This weekend the Old State Capitol will be inundated with soldiers, doctors and historians.

The historians will be real, but the soldiers and doctors will be reenactors participating in the site’s first Civil War medicine encampment.

The three-day event (June 5-7) celebrates the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial, but it’s also a way to make history “sustainable” and reach a new audience, according to an organizer.

During this era of budget cuts, state sites have to be creative about funding programs. The Old State Capitol asked Memorial Medical Center to help sponsor the event, and it agreed.

The fit was natural because the Old State Capitol has ties to the Civil War, in which medicine played a great role, says Justin Blandford, Old State Capitol site manager.

“Many people realize that Lincoln served as a legislator here, but very few people know that Ulysses S. Grant (head of the Union army) worked at this building and left for the war from this area.” Historians estimate that two thirds of the Civil War soldiers who perished died from disease, according to Glenna Schroeder-Lein, a Springfield author and historian who will speak at the encampment.

“We started planning (the encampment) long before (state government’s) cuts to historic sites, and I think it is a strategic formula for making history recession-proof,” adds Blandford. “Good history and public-private partnership equal sustainability.” He hopes Memorial’s contribution and the event’s emphasis on Civil War medicine will attract healthcare professionals, “a segment of the local audience that I don’t think we’re connecting to very well.” Friday, the first day of the encampment, is targeted toward kids. Beginning at 10 a.m. and again at 1 p.m., children will spend two hours visiting six stations learning about military drills, Civil War women, Civil War medicine, artillery, soldiers’ equipment and fashions from the era.

On Saturday and Sunday, historians will discuss various aspects of medicine during the war and actors will impersonate characters from that time, including Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Clara Barton, Illinois nurse Mother Bickerdyke and others. During the weekend, about 150 reenactors representing Civil War medicine, artillery, infantry and civilians will camp out on the Old State Capitol lawn. Glenna Schroeder-Lein, author of The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine (M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2008), will discuss the experiences of Civil War soldier James M. Taylor of the 96th Illinois Infantry on Saturday afternoon. “I will be talking about Taylor because he kept a diary for 1863 and half of 1864 which is quite detailed, even obsessive, about his health and medical experiences.

This gives me an opportunity to discuss a variety of aspects of Civil War medicine as illustrated by the example of an individual soldier patient,” she says. Taylor immigrated from Scotland in 1853 when he was 13 and settled in Lake County, Illinois, where he enlisted. After the war he settled in Taylorville and became a prosperous lawyer. “Some of the interest in his case comes from his experiences with routine colds and diarrhea and just how often he was sick,” says Schroeder-Lein. But Taylor was also hospitalized twice — once for chronic diarrhea and once for a wound, which led to an amputation.

The man who founded the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Md., (with a second site on the Antietam National Battlefield) will be speaking Saturday as well. Dr. Gordon Dammann, a dentist from Lena, Ill., has studied Civil War medicine and written several books about the topic, his most recent being Images of Civil War Medicine: A Photographic History (Demos Medical Publishing, 2007), which he co-authored with M.D. Alfred Jay Bollet.

Other speakers will discuss women soldiers (there were hundreds during the Civil War), Civil War fashion and women’s rights, among other topics.

From Friday through Sunday, Carolann Schmitt of the Genteel Arts Academy will be giving workshops on making mid-1800s fashions. “This is part of a hidden agenda,” jokes Blandford, who’s involved with the restoration of the Lincoln law offices. “Our goal with the restoration is to make it living history,” which will require volunteers wearing period clothing.

He hopes this weekend’s workshops and future workshops on 1800s clothing will “train people who want to be our volunteers in four or five years,” so they can make their own costumes or supply them for others.

Except for the Genteel Arts Academy workshops, all events at the encampment are free. A full schedule of events is available at www.lincoln200.net.

Contact Tara McClellan McAndrew at [email protected].