Visitors to the historic Appomattox Court House National Park this weekend may have felt like they took a trip back in time.
The park’s sprawling green hills were filled with living history on Saturday and Sunday when the park held a special re-enactment, which included an encampment and stacking of arms. Confederate soldiers, geared in traditional military garb and preparing to surrender, filled the plush hillsides.
The re-enactment on park grounds is something officials said hasn’t been commonly done in the past, but they’re hoping to make it a tradition starting with this weekend’s event, and another in October.
Bert Dunkerly, a ranger at the park, said the courthouse saw hundreds of visitors this weekend. There were about 500 people on Saturday and more than 160 on Sunday.
Last weekend marked the 144th anniversary of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, but because various events were already planned to mark that date, the re-enactment was done this weekend.
“There’s a lot to the story. It’s very complicated,” Dunkerly said of the Civil War and the surrender.
He said the re-enactment gives people a more detailed and complete picture of history, and what exactly happened in Appomattox. With the encampment, spectators could see what daily life was like for those in the military. People who came to the park also saw a rifle demonstration, troops re-enacting their parole and stacking their arms where Gen. Robert E. Lee’s troops did on Stage Road in April 1865.
“That’s what the Confederates actually did,” Dunkerly said, adding the surrender in Appomattox was special and respectful. “The surrender ceremony makes Appomattox special.”
Dunkerly said he hopes that people who haven’t visited the park in a while will see what it has to offer because the re-enactment is one of many events and exhibits the National Park has added.
“I think a lot of local visitors, you can forget it’s here,” he said, adding the park is gearing up exhibits to mark the 150th anniversary of the surrender in 2015.
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