PETERSBURG, Va. — The Civil War ended Saturday in a torrent of mortar fire, perspiration and bug juice.  The Confederates won, by the way, 2-1. The exhausted, insect-gnawed victors celebrated with high fives and first crack at showers.  So concluded Civil War Adventure Camp (“Live the life of a Civil War Soldier!”), an overnight immersion experience held at Pamplin Historical Park in this Virginia town 25 miles south of Richmond.  A coed group of teenage Young Marines, a national service organization, chose sides almost evenly between the Union and the Rebels, because otherwise, you know, no war.  “My mom would kill me if I was on the other side,” confesses Confederate Joseph Lunsford, 16, of Richmond, Ky., whose forebears wore the gray.  Solomon Forbes, 17, from West Palm Beach, Fla., also mustered into the Rebel Army, the lone black Young Marine to fight for the South.  “There’s really no difference,” he shrugs. “I made a heads-or-tails choice.”  At Civil War Adventure Camp, there really is no difference. It’s the original color war: the Blue vs. the Gray. During the 16-hour overnight, slavery is not mentioned. The Confederate flag, that object of controversy, is never unfurled, although it’s used in other Pamplin Historical Park demonstrations.  [Confederate flag comes down on South Carolina’s statehouse grounds]  “Slavery is front and center in the telling of the Civil War, but I think, perhaps, that makes it a little harder for those who want to celebrate and honor the war without poking too deep into the issues,” says Tony Horwitz, author of “Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War.” “Slavery makes it a more fraught subject and not a heroic struggle.”  At Pamplin, it’s the heroic struggle front and center. Military strategy and life is the focus for students, says Gary Helm, park supervisor of historical interpretation. The stress is on tactical maneuvers and period arsenal, as well as the harsh circumstances of 19th-century military life, lessons easy to absorb in 102.6-degree heat and curdling humidity.  Civil War summer camp was perhaps inevitable. Various attractions related to the conflict hope to engage future enthusiasts and reenactors to keep interest high in the nation’s deadliest war — more than 620,000 fatalities. So far, despite the recent dispute over the Rebel banner , that interest shows no signs of flagging.  “There never will be anything more interesting in America than that Civil War,” said Gertrude Stein in the 1930s. She was on to something.  “The Civil War overshadows every other war when it comes to reenactors,” says Horwitz. “We have those wonderful photographs and can really see what they wore, what they looked like.”  There are some Civil War camps in Wisconsin and New York, but they fleck the South, especially Virginia, where more than 2,000 battles were fought. Virginia is for Civil War lovers. Pamplin, home of the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier, hosts day troop camps, rally camp weekends and teacher training seminars, “sort of Bible camp for the Civil War,” the park spokeswoman says.  Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! Confederate drill sergeant Helm is teaching campers the Yankee holler.  “That sounds like kitty cats are attacking. I need noise,” barks Helm. “There is a direct relationship between life expectancy and noise.” The Rebel yell, the operatic aria of war cries, proves an even greater challenge.  Meanwhile, the Confederates are dropping like, well, Confederate soldiers. The South loses two soldiers early, not to rifle or cannon fire but to undercooked hamburgers consumed the previous night near Durham, N.C.  Such casualties are historically accurate. Well, not the burgers. But twice as many Civil War soldiers died from disease as from artillery fire, vermin being present in swamp water, cornmeal, salt pork, basically everything.  “Soldiers regularly suffered from amoebic dysentery with cramps so bad they were begging to be shot,” Helm says, holding up a plate of grub. “This here’s dysentery in a bowl.” Bon appetit!  The campers dine on hardtack (a tasteless doorstop and precursor of the saltine), cornbread, apples and stew, the last fitting only in that it serves as an apt description of the stagnant air. Droves of mosquitoes, midges and multiple varieties of biting flies remain on the attack.  The teenagers, who hail from 16 states, are participating in the Young Marines’ two-week Great American History Adventure — Civil War, so the sojourn in Petersburg represents a camp within a camp. (There’s a GAHA for the Revolutionary War, too.) They’ve already visited Fort Sumter in Charleston, site of the war’s first shots, as well as Appomattox Court House, where Lee surrendered to Grant a week after the decisive April 2, 1865, Breakthrough at Petersburg.  The campers mostly know about the war from history classes. “This was the great American war,” says Marshall McIvor, 17, from Camas, Wash. He chose to be a Confederate, “since I come from a place with a more liberal outlook. I wanted to see the other side.”  The Young Marines, who are unaffiliated with the military branch of service, are polite, disciplined and orderly. They wear requisitioned wool jackets, the kepis (the military caps worn by both sides), canteens and haversacks whenever so ordered, along with shorts and sneakers, authenticity halting around the waist. They are are more prone to manners than insights. They appear to enjoy themselves without offering much commentary. Around them, it is possible to be “Yes, ma’amed” into submission. If captured, these soldiers would give up nothing.  After dinner, the park gates are secured against possible invasion by a new breed of enemy combatant — Pokémon Go players, who have been drifting onto the battlefield.  By 6 a.m. reveille, temperatures have already scorched into the 80s. Weary soldiers emerge from their overheated cabins bleary-eyed and semi-miserable. For many, sleep has proved elusive. The bugs never rest.  The heat has claimed more victims. Union commissary sergeant Jeff Karow, a park volunteer, headed home Friday night suffering from leg cramps. Union sergeant Tim Talbott, Pamplin’s associate director of education and interpretation, feels woozy from the heat and chugs Ga­tor­ade surreptitiously, trying to maintain historical accuracy.  Helm, however, appears as fresh as the dew-drenched battlefield. He’s no fool. He helped design the park’s handsome cluster of cabins, including the “field hospital” where he lodges on overnights, and which is, unbeknownst to campers, equipped with air conditioning.  “Better get ready, Confederates,” says Helm. “Looks like they’re commencing hostilities.”  Helm is a rock star of interpretation, sprinkling the experience with teachable moments. “The Civil War was bad for horses, 1 to 2 million dead horses and mules,” he says. “Unlike in the movies, you aimed for the horse.”  The true draw for these campers are the weapons. During the “war,” they aim (the camp’s adult instructors do the actual firing) a reproduction Confederate ­12-pound Napoleon cannon and a 24-pound Coehorn mortar, in a Civil War version of horseshoes, the winner being whoever lands closest to a target of wooden fence rails. They actually fire — though only once — reproduction Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle-muskets. Amber Jones, 16, of Rochester, Mass., one of the ailing Confederate soldiers, her hair a very un-Marine shade of pink, rose from her sick bunk to discharge a rifle into the Friday dusk. For the first time during ad­ven­ture camp, she offered a smile.  For most of their sojourn, though, the campers simulate gunfire, tearing across the battlefield yelling “Ready, aim, bang!” which doesn’t have quite the same ring.  Petersburg is the site of the war’s lengthiest siege, almost 10 months. The Young Marines’ second skirmish, the seizure of Hart’s Farm, lasts less than two minutes.  “You’re not meeting the assault! I’m dead!” Helm announces. “Which means you’re all dead!”  Helm shakes his head. “I declare this the shortest battle in the history of ad­ven­ture camp.”  War, as Sherman noted, is hell. Also, it turns out, buggy.
A band of teens gets a taste of what it was really like to wage the War Between the States