Tabernacle is a town rich in history, and resident Bob Boer is doing his part to make that history come alive.
Boer, a Civil War re-enactor, will speak on the life of a Civil War soldier and will demonstrate some of the equipment and clothes in use during that period at the Tabernacle Historical Society’s meeting on Thursday, Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m. at town hall. The event is open to the public and free to attend.
Boer’s start in reenacting began nearly 40 years ago.
“I actually got into the reenactment business first during the 1976 bicentennial because of a co-worker. His family was involved with the bicentennial and part of the organization called the Brigade of the American Revolution. He was in the group organized as the Second New Jersey Regiment, Lawrie Company,” Boer said.
From that, a love of reenacting and the history it represents was born.
“While putting on a living history encampment in Haddonfield one autumn weekend in 1987, I met a gentleman who was a spectator and was wearing a Union forage cap. We struck up a very long conversation of the differences between the two time periods, the American Revolution and the Civil War. With that, I joined the 12th New Jersey Regiment, Company K, which served during the Civil War period,” Boer said.
His interest in the Civil War had already been established from childhood.
“When I was a boy about 9 or 10 years old, my parents took us kids shopping. I was browsing through a pile of books on sale at W.T. Grants or Pomeroy’s, when I saw a book about 8” x 11” with the title, ‘Two Flags Flying.’ It had a blue and gray cover. I don’t know how much it cost, but I convinced my parents to buy it for me,” Boer said. “The book was about the various people that made an impact on the Civil War or had been impacted by it. The individuals covered were President Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, General Grant, General Robert E. Lee and many other famous and not-so-famous people. The profiles were not in depth, but it covered a certain point during that war. From that book, my interest blossomed.”
The commitment to keeping everything the re-enactors do true to that era is important. The uniform Boer wears is made as it was in the 1860s. Shirts are made of muslin, cotton, linen or fine wool. The headgears are of various sorts, but mainly wool with leather brims, called forage caps. The re-enactors cook over open fires. Some meals are prepared authentically, however, they do eat more modernly when the public is not around, Boer said.
“It’s kind of neat. I try to get into the part of living during that period of the Civil War. The encampment is set up by the regulations of the time and by other researched information. Battles are preplanned and often walked through by the battlefield coordinators and field commanders,” Boer said.
