearing my best dress. Plan on being smothered with hugs and kisses! When you return, let's get away for a few days. We could bring our trusted scout, Alex. ... May your adventure be everything you hoped and more.

Love, Janet

On Sunday, her husband gets shot.

From the start, Calhoun had fretted about one aspect of Civil War camp: acting. He had no experience at pretending to be shot. How exactly do you crumple to the ground? What would be considered too much writhing in pain? Could he moan with the best of them?

Still, campers had better get shot, Calhoun thought. For $985, he had better get ambushed by the Rebs before camp breaks Sunday. He needn't have worried; getting shot was in the script.

During patrol on camp's last day, Calhoun and company engage the enemy while charging a hill. He hears the powder discharge from another Enfield rifle. Someone yells: "You're hit!" Oh. I mean, OH! But where? Calhoun has to think fast. Right shoulder, he decides as he hits the ground. Minutes pass. I wonder if my comrades have left me. It must be very lonely being wounded and left on a battlefield, he writes.

Calhoun eventually is carried off the field, limping. My acting is not the greatest. Another soldier performs triage on Calhoun, whose wound isn't considered that serious. Good thing. After all, the man has to drive back to Columbia.

After breaking ranks and making handshakes all around, Calhoun is "discharged" from the Union Army. Ducking into his tent, he throws his civilian clothes back on. He doesn't know the time and doesn't care. He hasn't showered in four days. He hasn't shaved. But by God, he was shot.

Civilian Calhoun slides into his Grand Cherokee with the cassette player and soft upholstery. Back to the soft life. Calhoun puts on his sunglasses. Sunglasses? They seem so farby now.

Upon re-entry into Columbia, his wife hugs him, beard, battlefield aroma and all. Alex, their trusty scout, is thrilled to sniff him again. "So, did you catch the bug?" Janet asks her husband. But she already knows the answer.

Brad Calhoun says he's now ready for Gettysburg, ready to join a Maryland re-enactment unit, ready to plunk down $500 for his own Enfield rifle. Born ready, little did he know.

The widow's food must have been grand.

Pub Date: 10/24/98