Whiz Kid: Civil War Reenactor Ben Pacileo

Ben Pacileo has trudged through the Wheat Field at Gettysburg, been shot up at Cedar Creek, mustered at Richmond and even “died” in a battle or two. The 20-year-old Middlebury resident has won battles for the Union and lost to the Confederacy dozens of times.

Pacileo, a 2009 Pomperaug High School graduate, has participated in nearly 50 events as a Civil War reenactor since he joined the 2ndConnecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery when he was 12-years-old.

A small living history by a few local Civil War reenactors on the Middlebury Green when Pacileo was 12 piqued his interest in the hobby.

"It started a spark in me,” Pacileo says, pairing his love and interest of history, especially the battles of the Civil War.

Pacileo and his father, Tony, got to talking with some of the local reenactors in the 2nd Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery company, and in 2003, after getting outfitted as a soldier for the Union Army, he went to Easton, Mass. to participate in his first reenactment -- a depiction of the struggle at the Borderlands in Kentucky and Tennessee.

“It was a lot of fun,” Pacileo says, adding that, although he was too young to shoot the muskets loaded with blanks, he fell in line as a young member of the Medical Corps and marched into battle shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers. He delivered ice and pulled the “dead” and “wounded” off the field. He then camped out with the rest of the reenactors for a weekend-long portrayal.

As a reenactor, Pacileo assumes the identity of a Union solider during the Civil War and stays in character throughout the event.

“I pretend I am a farmer, a simple private in the Federal Army,” he says.

He dons wool trousers, a basic sack coat, a Kepi or felt slouch hat, and adorns himself with a red blanket roll. When he turned 16, Pacileo was able to finally shoot a musket loaded with blanks and participate on the battle field in combat. He did so at a battle reenactment depicting the fighting at Cedar Creek, Va.

For the events that take place in an open field, Pacileo joins other men, women and children from all over the country as they prepare camp for the event –- a white canvas tent, maybe a cot, and a blanket to sleep on. They spend their days reenacting battles and skirmishes and the nights are spent over an open camp fire, cooking food they way they did in the 1860s and talking history.

Pacileo has been doing about four or five of these events per year since he began the hobby. They range from Massachusetts to Virginia in the form of parades, living histories and period demonstrations to full on three-day reenactments complete with artillery, Calvary on horseback and canons and muskets sounding in battle.

This past weekend, Pacileo’s company –- the 2nd Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery -- played host to hundreds of reenactors from all over New England to participate in the “On To Richmond” Civil War reenactment at the Three Rivers Park at Woodbury. Pacileo has been partaking in the Woodbury reenactment every other year since it began in 2007.

While Pacileo says reenacting is an expensive hobby –- muskets alone can cost up to $2,000 -- it’s the details that make reenactors authentic. In addition to wearing the traditional uniforms and clothing bought at a Civil War Sutlery store, he and his father put their carpentry skills to good use. They built period era items like a lantern box to bring with them that adds authenticity to their characters.

According to Wikipedia, Pacileo is one in a group of more than 30,000 Civil War reenactors in the country today. They may be Union or Confederate or civilians, young or old, but one thing in common with reenactors is their unified love of history.

“There is a lot of down time,” Pacileo says, adding that it’s the talk around the fires at the encampments at night that taught him so much more about the Civil War than he was able to absorb in the short time he spent studying the Civil War in middle school.

“I love talking to the people about history,” he says. “When I first started reenacting, it was more about the battles. But now it’s about the history. I have been interested in history since middle school.”

Reenactors, he says, are “a really good group of people,” ranging from young to old, civilians to those who take leave from the military to partake in the events.

“There are real soldiers, actual military corps who practice drills,” he says.

Through his hobby, Pacileo has been able to immerse himself as a soldier on the very grounds where some of the battles were fought. He joined tens of thousands of enthusiasts in Gettysburg to depict an encounter there for the 145th anniversary of the three-day July 1863 battle. Most recently he traveled to Manassas, Va. to reenact the 150th anniversary of the first battle of the Civil War there.

“We portrayed an earlier company from New Hampshire because the 2nd Connecticut was not around back then,” Pacileo says.

While not a very common hobby among his friends, Pacileo says, they are still very interested in what he does. Most people he meets whom he tells about his passion are “very intrigued by it,” he says.

“They don’t know anyone else who does this, so I can talk with them about it and they are very interested," Pacileo says.

For young would-be reenactors, Pacileo suggests doing as much research as possible.

"There are all kinds of good companies out there," he says.

But one thing he finds with all reenactors is that they all share his passion.

“Reenacting should mean something to people,” he says. “It should remind people that the Civil War actually happened here on our own soil.”