Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by Crockett Sceptic.
For this July 15th, 2025, have your host James here, and I'm joined by some of my favorite
people.
We have this historic point boss with us right now.
I'm going to let you guys introduce yourselves so the audience can put a voice to the name,
and of course you know this voice and this man right here joining us right now.
Mr. Hanna?
Yes.
Mike Hittner from historic point boss and hello to everybody in radio land.
I appreciate you being here, Mike, always good to talk with you, and joining us today,
Bill Parker.
Bill, thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I am with one of the civil war ring and asking units at that will be at point back, and
I'm also with the Southwood County Historical Museum as a military historic.
Really know your stuff.
We got some people here that can really bring some education to us.
To people like me, I should say especially.
We're going to get into the event itself now and kind of talk to you on what's going
on.
Civil War days is happening over at this historic point boss at 364 Wakelead Road going
on July 26th and 27th from 10 to 4 on Saturday and 10 to 3 on Sunday.
We'll get into admission and details as we go along.
But Bill, when it comes to these things, we've heard about civil war reenactments in
that and pop culture and TV movies and a bunch, but I don't know how many people have
actually been a part of them or really know what to expect when taking one in.
Can we talk about that a little bit?
Yeah.
Civil War reenactments are kind of a formal affair where you'll learn how artillery soldiers
banded all civil war soldiers lived, fought, marched, how they handled their weapons, how
they drilled, how they fought their battles down to a tactical level.
The battles are pretty formal in themselves where the battles are planned out by officers
in advance and told they tell the units where they're supposed to go and do what they're
supposed to do.
And what we're seeing in these reenactments is a live retelling of some of the events
that happened, right?
This would also be for James and Bill is a skirmish because there was no battles fought
in this area, certainly.
Right.
And we're doing this for several reasons as we wanted to do this, Bill had wanted to
do this, probably what Bill probably 20 years back, but two of the Wacley sons were
in the Civil War for the Union and one son-in-law.
So we just received from a family out of New Mexico, the son-in-law to the Wacley family
about, I don't know, what do you think Bill, 2530 letters that were written back and
forth between his wife and himself and so those are heirloom letters, basically.
At least 25 to 30, if not more.
Yeah.
And when Bill was saying that they organized these skirmishes and everything and everything,
basically for our audience and for you, James, it's kind of choreography, because they
kind of work in advance and they know what they're going to do, when they're going to
do it and that sort of thing.
And we'll have both union soldiers here and confederate soldiers also.
So we'll have both sides represented here and I think I don't know if Bill knows what
he's going to be yet, but they sometimes tell him on the day of or so.
They told him to bring both uniforms.
That's interesting.
Oh, Bill, I should let you know I'm an actor by trait.
So I'm loving all of this for a lot of reasons as a historian nerd and as an actor.
I'm really enjoying the behind the curtain look of some of this.
And I know the audience will be too.
So from looking at the outline of the day ahead of for this event, the skirmish will begin
about 130 for each of the days.
Yeah.
I actually have the event schedule right in front of me and 130 both days will be the battle.
The battles tend to last about a half-hour to 45 minutes and it's also the busiest part
of the day.
After that, it looks like there's artillery demonstrations, infantry drills, cavalry
demonstration, medical scenarios and a period dams on Saturday night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Artillery drills are more about showing the public what it takes to make each gun fire because
that gun don't fire without the rest of the team.
It takes quite a few people to handle the piece.
Again, going to the pop culture, movies, a lot of this stuff, where we take a lot of
the information from these things.
If you're not fortunate enough to know somebody who was an ancestor that was a part of the
war and maybe handed down stories or something along those lines, the perspective that I
think this event gives to people and the opportunity for that, we are so used to modern
firearms.
We are so used to and accustomed to so many of these things.
I think even that, even if you think you know it, seeing it in action is a completely
different thing than just reading it in the book or something along those lines.
That part of this feels like a really important part.
Oh, yeah.
Specifically, what's the handling of these older period weapons?
You watch a movie on firing a musket and making fire in the movies multiple rounds
a minute, and that strictly is not a case.
I mean, a good infantry man during the Civil War can fire at maximum three rounds in
one minute, but in the movies, it makes it look like they're firing way more than they
could.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's always interesting in movies when you see nobody reload.
Nobody ever has to reload a movie, so it seems real nice that you see it.
Well, I think at the modern day movies, I think they want action, and so you can't wait
for that action.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
And back when I was in the infantry, I didn't mean vent where we actually timed out how
each soldier to fire three rounds.
That's exactly clocking.
I meant for three rounds with a minute 15.
Wow.
Wow.
I'm a little bit slower than an actual Civil War soldier.
Well, maybe Bill, you haven't got anybody shooting at you.
Yeah.
Might speak up a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wanted to also mention this is going to be featuring troops from the second O Wisconsin,
the Iron Brigade, sixth Wisconsin Lake Artillery, 41st Virginia, McAllister's battery, why it's
battery.
