Civil War Days at Duncans Mills offers new stage for Confederate flag debate

One week after the Confederate battle flag was permanently lowered from the grounds of the South Carolina State House, the iconic image of the secessionist South waved in the wind Sunday at a Duncans Mills pasture in west Sonoma County.

The setting was the annual Civil War Days extravaganza, which started Saturday and continued Sunday at the Casini Ranch, on the southern banks of the Russian River. Hundreds marched in itchy wool uniforms and brandished muskets to re-enact clashes between Union and Confederate soldiers in a dry, rutted California pasture.

The event, touted as the largest of its kind in Northern California, and now in its 16th year, offered a new stage this year for the debate that has raged over the Confederate banner - to some a defiant symbol of the heritage and culture of the Old South, to many others a flag that stands for the worst strains of American racism, stretching back to the institution of slavery the South fought to defend.

Re-enactors, some hardly breaking character, sought to address that debate in various ways Sunday. Some said the banner had been co-opted and no longer symbolized what it once had for Confederate soldiers.

“Unfortunately for us, the KKK, skinheads, these hate groups turned (the flag) into a symbol of hatred,” said the day’s Confederate Commander Mark Price, 57, of Grass Valley, who sat in the shade with a cigar between battles in a red gingham shirt, gray vest, wool pants and leather boots. “That is part of why we do this.”

South Carolina lawmakers voted to remove the flag from government property amid outcry over the killing of nine black people gunned down June 17 during a Bible study in Charleston. The alleged gunman in the rampage, a 21-year-old white man, was later shown in online photos holding a Confederate flag, an association that fueled moves to finally remove it from South Carolina State House and ban or strip it from display at other prominent private and public place, including NASCAR racing venues such as Sonoma Raceway.

In doing so, many of the banner’s staunchest defenders agreed that such displays going forward would be better suited for museums.

And it so it was Sunday, with the focus on history - from the “period correct” brimmed hats down to the fastenings on a boot - that colored discussion about the flag at Casini Ranch.

For the hundreds of historical re-enactment and Civil War buffs camped out for the weekend, it was 1863 and Union and Confederate soldiers were busy facing off in skirmishes out on a rugged pasture in the blazing sun. President Abraham Lincoln gave an address to members of the public. Women in thick skirts and bonnets darned clothing in the shade.

“You learn why some people defend the Confederate flag, the history of it,” said Donald Hamilton, 25, of Hayward, seated in the stands after the morning battle, his first time attending a reenactment event.

Hamilton, who is black, said that he did not feel strongly about the flag’s removal in South Carolina, but agreed it was time to take it down. Still, he said he felt that the historical context was a valuable place to fly the flag “especially for little kids, to learn the history of the country, good and bad.”

Participant after participant, leaning on long muskets or swishing in full skirts, defended flying the Confederate battle flag at the re-enactment as a recognition of history and an important exercise regardless of current-day events.

“We portray 1863,” said Paul Vancas, 52, of Magalia near Chico. “It is a military flag, that is all it is.”

Vancas runs an auto detailing business in Auburn, but over the weekend he was a Confederate artillery commander. He stood outside a canvas tent and talked to a group of rapt visitors about the type of weapons used in the war.

He described the lead bullets that led to a quick death if wounded in the head but, due to the size and velocity, a slow painful death if struck in the gut. A shot in the arm led to amputation and, eventually, death from infection, he told the group.

“Wash my hands? That’s insulting, I’m not dirty,” said 15-year-old history buff Zachary Ulrich of Vacaville, who was mocking Civil War-era misconceptions about hygiene.

Kicking up clouds of dust, a team of six horses rumbled past pulling a supply wagon called a caisson.

The Civil War’s first major battle was on July 21, 1861, a clash the Southerners called First Manassas and Northerners called the Battle of Bull Run.

Civilian spectators showed up to watch the inaugural skirmish, which was widely expected to be a Union rout but became a stunning Confederate victory. It signaled what would be a protracted and devastating four-year fight that left an estimated 620,000 dead.

To this day, it remains America’s bloodiest war.

Historical re-enactment events started as a way to remind people that war “is miserable,” according to Dan Leeandel, 48, of Redwood City.

“People forget that,” said Leeandel, who was dressed in the gray-blue wool suit of a Union artilleryman.

The other side on Sunday flew not only the Confederate battle flag but also the first national flag of the Confederacy, the so-called “Stars and Bars,” and as well as a series of other banners, including a mostly white version that was short-lived because without wind it appeared to signal surrender.

President Lincoln, portrayed with beard and 6-foot-4-inch stature by Covina resident Robert Broski, scoffed at a question about the use of the Confederate battle flag in Sunday’s action.

“Do you know where I was born? Kentucky. I am a Southern gentleman. ‘Dixieland’ is still my favorite song,” Broski said.

Price, the Confederate commander for the weekend, said his imagined character was a “fire-breathing, secessionist, pro-slavery plantation owner.”

“All of us obviously oppose slavery. It was a terrible institution,” Price said of the re-enactment participants. “It was rich men that created that war, and for the poor farmers, they felt invaded” by the North.

Price, who graduated from Piner High School in Santa Rosa , said he attended his first Civil War re-enactment as a teenager near Warm Springs Dam and joined the historical army that day in time for the second battle. He said he’s always been on the Confederate side because his family came from the South. He opposed the flag’s removal from the South Carolina State House.

Still, Price said he was proud to say that he has been at Civil War events where audience members were asked to leave because they publicly demonstrated racist views.

“The flag didn’t pull the trigger, a mentally ill kid did,” Price said of the Charleston massacre.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.