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The 23rd annual re-enactment of the Civil War's Brooksville raid will have little resemblance to what really happened. The event puts more emphasis on the sights and sounds of life in the 1860s, one re-enactor says.
By DAN DeWITT
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 16, 2003
An exact re-creation of the raid probably wouldn't hold the public's interest.
In late June 1864, about 240 Union soldiers disembarked from ships at the mouth of the Anclote River in what is now southern Pasco County but was then part of Hernando.
They marched north while a small group of Confederates, mostly old men and boys, fired on them sporadically, said Roger Landers, a Brooksville historian.
Near Brooksville, the Union soldiers burned the property and killed the livestock of several large landowners who were important suppliers to the Confederacy.
"In the latter part of the Civil War, Florida became the bread basket of the south," Jackson said. Hernando shipped out large quantities of beef, cotton, sugar and salt, he said.
The Union soldiers marched west, eventually meeting their boats at Bayport and escaping. The small, makeshift squad of Confederates waited for them near the site of the Scout reservation but ended up attacking another group of Confederates that had been summoned from Tampa.
It is likely that one of the two Confederate casualties from this engagement was a result of a father shooting his son in the arm, Landers said.
"It's pathetic," he said.
That does not mean he or other historians have any problem with re-creating the raid on a grander scale.
"Absolutely not," Landers said. "This is more of a display of skirmishing and what battles may have been like."
Bertram Wyatt-Brown, a history professor at the University of Florida, said that Southern re-enactors are attracted to the "Gone With the Wind lifestyle probably without much consciousness about race. . . . These are people's ancestors, and they want to make them look as good as possible."
"There's no harm in any of it," Wyatt-Brown said. "It's probably useful in a way, even if this particular battle didn't amount to anything."
The Brooksville Raid re-enactment will be held Saturday and Sunday at Sand Hill Scout Reservation, State Road 50, Spring Hill. The reservation is about a mile east of U.S. 19 on State Road 50. Admission is $5 for adults (18 and older); $2 for children (ages 6 to 17); free for children 5 and younger and Scouts in uniform. Spectators may bring chairs; rental chairs also will be available for $2. Coolers will be permitted on the grounds, but alcohol is prohibited. For information, call (352) 799-0129. Web site at www.brooksvilleraid.com.
Saturday
9 a.m. -- Camps open to public
10 a.m. -- Battalion drill
11 a.m. -- Ladies tea
Noon -- 1860s baseball game
2:30-4 p.m. -- Battle re-enactment
4 p.m. -- Medical scenario
5:30 p.m. -- Camps close to public
8 p.m. -- Blue/Gray Ball
9 a.m. -- Camps open to public
9 a.m. -- Church service
10:30 a.m. -- Battalion drill
1:30 p.m. -- Grand review
2:30 p.m. -- Battle re-enactment
4:30 p.m. -- Camps close to public