And the first Alabama Calvary and first Alabama Field Hospital are going to be involved
with this as well, Bill.
So far, all of those units are going to be involved except we had one cancellation.
Why it's battery could not make it.
Good enough.
Good enough.
What I'll be kind of interesting to James for the public is that we'll have a Civil War
era interpretation of a surgeon and his tools, you know, like a fuel hospital and all
that sort of thing.
I think it'll be kind of interesting to see what kind of tools they use, you know, fairly
I would say primitive by today's standards, but still probably the state of the art at
the time.
You know, and it's interesting to have Bill on here because you know, most of the time
when you and I get together, Mike, and we're talking about this to our point boss and we
were talking about it.
It's very similar to a conversation I have with Phil Brown over at the historical South
County Historical Museum.
And there's some differences of course, but one of the things that Phil likes to touch
on whenever they have an end so over there or, you know, different things that they bring
over that are a little more touchable or a little more moveable.
The historical point boss is a living breathing museum.
It's really an opportunity for you to be able to see and experience things all year long
mind you that you're feeling and you're experiencing of your ancestors of all of our ancestors
in one way or another.
And I find that to be so vital in teaching history to the younger generations.
Sure.
Bill, do you want to mention about the different artifacts and things from Southwood
County Historical and from your collection, you're going to bring over for the people
to see in the Wakely House?
Yeah, most of what is in the Southwood County Historical Museum's military archives is
actually post-war.
In the sense, we had a very active civil war veterans group located right in Wisconsin
Rapids called the Grand Irony of the Republic.
Their building does not exist anymore.
In fact, it's parking lot for the meat in now.
But what we do have is a few artifacts left from that G.A.
post, like a flag, they're all their rockers, they're ribbons, that is going to be
on display there.
We got a sword coming from that blunt to a soldier in the first Wisconsin Calvary in the museum.
That will be on display.
A photograph of a New York soldier in his name escapes my mind at the moment.
But he moved to rapids post-war.
He was a prisoner of war at Andersonville and we have some trench art pieces that he made
like a photo frame of himself while he was a prisoner of war at Andersonville.
And from my own collection, I got a piece that is actually a book from the reunion of
the 12th Wisconsin Infantry.
And this was the same unit that the Wacley brothers belonged to, Otis and Noobold.
And in the reunion book dated 1902, it was less Noobold Wacley attending the 1902
12th Wisconsin reunion in Wisconsin.
Wow.
Wow, is that cool?
And I also have some GAR ribbons that are from Adams County, that I'm going to be
putting on display there as well.
That's amazing.
Now, we'll get into some more of the details and different things that you can look
forward to about the event and price and some of those things.
I would like to just take a minute with both of you if we could to talk a little bit
about the purpose of this event and the meaning of it and everything.
And I will say right out the gate, just going back to our pre-game mic and the conversation
you and I were having, certainly everybody knows the phrase.
If you don't learn history, you're doomed to repeat it.
I think that goes without saying, hopefully, but if it doesn't, it needs to be said.
But there is also the side of this perspective, I think, that it can give us very often.
Regardless of your feelings, your political sides, any of these things or anything like that,
this history is our history, whether you're from the south of the north, whether you
had an ancestor to the fought in the Civil War or your family like mine that immigrated
this country afterwards or something like that.
This is our history and there is not only a pride that can come from it, but a perspective
that can only be brought from history.
There's nothing else that can give this kind of perspective in us, giving us an idea
whether we're talking about our soldiers in war or soldiers that could be in war and
the advantages and the positives that they have that our previous soldiers didn't or
the times that we're in.
And sometimes we get so caught up in the daily news and how heavy things can be in stuff.
And I think if you look back in history and look at this time and you're like, okay, yeah,
we can handle this.
Yeah, we've handled worse.
Oh, we've been through things like this before.
Our country is a teenager compared to other countries in the world, but our history is
that of a grown man in many ways.
We have to, like you were talking, James and I applaud that.
We have to own our history and recognize it.
This is our history was a certain time in our history when things were probably at probably
its greatest point, you know, since the revolution.
And we have to own that and a lot of times we try to forget about those things or gloss
over them and you can even see that in some of our history books nowadays.
You know, they kind of take a different perspective and everything, but this is just
a oneness and recognize this and to really celebrate it for what it was.
Yeah, yeah, I'd like to think too for those of us in the north that this gives us an
opportunity to to have some empathy and some understanding with our brothers and sisters
in the south.
I don't like the divide that exists in our country sometimes.
And I love seeing connections and things that bring us together more than separate us.
And I really truly think events like this bring us more together.
They are a shared history.
And I think that that goes a lot farther than we really realize sometimes.
And this is a really cool and interesting event too.
How often do you see something like that?
You don't get to see these kind of things, especially it's getting less and less Mike,
you were touching on this before about how many of these events go on anyway.
