It was the night before a re-enactment of the Battle of Brooklyn, but efforts to teleport to the past had already begun.
Men shed their modern-day clothes and donned leather neck stocks, gaitered trousers and sleeved waistcoats with buff facings dyed madder red. Some had tents, while others insisted on wool blankets laid on the ground — a nod, they said, to historical accuracy.
Even so, compromises were made. The campsite was not in Brooklyn, but at the Alpine Scout Camp in New Jersey. And when a bottle of contemporary cider was offered, its cap was painstakingly removed with a bayonet.
But the time for libations was short. Just after dawn, some 300 re-enactors — representing Continental, British and German regiments — would descend on Prospect Park to depict the Revolutionary War’s largest battle, and the first to occur after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The nation’s 250th anniversary has been an extended Super Bowl for re-enactors, a moment when their passions intersect with a broader interest in the drama of the country’s founding. They relish educating curious onlookers about the war, its characters and a chapter in history that they feel is flattened in service of national identity.
But it’s a quest for verisimilitude that most animates them.
They comb through old letters, search for paintings from the period and locate vintage uniforms to ensure the historical accuracy of their homemade attire. They spend thousands of dollars on materials for these uniforms, which they often fabricate themselves.
And they share battle scars from recreating famous 15-mile marches from the war. (Do lost toenails count?)
Their pursuit of accuracy seemed laudable, if curious. Then, a few weeks before the battle, Niels Hobbs, a leader and elder statesman for a group that portrays His Majesty’s 40th Regiment of Foot, Second Battalion Light Infantry Company, reached out with a question. By text.
Might I be persuaded to join the 40th, dress in British garb and prepare to invade Brooklyn alongside his company?
A few days later, Mr. Hobbs, 50, who teaches marine biology at the University of Rhode Island, added what seemed like a critical proviso.
“Beards were an extreme anomaly in the period — almost bizarrely,” he said, citing my thick facial hair.
“Are you willing to shave?”
A Balancing Act
Ben Theis, 53, is one of the lead re-enactment organizers, and the prep work for 250th anniversary events like the Battle of Brooklyn began as long as six years ago.
Hiccups are inevitable: The Brooklyn battle was initially to be held at Old Bethpage Village Restoration on Long Island, but Mr. Theis and his fellow organizers were forced to pivot because a wedding at the venue took precedence.
The inconvenience proved fortuitous. They secured a portion of Prospect Park’s largest green space, the Long Meadow, on Aug. 22. The timing and location were a bit of a holy grail for those dedicated to this “living history” genre — on the actual site of the event just five days shy of the battle’s 250th anniversary.
Months earlier, Mr. Theis toured the park on a frigid February day with other event organizers.
His mind raced as he surveyed the expanse and contemplated how the re-enactors would render the grandness of this battle, which originally involved about 30,000 combatants, in one contained corner of the park.
Every re-enactment involves a balance, Mr. Theis observed.
“Eighty percent of it is for the public, and 20 percent of it is for the re-enactors,” he said. “So there are some things that are going to happen that the public may not even see. And that is OK. Think of it as building up the tension.”
In a rowhouse in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood, Dan Center, a 33-year-old high school history teacher, has his own way of adding to the drama. As a re-enactor for the British, Mr. Center helps tailor kits for his unit, which has roughly 30 active members.
He previously worked at museums, including the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, and recalled, about a decade ago, portraying a Continental soldier at the Battle of Princeton.
Just as Gen. George Washington’s army had done in January 1777, Mr. Center marched about 14 miles in the cold to Princeton carrying 60 to 80 pounds of gear. The water in his canteen froze, along with the sweat that pooled under his uniform.
Mr. Center was enraptured despite the miserable conditions.
He recalled thinking: “Am I dreaming? Am I actually in a living history event or am I in 1777?”
Each uniform takes Mr. Center between 30 and 40 hours to complete, depending on the rank. The fabrics come from a mill in England that produces the material as it would have been made more than two centuries ago.
Mr. Center’s grandfather served as a tailor in the U.S. Army during World War II, and his great-grandfather made uniforms in the Russian military.
“I actually became a tailor through this hobby,” he said, a musket resting against a nearby wall, a bayonet sitting on the counter beside his blender.
He rattled off other members of his unit who fill critical tasks: shoemakers, tinsmiths, blacksmiths who “make all of the metallurgy and the tools that we use.” There was even “a guy who brews beer the same way it was brewed back then.”
Mr. Center, it turned out, had one more uniform to prepare. I gave him my measurements.
Ye Shall Be Judged
On the eve of battle, the campground in Alpine was filled with re-enactors from as far away as the Carolinas and Quebec portraying British, German and Continental soldiers. They set up tents and stoked fires to cook around.
There would be little of that for Mr. Center, his crew and me.
Light infantry units like the 40th rarely used tents, instead opting for wigwams if it rained or snowed. Mr. Center and Mr. Hobbs outfitted me with a wool blanket, which would be my mattress for the night, along with a uniform, a leather helmet, a musket, a bayonet and an ammo box.
