You have seen Robert Lee Hodge someplace before.
He may have been that especially convincing Reb you noticed while watching the movie Gettysburg. Or perhaps he was the re-enactor in the Remembrance Day parade who looked as if maybe, just maybe, he was a real Confederate who had somehow slipped through time to join his regiment.
Most likely, it was the cover of the Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Horowitz’s book Confederates in the Attic where you have seen Robert Lee Hodge, glaring at you dangerously, gripping a knife that has surely seen hard use.
In Horowitz’s book, subtitled Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, Hodge took the author on a tour of battlefields the way soldiers in the 1860s experienced them: on foot, in itchy wool, wet, cold, sore, and bug-bitten.
But there is more to Robert Lee Hodge. For nearly 20 years the man who believes in experiencing history authentically has campaigned for battlefield preservation in much the same way that he approaches living history campaigns: hard core and take no prisoners. Hodge has waged a war of sorts – a war against the modern encroachment of Civil War battlefields. His weapons of choice in this conflict have included preservation marches, writing, filmmaking, and participation in countless planning, city council, and board of supervisor meetings.
Hodge has skillfully used his unsought notoriety from Confederates in the Attic to garner attention for the cause of Civil War battlefield preservation, attracting scores of followers with his passionate persona.
Erik Nelson, President of the Central Virginia Battlefield Trust, where Hodge now holds a seat on the Board of Directors, says he was initially wary when Hodge approached him about having his group of re-enactors participate in a major fundraising event that was planned at Chancellorsville in 1997.
In the end, Nelson, who calls Hodge “an artist of sorts”, was won over by the way in which the living historian’s famous intensity translated into effectiveness when it came to battlefield preservation. Hodge showed up with 200 re-enactors in tow, and something unexpected happened.
Says Nelson, “[Historian] Ed Bearss was on a podium speaking about the history of the site and fell into narrating the infantry tactics of the period. The re-enactors heard him….and spread out into a skirmish formation. It was a totally spur-of-the-moment thing and Ed fell into narrating the events that that re-enactors recreated. The moment was absolutely thrilling and an exceptionally evocative demonstration. As far as Rob is concerned, that unrehearsed moment…solidified his reputation with the CVBT.”
As it does for many Civil War enthusiasts, Gettysburg has a special significance for Hodge: it turns out that Robert Lee Hodge, Battlefield Preservationist, was born on his first visit to Gettysburg at the age of 9. Here, the larger-than-life historian talks about his personal history with the town, his appreciation of Gettysburg’s past and his concerns for its future. Questions by the author are submitted in italics. Hodge’s answers appear in bold lettering:
Can you tell us about your first trip to Gettysburg? I first visited Gettysburg in 1976. My folks had asked me where I would like to go for the summer vacation, and I immediately yelled “Gettysburg!” I had been getting books from my local library for several years about Gettysburg, and was dying to get there. It was a holy trek. I practically salivated as we got closer. Much of the battlefield was incredible, however, the juxtaposition between saved battlefield land and commercialism was a question I could not explain or rationalize. Why was there a McDonalds on the battlefield?
How often do you visit Gettysburg? When I moved to the DC area from Ohio in 1991 I started going at least five times a year. There were many other battlefields to explore and learn from also, but Gettysburg was always pulling for my attention. After I worked on the movie Gettysburg I wound up staying there for months afterward. It was hard for me to leave. I had always wanted to live in Gettysburg, to go to college there, and become a park ranger.
What do you do on a typical visit to Gettysburg? Seeing friends in Gettysburg is part of my schedule. I like exploring areas of the battlefield that I have not focused on more in the past. I usually bring my books and hike. I often feel like I am communing with the past – at times it feels like I am at church. The story of the battle is so huge and complicated that you need the books to act as a key to open the door to the battlefield; then greater understanding and appreciation for the land becomes clearer. Otherwise the battlefield might look like just a field. The books help breathe life into the battlefield. Sometimes the prose can collapse time for brief periods – where past and present feel intertwined.
Do you have a favorite spot on the battlefield? There are so many great locations. I try to get away from the park road and explore parts of the battlefield off the beaten path. My favorite spots on the battlefield change from week to week. However, the valley east of Cemetery Hill where the Confederate attack took place on July 2nd is very rewarding. The areas of Longstreet’s attack of July 2nd – Seminary Ridge, the Rose Farm, the Wheatfield, Peach Orchard, Devil’s Den, etc. – are always impressive, especially later in the day when the sun is starting to set over South Mountain.
