Last week a time-warp descended on the State Park beside our house. Overlaid on the invisible borders of the frisbee-golf course, an army encampment of Civil War soldiers and camp followers sprang up, authentic in every detail (except, perhaps, for the general lack of dirt and grime).

This group of history hobbyists pitches camp here every year to commemorate the Idaho Volunteers’ contribution to the Civil War. The Territory of Idaho sent volunteer soldiers in response to the U.S. call for troops, although most of them ended up guarding way stations along the Oregon Trail rather than facing off against Confederates.

Still, the Oregon Trail duty was no picnic; nor were the various “Indian wars” in which many of those troops became entangled. The Pioneer Cemetery and the Idaho State Veterans’ Cemetery–both in the foothills above Boise–hold row upon row of the Idaho Territory’s Civil War dead.  But here they are today—alive and lively, dressed (and armed!) for time travel, and every one of them tickled to talk about their carefully collected “combat couture,” along with accessories from mess kits to musketry.

I walked over to the park and wandered through the time-warp with my camera, anticipating the humor of some anachronistic contrasts (Civil War soldier on a cell phone, maybe?), but discovered instead how devoted to detail these folks truly are.

The only out-of-place item I spotted all afternoon was the pair of neon-green earplugs worn by a teenage Private on the cannon crew. And the cannon-fodder itself, I guess–the gunnery officer described their cement-filled tennis balls as “the poor man’s cannonball.”

While the gunners fired volleys into the lake, the blacksmith banged away on horseshoes at his forge, the camp cook hovered over her cast-iron cookware, and the laundry tent was flanked by bright-red “union suit” long underwear jigging in the breeze…

I had assumed, for some reason, that the Civil War re-enactors would mostly be Old Guys, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that nearly half of them were teenagers–scrawny young men in Privates’ uniforms, awkwardly doffing their forage caps in deference to the grey-mustached officers, and some young ladies in hoop skirts and shawls making eyes at the uniformed young men. (No “acting” there, I’m pretty sure–some things don’t change over the centuries!) It was a pleasant surprise to find our future generation as interested in the past as their elders.

And then we had the distinguished and dignified President in attendance. President Lincoln, that is. Standing solemnly beside a pair of Union officers–with a sparsely-starred flag behind them–this gentleman had all the regal reserve of a still-photo of the Original…