Yeah, I think Bill, what were you saying?
I think when we talked about it, maybe 10 or 12 events, 15 or 20 years ago, down now to
about four events in the state of Wisconsin, county and ours.
There's about five events in the state of Wisconsin.
None of them are in central Wisconsin.
There's one, in fact, there's one this weekend, it's in manamony falls right outside of Milwaukee.
There's Pekana with the Green Old Manchin, Pinecraft Village in Manitolot.
And that's the biggest civil war reenactment in the state of Wisconsin currently.
And there's also an event in Coon Valley, over Viola Cross, the North Skid Island event.
And that's usually an early October.
Now there are a couple of living history that different pine year fasts that are out there,
but they're not fully civil war.
I know of a couple of those that go on.
Excellent.
I appreciate that.
I would also like to chime in to about the question Mike answered earlier about our shared history.
I had three ANSAT Union ANSATsters that fought in the American Civil War.
None of them for the state of Wisconsin, all of them were Union.
They served in the Indiana Infantry various units.
And I'm going to consider it greater than I am, Union Blue.
I look at it this way, I am honoring my Union ANSATsters because you can't tell their side
of the story without the confederate.
Well said, Bill.
Yeah.
That's a good point.
Bill, the question I've gotten the back of my mind, and I guess I haven't said it, is
do you get more people want to represent the Union versus a Confederate side, and is it
hard to get people to represent the Confederate side?
Thank you, Mike.
I wanted to ask it.
I wasn't going to get you dead, though.
Thank you.
There was a time prior to, I would say, about 2017, when a lot of the monuments started
coming down that you had way more Confederates than Union as just that reason.
What's the shift in political attractiveness and popular culture?
It has gone more to the Union side now?
Interesting.
Interesting.
This is funny for me, when I can't help myself thinking about being in your shoes, Bill,
or some of the other participants.
The actor in me would want to be on the south side, and the, of course, Midwesterner in
me wants to represent the Union.
So I appreciate your perspective on this, too, of not only having done both, and been
in both uniforms, but the purposes and what the feeling for you behind that, I imagine
that's for a lot of people, the case when it comes to this.
We are more connected than we realize, and I think events like this really bring that
to the front.
I did want to come back.
Well, go ahead, Bill.
Let me touch into a little bit about that there.
There are Confederate soldiers buried in Wisconsin, and there were Confederate units that
even helped found towns within the state of Wisconsin.
Crandon, coming to mind, was formed.
The town was formed by soldiers from Kentucky's orphan brigade that could not go home after
the war.
So they moved up north and founded their own lumbering to mewanyby in the town of Crandon,
and they still honored their Confederate ancestry up there to this day with whole posting
Kentucky's in Crandon, Wisconsin.
That's really interesting.
So there is a Confederate history within the state of Wisconsin.
One of the, I want to just touch on again, the Civil War artifacts that will be on display,
and that is such an interesting and fun part of this.
Certainly the costumes and so many of the work that everybody puts into it.
The period dance to kind of wrap this up is really nice.
I just wanted to mention, I think that's a very cool way to kind of wrap things up
on Saturday.
And those gals were a part of the on Saturday.
The gals that will be there that are with the soldiers, they'll be wearing the hoop skirts
and the whole thing, they'll be worth it.
The mission along just to come and watch it.
Yes, and you can certainly participate in it, if you like.
Seem like that you're going to have food and beverages by Hungary's food truck.
That's going to be awesome.
So you've got people taking care of them.
And admission, if you've been a part of the Civil War days in years past or you've been
a part of events at this torque point boss, you can already fill in this part.
You know what the prices are, because these guys over there, no matter how much I try
to tell them, you know, you can up those, you can change, no, no, they're keeping the
same for a reason.
And I always appreciate that.
But you guys do that.
Five dollars for adults and three dollars for students, if you actually want to keep
the students one down so that we can get as many students involved because that's our
future history as far as the people they're going to carry this forward.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's such a big part of this.
And actually, that's kind of cheap compared to most events within the state.
I mean, pine crust, I believe, is charging 15 bucks ahead, it comes through.
We're only five.
It's incredible.
They're really great people over there at this torque point boss.
We appreciate that out of you guys and appreciate the time from both of you and bringing this
event to our area and giving us a chance to relib some history and have a good time over
at it as well.
It's a lot of fun.
We appreciate it.
And appreciate the time you two.
Thanks a lot for joining us, Bill.
Yep.
And Mike, thank you as well.
Thanks James and WFHR.
Remember, you can find out more about everything we've talked about today at historicpointboss.com.
Just go over there, bookmark that page, keep it in mind as well as other events like
they're who done it is coming up in August and plenty of other great things going on
over at our, with our friends at this torque point boss at 364, Wakely Road, right in
Nakuza.
And a big thank you to all of you for joining us for another edition of WFHR's Rapids
Report, probably brought to you by Crockett Sceptic here at WFHR.com.
