The Civil War Relived on the Lorena

Those aboard the Lorena Sternwheeler Aug. 15 traveled through time.

They took a trip down the Muskingum River and came across a battle between the north and south during the Civil War.

Rick Hahn of the 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Company A waited for the boat to cross Riverside Park and then began to engage with artillery. Hahn said that while this 25 year long hobby is exciting it’s about learning and teaching in a very personal way.

“There was many Civil Wars,” said Hahn. “We should have learned from them and we didn’t and our differences put us in a Civil War and we should never ever go back to that so in doing what we do, it’s the education that we teach. We have great reenactors that know so much and it’s not text book written. We do research all the time. We learn new facts every time we get together and we’re continuing learning so we can pass it on.”

While Hahn spends time in the past, he hasn’t missed what’s going on in the United States right now. He believes that if we aren’t careful, we could find ourselves following a similar path.

“We need more unification in this country more than ever and decide that the politically correct problems we are having now between ‘he saids, she saids’ and stuff like that,” said Hahn. “We need to put that to the side. What we need now is to go back and learn from where we were and never repeat it because on the path we’re going now, we’re going to repeat our history. ”

The day featured about 40 reenactors and replica camps.