Countywide : Students Get Lively Peek at Civil War

The horrors and the hardships of the Civil War were revisited at Rio del Valle Junior High School in Oxnard on Friday as two experts on America’s most deadly war displayed its uniforms, equipment and weapons.

“We’re not here to bore you with dates and names,” said Dave Kanawah, who was dressed as a member of Terry’s Texas Rangers, a cavalry unit for the Confederacy.

“We’re going to tell you how the soldiers lived, about personal hygiene, medical aid and whether they had any fun.”

Kanawah and Jack Wells, both docents at the state’s Ft. Tejon State Historic Park during spring and summer, said soldiers on both sides originally thought the war would be short-lived and the experience of a lifetime.

“They looked forward to living under the stars, cooking food over a campfire and wearing neat uniforms,” Kanawah said.

“But by the end of the war, every family who lived east of the Mississippi River, both North and South, lost at least one person.”

Wells, uniformed as a Union sniper, demonstrated the loading and firing of a muzzleloading Springfield rifle.

Students jumped at the loud bark and puff of smoke when the rifle was fired.

“The noise and smoke was so loud,” Wells said, “the guys got so confused they couldn’t hear whether their rifles had gone off.”

That confusion would lead to overloading the rifle and jamming it, causing soldiers to pitch their rifles and run from the battle, he said.

Desertion--and execution for it--was often preferable to the horrors of battle and the threat of disease.

Unsanitary conditions in camp caused lice infestations and dysentery. Outbreaks of measles wiped out thousands, Kanawah said.

Kanawah’s and Wells’ “living history” had a light side. During the war, bored men would bet on anything, including how fast a favorite louse could jump off a dinner plate.

Boredom caused 60,000 Confederate soldiers to pelt each other in a three-day snow fight sanctioned by their superiors.

“In the middle of the third day, one soldier loaded a cannon with snow laced with rocks.

“Only then did the officers put a stop to the snow fight,” Kanawah said.