Article about McDowell 2001:
First printed in Civil War News
Reprinted with Permission of the Author)

More than anything else that's been written, Julio Zagroniz' article gives the full flavor of the type of "first person" portrayal done at McDowell and similar events.

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THE DEATH OF JOSIAH JACKSON
By Julio C. Zangroniz

MCDOWELL, Va. – War's brutal reality descended rather suddenly and certainly quite harshly upon one Old Dominion State family here in May, as Confederate forces led by Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson battled their Union foes right through the center of this otherwise unspoiled Highland County town and Josiah Jackson (no relation to the general), an 18-year-old boy who had joined the ranks of the 31st. Virginia against his father's wishes, suffered a mortal wound virtually in front of his family and neighbors.

Kathryn Coombs of Alexandria, VA, who portrayed a lower-middle class farmer's wife and neighbor to the Jacksons, recalled the impromptu, unrehearsed scenario: "I was part of the ensuing scene, as best friend to his grieving mother and mother of the martyred boy's best friend, who survived the battle. We cried REAL tears. For a moment, it was truly 1862 again and we felt --on a personal level-- the human cost of the war. Kathleen and Ashley Jackson portrayed the boy's parents (Alva and Aubrey Jackson, local smallholders) and not only were they magnificent, [but also] their two young real-life sons, Daniel, 10, and Forrest, 6, contributed hugely to the scene, doing a better job than most professional child actors. Young Josiah was portrayed with exceptional flair by Sean Pridgeon."

Pridgeon, a resident of Joppa, MD, recalled: "I took the hit when I did because the fight we were in was absolutely chaotic. Units broke down and men found themselves grouping in with any unit they could find and since we were pushing the Federals so hard, the fighting got awfully hot and close. I saw a Union private no more than a couple hundred feet away draw a bead on me. When he did, I realized my number was up. I hadn't planned on taking a hit. It just kind of happened. The reason I ‘passed on' when I did I really can't explain."

Susan Spray, who portrayed another farmer's wife friendly with the Jacksons, rushed to the wounded man: "Josiah fell right in front of us. When I realized who it was, I immediately went to his side to comfort him. His commanding officer left him in my care while he went to find the surgeon. I sent the others off to find his parents. I stayed with Josiah, offering him words of comfort and trying to get him to wait for his Ma and Pa. Other soldiers did come by and offered him water. He finally succumbed to his wound, but before his parents came. It was hard telling his mother that he had just gone. I pulled away from the body to allow his family and sweetheart to mourn him. Before he died he did ask for them all."

Bill Henry, who was the young man's captain, recalled: "After finding Pvt. Jackson wounded on the road, and trying to stem the flow of his wound, a civilian woman came to give aid to the private. This gave me the opportunity to find the surgeon...[who] to my protests, insisted on treating my own relatively minor wound, and stated that he had no resources to go find my grieveously wounded comrade."

Later, the officer added: "I approached the grievers and identified myself as Pvt. Jackson's captain.... I was recounting to the private's mother his activities during his last hours, explained what a fine son and soldier her boy was, etc., etc. I became so emotionally tied to this scenario, the tears were welling up in me the whole time."

Asked to recall what it was like being "dead," Pridgeon said: "It was not hot at all under the blanket. That really didn't bother me. I am not sure but I think I stayed dead at least a good 40 minutes, maybe more. Sneezing wasn't a problem [because it never came up], thank goodness... I don't recall anyone trying to break our first person at all, though a few reenactors who passed by did offer some first person comments... [but] as my friends gathered around, I could hear captain Henry, almost in tears, tell my ‘mother' that he was sorry he didn't keep me safe, it made me realize what it must feel like to lose a comrade."

Kathleen Jackson, a living historian who in real life resides in Raleigh, NC, who was Josiah's "mother," explained: "I was devastated. I felt that I had to stay by him, keep my hand on him. I could not leave his body... not until he had been taken safely inside the church and laid out with dignity could I leave his side."