Recently, I have expanded my Gettysburg interests to include the advance to and retreat from the battle. These are areas that concern me because if we are not more careful, the disturbing intensity of corporate growth you see on U.S. Route 30 East could be everywhere around the park someday. I am convinced that growth is basically a good thing – however, I am also convinced that most of the management of that growth…has had little thought of the long-term impact on the people and the area.
Any thoughts on the new Visitor’s Center? The new Visitor’s Center was needed because the old one was worn out. By default, Gettysburg is the National Civil War museum, and the public needs a state-of-the-art venue to begin to understand what transpired there, and in the entire Civil War. I think much of that goal has been realized.
However, the demolition of the old Visitor’s Center, the National Tower, and the closure of the Cyclorama is bittersweet for me. Removing the old Visitor’s Center is correcting the mistake of having it in the middle of the battlefield. However, it is so odd to stand where the Visitor’s Center used to be and see nothing; yet the reforestation of Ziegler’s Grove is impressive.
Are there any participants in the Battle of Gettysburg that you find especially intriguing or are particularly fond of? There are so many. Often the folks that get the attention I tend to leave alone, like Lee, Chamberlain, Longstreet – basically any figure prominently featured in the movie Gettysburg. I explore the experiences of the lower-ranking enlisted men that were there and kept a journal. My bias is toward Southerners probably for several reasons – I am named after Robert E. Lee and my kinfolk were Southerners – thus I tend to have more favorites in gray than in blue. Edmund DeWitt Patterson is an Ohioan that joined an Alabama regiment when the war broke out. He is captured at Gettysburg and sent to a prison camp a few miles from where he grew up. His father never visited Edmund while in prison. Being from Ohio I found a kinship with Patterson. Law’s Alabama brigade is interesting to follow. Barksdale’s and Kershaw’s brigades get my attention. I like Charles Reed quite a bit. He is a Massachusetts artilleryman who wins the Congressional Medal of Honor at Gettysburg. I would like to dig much more into the Federal units and men that fought there, but my thirst for the many Southern units is rarely quenched.
Have you had any especially meaningful experience in Gettysburg that you wouldn’t mind sharing? I have had multitudes. Too many to recount, but a few come to mind right now. I was at Sachs Covered Bridge on an early spring morning in 1994. There was a heavy fog that had not lifted yet. An old man with his dog came through the mist. He spoke as if he knew me, and talked of the war as though it were a current event. He said, “Have you seen any Rebels today?” I said no, but was hoping to find them later. “You’ll find them, young man. They are all around us.” I laughed and casually turned, looking away from him, but continued talking. When I turned back to continue, he had walked away into the fog, and distantly said, “Have a good time tramping the battlefield, young man.” It was a little strange in a goose-bump sort of way.
I have witnessed a few meaningful evolutions at Gettysburg that stick out in my memory. The National Tower coming down was a preservation victory, despite the sentimental part of me that was sad because the tower was part of my childhood. Gettysburg is many things, but one point that I always felt was key to the meaning of the place was the memory of many family experiences.
Akin to the National Tower coming down was the bulldozing of the Home Sweet Home Motel on Pickett’s Charge. The reclamation of this part of the battlefield was very meaningful because some of the Union soldiers that fought on the Home Sweet Home site were from my home town in Ohio. The first time I saw the word “Gettysburg” was when I was a little boy, walking by a headstone on my way to school. That soldier was killed on the property where the motel stood.
As a living historian who has spent considerable time living as closely as possible the life of the Civil War soldier, you are in a unique position to understand the Battle of Gettysburg. Can you share with us any insights you may have gained about the battle and the men who fought it? The living history aspects are helpful at times to more clearly understand what the soldiers wrote about – tactics, what the troops looked like, firing my musket to get a feel for what it felt like and sounded like, marching with a knapsack (and feeling it weigh you down after a spell). However, books and the surviving letters and journals from the giants who fought there are the most important tool to have. One’s imagination is a help also.
What advice would you give to someone visiting Gettysburg for the first time? Do your homework to maximize the trip. If you are really into the subject, you need to break open the books and focus on the high points you wish to see. It is a massive subject so it makes sense to focus on your favorite stories and people from the fight.
I tend to like to go to a battlefield near the anniversary of the engagement, but because Gettysburg attracts so many people on its anniversary, and because it is near July 4th I cannot always recommend that as the best time to visit. I like going to Gettysburg in the off-season because I can have a more intimate experience with the park when the crowds are smaller – it feels so much like your own personal park.
Gettysburg National Military Park, one of the nation’s oldest and largest national military parks since 1895, is on the preservationists’ endangered list.
Susan Fair lives in Maryland, where she writes for a local newspaper and works for the public library system. She enjoys visits to Gettysburg often, and likes to learn all she can about the town, its people, and the battle that took place here in the summer of 1863.
