The Battle of Canfield That Wasn’t

Union Army Civil War Reenactors Prepare an Infantry Assault at Argus Park, Canfield, Ohio

Union Army Civil War Reenactors Prepare an Infantry Assault at Argus Park, Canfield, Ohio

A few years back — I think it was 2009 — I took a summer trip back home to the Youngstown, Ohio area after having endured my first few months of graduate school in Calgary, Alberta. While back home, I went to a biannual local event, the kind that attracts a certain breed of generally harmless miscreants: a Civil War reenactment. Granted, there are lamer ways to spend your time, but not many, and since I’m a historian who focuses on the Civil War era, viewing one of the more popular modern manifestations of the war in contemporary culture seemed like a good way to spend an afternoon.

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