Her real-life husband, Ashley, who portrayed the dead boy's father, also recalled those vivid moments: "My emotions were mixed. There was the basic knowledge that this was acting, yet it became uncomfortably real during the scenario". Wife Kathleen agreed: "I was utterly overpowered by my emotions during the scenario. When I went running down the road, water and towel in hand, I thought my boy was lightly wounded, I would care for him, our family would reunite. Arriving on the scene to find him already dead was devastating, in a very real sense. I was stunned and the feeling that I had lost my child actually did not subside until several days later".

Pridgeon, the "dead" soldier, recalled: "It was difficult for me to stay in character after they placed the blanket over me because when my ‘mother' and my ‘father' began to mourn me, I started to think of the scores of families who suffered losing a loved one during the war. I realized that I, as Josiah Jackson, was leaving behind a mother and a father who needed my help on the farm and two younger brothers who I wouldn't get to see grow up or play ball with. It really got to me and my eyes began to well up in tears at the thought of the thousands of young men who had died in such a tragic way."

Hank Trent, an Ohioan who portrayed a middle class slave-owning Confederate partisan living in the outskirts of McDowell, remembered: "We had taken refuge in the Presbyterian Church with other civilians while Sunday's battle was going on, when someone came running in to the sanctuary, called out that Josiah Jackson had been shot, and ran out. The Jacksons, needless to say, became distraught... Finally, word came that Josiah was near the tavern and by that time, the battle was over, and we could get to where he lay. When we arrived, those around him informed us he had just died. The emotions the Jackson family and their friends showed were beautifully understated and realistic, as they knelt over their son's body and covered his face with a handkerchief."

As the Jacksons' good neighbor, Trent took it upon himself to locate and hire some teamsters and their wagon, to carry the young man's body back to the Presbyterian Church –a building that, incidentally, still bears some of the scars of the real battle, in 1862. Friends removed the soldier's accoutrements and inventoried the effects from his pockets, then lifted the body in a gray wool blanket and placed it on the horse-drawn cart. In the church's front yard, there was a chaotic Confederate field hospital, manned by a harried surgeon who ordered them to move the corpse elsewhere, arguing that he needed the space to treat those still living.

Friends, neighbors, even total strangers, stopped to comfort the Jacksons. Real tears and heaving chests were evident everywhere.

Later, Trent posted in the Internet: "Anyone who was touched by the events after Josiah's death knows that reenacting does not always, by definition, mock or glorify the suffering of war. As we drove home from the event later that day, I saw cars gathered for a real funeral procession near the funeral home at the other edge of town. I suddenly realized there may have been real mourners in town, who didn't give a darn about some silly reenactment going on, and I thought back to what everyone had done in connection with Josiah's death. Would I have been embarrassed that we might have been ‘reenacting' death in front of a real mourner? It occurred to me that no, I wouldn't have wished anything were done differently; I still would have participated proudly. The events... were a tribute to every young man who lost his life in war."

Kathleen Jackson, the "grieving" mother, concluded: "It is good to have scenarios like this, for reenactors to experience and for the public to see, because it points out the tragedy of war. Not honor, not glory, not loud guns and charging horses, but downright heartbreaking tragic loss. For me, as a living historian, this is the bottom line of the Civil War. I want people to realize how hard this war was on the nation and its individual citizens."

Asked to ascertain why the vignette worked so effectively, ‘mother' Jackson noted: "(It)... seemed so real in large part because it was unplanned –just like real life. No, this scenario cannot be duplicated. It was utterly unique, just like a real death. None of us had any idea it would happen this way..."

Sean Pridgeon concurred: "I am not sure if I would do this particular scenario again, because it was not planned and it just happened. All the emotions were real. I think we would lose something if we tried to plan it out."

One thing is certain, "the death of Josiah Jackson" was, without a doubt, one of the first-person highlights of many in the fine program at McDowell.

(Photos coming soon - to be scanned -- KC)