GREENFIELD — “Congratulations. You are now soldiers,” Elliot Levy of Longmeadow, a.k.a. “Capt. John Bigelow” tells the latest “recruits” to the 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery. A few of the Greenfield Middle School eighth-graders, ordered to line up shoulder-to-shoulder before him, are given thick wool, blue (Union) or gray (Confederate) jackets to try on. One student gets to wear a backpack, which looks more like a suitcase with shoulder straps, and would have weighed about 20 pounds when packed up with gear.

Were they actual Union soldiers, they would have had to wear the heavy jackets, plus double-layer wool trousers and long underwear of the times to march in, even during the hottest summer days. They would have been carrying their rifle and bayonet, a blanket, a waterproofed ground sheet, ammunition, dried beans, coffee, sugar and hard biscuits, perhaps a frying pan, kettle or pot, possibly an ax or shovel, a water bottle, personal items and clothing.

This is what soldiers carried when they fought the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, in 100-degree heat and nearly 100 percent humidity, Levy said.

“The Civil War did not leave Greenfield untouched,” Levy continued. “There were 400 men who fought from Greenfield and another 100 men from surrounding towns. Of the 400 from Greenfield, 43 — not much older than you are — never came back.”

“Over 200,000 (Civil War soldiers) were documented to be under the age of 18,” Levy continued, “although there were drummer boys at the age of 9.”

About 80 eighth-graders spent time Thursday on Beacon Field, learning about the Civil War as told through the stories and equipment brought to town by the *9th Massachusetts Battery*.

The 9th Battery (Bigelow’s Battery) portrays a Union light artillery battery during the American Civil War. Their aim is to educate students about the Civil War and the life of a soldier in the volunteer Union army.

The students, in Team 8B, spent part of the day watching the Civil War-era film “Glory,” then speaking with the Civil War re-enactors at Beacon Field. Afterwards, the students took to the ballfield to try a game of “Rounders,” which was a Civil War-era precursor to baseball. Some also played card games that were popular in that era.

“Battlefields were often strewn with playing cards,” Levy told one group. “That’s because card-playing was considered evil. So when the men went in to battle, they got rid of their cards, so, in case they were killed, their bodies wouldn’t be shipped back home with cards on them.”

“And then, when the battle was over, you might see them trying to retrieve the cards,” he added.

Levy says this is the fifth year that the volunteer enactors have come to Greenfield Middle School, at the invitation of teacher Denise Petrin.

Other subjects covered included surgical methods of the times (no antiseptics, no anesthesia, no personal hygiene on the part of the doctor), food — or the lack of it — the use of the bugle as a message delivery system to soldiers under fire, and the firing of a cannon cast in Boston in 1864.

“It was cool — very cool,” student Jacob Balcanoff said afterward. “I went to Washington, D.C., once, to watch re-enactors. But they only fired guns, not a cannon.”

“This is my fourth or fifth time here,” said Levy. “Not every school gives their students this gift of living history.”

He said the group plans to return to Greenfield soon to do another re-enactment for other students.

Source: www.recorder.com