Constable: Rebel Gen. Robert E. Lee impersonator flies 2 flags
The man proudly portraying Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee during this weekend's Civil War Days in Wauconda sometimes flies two flags at his home in Wheaton. One is “Old Glory.” The other ticks off a few folks.
Mostly White Sox fans.
Whenever his Chicago Cubs win, Paul Wood flies that Cubs' victory flag with the big W. The St. Louis Cardinals' victory over the Cubs early this week forced Wood to take down the flag. Sox victories over the Cubs have made sure it has stayed down. But another flag also made news.
After heated debates, South Carolina leaders removed the rebel battle flag and its flagpole from capitol grounds on Friday during an emotional ceremony. The 68-year-old Wood, who has portrayed Confederate hero Lee at re-enactments, pageants, parades and other events for the past 16 years, knows what that means for his interactions with visitors today in Wauconda.
“They're going to be asking about the battle flag, and we're not going to talk about it,” says Wood, who says he refuses to let modern-day topics interfere with his passion for presenting 19th Century American history.
Wood's passion for the Civil War began for him as the youngest of three brothers growing up in Glen Ellyn.
“My great-grandfather fought for the North in the Civil War,” Wood says.
But after that relative disowned a son (Wood's grandfather) for marrying an Irish-Catholic woman, the rest of the family disowned the old Civil War veteran. But the family still embraced that history.
For Christmas in 1961, Wood received a book about Lee. His grandfathers were dead, so Wood was drawn to the military leader with the full white beard.
“That's what a grandfather should look like. I was just enthralled with this man,” remembers Wood, who now sports his own white beard.
Wood's oldest brother already had started his Navy career when the two younger Wood brothers would use souvenirs from a trip to Gettysburg to play Civil War.
“My brother was always a Yankee, and I was always a Confederate,” Wood recalls. “My mother had a pair of old riding boots I wore. I had an old pair of gray pants and an old gray sports coat. I took a yellow crayon and put stripes on the sleeve.”
Today, Lee's replica “Surrender Uniform” that Wood wears cost more than $2,000. Wood also has Lee's replica civilian coat with colonel stars on the lapel and another with a standup collar.
The Confederate general often wore his lower-rank colonel stars because Lee's hero, George Washington, also wore three stars, says Wood, who studied broadcasting, took classes at the College of DuPage and got a degree in anthropology from Northern Illinois University before becoming a Lee scholar of sorts.
“I don't know if I'd say ‘scholar,' but I know more about Lee than 99 percent of the public,” says Wood, who figures he has read more than three dozen biographies and uses that information while staying in character during his Lee impressions. “People will ask me about the third day at Gettysburg, and I'll tell them why I did what I did.”
Lee was trained at West Point and recruited by the Union before he opted to honor his oath to defend his native state of Virginia, says Wood, who served two years in the Army decades before he began his re-enactor career as a Union soldier.
His then-9-year-old son, Matthew, had become infatuated with George Armstrong Custer, a young, successful general during the Civil War who became synonymous with defeat a decade later in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Having seen a couple of re-enactments, Wood, his wife, Sally, Matthew and Matthew's older sister, Karen, joined a Civil War re-enactment group in Davenport, Iowa, camping with Battery G, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery Regiment in September of 1994.
“All the way out, my daughter was saying, ‘Dad, this isn't cool. I don't want to do this,'” Wood remembers. On their way back, she asked, “When can we do this again?”
The family all took part and became regulars and friends with other re-enactor families.
“I was in the unit for a good 10 years. I rose to the rank of First Sergeant,” Wood says.
Then his son, looking for a unit with more creative uniforms, joined a Confederate group. After his son joined the 26th North Carolina Infantry, Wood also switched sides.
Working with re-enactor friends Larry Werline, who plays Union Gen. U.S. Grant, and Tom Peacock, who plays Custer, the three wrote a play in 1999 called “Destiny At Appomattox,” and formed a business called Grant, Lee, Custer & Company. They've been working as a team since, performing in theaters and at re-enactments.
“In the beginning, people knew I was a Union re-enactor and now I'm General Lee, and some people didn't like that,” admits Wood, who says he has done hundreds of appearances as Lee and has more than 20 gigs scheduled for this year. He also knows a handful of other Lee impersonators from other parts of the country.
“The more I read about him, the more I identify with him,” says Wood, who has a plaque in his house reading, “Friendship, Loyalty, Love.”
Loyalty to Virginia and honoring his oath to that state were important to Lee, Wood says, adding that Lee “never believed in slavery, and never believed in secession.”
Wood says that the most powerful line in his performances comes at the surrender. “I have over a thousand federal prisoners that I've been unable to feed, as I've been unable to feed my own soldiers,” his character tells the Grant character, who immediately agrees to send food.
Other parts get a little tiresome, especially if Wood repeats them in performances on Saturday and Sunday.
“I hate doing the surrender both days,” Wood says, noting that he's been surrendering for 16 years. Not that he can change that. History is history.
“We're trying to teach the American people this American history,” says Wood, who notes that one question during a recent appearance reminded him that there is plenty of work to do. “A middle-age woman asked me, ‘Well, who won the war?'”