As we prepared our site, another member of the 40th, Daniel Sieh, 32, looked askance at a group of Lexington Minutemen, who laughed as they drank beers and cooked steaks over an open fire.
“My biggest vendetta is against the camp kitchen,” Mr. Sieh said. “All these pots and pans,” he added. “They were not carrying this stuff.”
Mr. Sieh had brought along homemade ship’s biscuits, a rock-hard concoction of flour and water carried by Revolutionary War-era soldiers. He did not bring along his leftovers from dinner at a diner in nearby Northvale, N.J. (He ordered a Reuben sandwich and French fries; I had the Greek salad).
As the evening progressed, acquaintances from other units — both Continental and British — wandered over, to drink beer and cider and smoke clay pipes. They reminisced about past re-enactments and talking excitedly about future ones.
The camaraderie captured the essence of what makes these guys do this, over and over again. It’s not for the money; most of these events, aside from those sponsored by a school or some other institution, involves no pay.
As our fire crackled, I listened as Mr. Hobbs and others noted how they no longer had to wear bellyboxes, cartridge holders worn across a soldier’s stomach. It was a relief to now be portraying a stage in the war when their unit had dispensed with the cumbersome appendage.
“I love the evolution of the British uniform,” Mr. Sieh said. “There is still some pomp and circumstance. But it’s just shaped into a perfect blend of style but also lethality.”
The British Are Coming
After a fitful night of sleep, we packed up our gear: The Hudson was to be crossed, but by tour buses, with ads for a personal injury lawyer emblazoned on the side.
Upon arriving, we streamed out at Prospect Park West and Third Street in Brooklyn and fell into formation, blending in (but not really) with perplexed residents that included some wearing medals from a half marathon.
As we marched into the park, it became obvious that Mr. Theis’s carefully laid plans might need alterations. Two cannons and a redoubt awaited us in a wooded area, but we couldn’t reach them: Parks workers did not want regiments of redcoats crossing the half-marathon course.
Mr. Hobbs, Mr. Theis and others improvised. We paraded around the Long Meadow, our bayonets attached to our muskets. Thousands of spectators cheered, snapping photos and peppering us redcoats with playful barbs about how we may have won this battle but would (spoiler alert) lose the war.
Then the engagement began. In order to surround the Continental Army, our unit took position on the British right flank, navigating around several women setting up a volleyball net.
The exchange of gunfire began, drawing cheers from the crowd.
Crouched behind Mr. Center in the middle of the Long Meadow, I aimed my musket over his shoulder. Gunpowder stung my eyes. A leather neck stock chafed at my sweat-drenched skin. My feet, coddled from years of proper arch support, throbbed inside reproductions of 18th-century footwear.
Mr. Hobbs, kneeling several yards away, shouted at us to move to higher ground.
“Come on, guards, push them,” Mr. Hobbs yelled at another group of British re-enactors who were supposed to capture Continental regiments.
“We might have to just take them ourselves.”
After the Continental Army’s surrender, the event culminated with a march down Third Street, a route I normally jog. Now I was holding a musket, preening for cheering onlookers in Park Slope as military drummers and fifers played around me. For whatever ambivalence that might exist about this complicated history, the crowd seemed to be having a blast. I was, too.
Our journey ended at the Old Stone House, a recreation of a 17th-century Dutch farmhouse that was nearby and the site of the battle’s climax on Aug. 27, 1776.
There, a Maryland regiment made a last stand that served as a diversion so that the rest of the Continental Army, which was outflanked and outnumbered, could retreat. If General Washington had been captured, the war might have been lost.
Many members of this regiment, who came to be known as the Maryland 400, ended up surrendering to the British, where the Long Meadow is today.
As he milled about afterward, Mr. Theis suggested that the event had ended up being a better spectacle for the public, evincing some disappointment about how much of the re-enactment seemed too far removed from what happened 250 years ago.
He did take some solace in being on the site of the real battle. “This is the spot,” he said. “That is something that we, as re-enactors, we cherish.”
Rather than staying for boxed lunches and a ceremony at the Old Stone House, a cadre of redcoats headed for a nearby bar.
A man posing as Gen. Henry Clinton — a top British commander — sat drinking a Narragansett, frustrated by how disorganized the outing seemed. A sword dangled at his side, and he said that after taking Mounjaro, a GLP-1, he had lost so much weight that he had to fashion a new uniform.
I was somewhat surprised to find my compatriots underwhelmed after a morning that had left me so enthralled.
Mr. Center, Mr. Sieh and Mr. Hobbs were more sanguine, happy to have shown me the ropes and hopeful I’d attend the Battle of White Plains re-enactment in October. More members of the 40th would show, they said, and Mr. Sieh would make one of his famous stews.
That would be the real thing.
The next day Mr. Hobbs graciously texted to see how I felt. My feet were sore, I said, but man, what an experience.
“Yup. Feel all those things,” he replied. “We’re all back home and catching up with modernity. So it goes.”
Julie Snyder contributed reporting.
The post They Fought the Battle of Brooklyn, After a Bus Ride From New Jersey appeared first on New York Times.
