Between concerts, festival-goers can visit `Tent O' Wonders'

By JULIE CLAY
Staff Writer

You won't meet Dr. William Baas at the Great
American Brass Band Festival. 
Instead, you will meet Quartermaster Elisah Wilburn Bowman of the 7th Kentucky Infantry (USA), along with a few friends of his unit.
Housed in what is known as the "Tent O' Wonders," Bowman and members of his company will answer Civil War questions and explain how soldiers lived, worked, ate and slept. The tent's nickname is period-appropriate, Baas said, from the traveling salesmen or sutlers who followed both Confederate and Union armies and "medicine men" who hawked the latest in good-for-you tonics.
The 7th was mustered in Garrard County at Camp Dick Robinson and saw action the from Kentucky campaign, including the Battle of Perryville, to Vicksburg, Va. in 1863. It was not considered one of the "fighting regiments" of the war, spending much of its service time on garrison duty.

Soldiers matched with re-enactors
Bowman, a 47-year-old farmer from Clay County most closely matches Baas today, so his portrayal of the Civil War soldier is not so far-fetched. "They gave me the oldest fellow," Baas said. The 7th Infantry matches historic soldiers with its re-enactors to give the most authentic impression. 
"I call it authenticity, others call it 'attention to
detail," Baas said.
He began in the infantry as a private -- "mostly
marching." 
Today at re-enactments, "Bowman" can be found
sipping lemonade in a tent while "battles" rage around him. A quartermaster's role was to be in charge of supplies: Food, ammunition and uniforms. He sometimes misses being with the action "until you realize you are in Mississippi in July with 50 pounds of equipment and a wool uniform on."
Bowman was mustered out at age 49 -- "dismissed for old age," Baas said, although the veteran soldier lived to be 97 and fathered nine children after the Civil War ended. He had "20 acres, 12 pigs, four cows and a silver pocket watch," Baas said, fingering his own pocket watch.
Baas' interest in the Civil War began at an early age.
Before the advent of television, Baas' heroes lived next door, appeared in bubble gum cards and in book series. 
Their stories centered around war: The
Spanish-American. World War I. World War II. "We thrived on those stories," Baas said.

His father immersed himself in U.S. history
His father emigrated to the United States from his
native Germany at age 13. Taking great pride in his new country, Baas' father immersed himself in its history and bought a subscription to Landmark books, a Civil War series aimed at preteen boys for Baas. 
Most every summer, father and son would head off to a battlefield, reading ahead and discussing the battle and the generals as they traveled. "He always bought me something," Baas now recalls, including a minié ball from Gettysburg. 
His early experiences have become a lifelong passion.
When he moved to Danville, he said he was just an amateur historian. But when he got involved with the Perryville Battlefield, "suddenly it became living history."
The Civil War has become a family hobby for Baas, although his wife "has never had the interest.
Somehow, not bathing and wearing long gowns never appealed to her," Baas said, shaking his head.
But Baas' children, have enjoyed re-creating the Civil War with their father, he said. His daughter Ann Marie even took Victorian dance lessons with her father, so they could waltz at Civil War era-balls. Her high school graduation gift was a complete, tailor-made Civil War ball gown, with all the accessories.
"It's a lifelong passion," he said. "At least, it has been so far."