Civil War comes back to life in Lake County

As he waited for mock casualties to be brought into his imitation field hospital Sunday at the annual Lake County Civil War Days, Rolling Meadows resident Robert Norton happily recounted how he became a historical re-enactor.

It was the late 1980s, and his daughter told him a group of re-enactors were visiting Arlington Heights. Norton showed up, they gave him a uniform and before he knew it, he was marching in a parade.

"And I ain't looked back since," said Norton, who earns a living as a Cook County deputy sheriff but portrays a Civil War surgeon at re-enactment events. "I've always been fascinated by history. This gives me an opportunity to do more than study it."

History buffs young and old lined a spacious field at the Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda on Sunday for the highlight of the two-day festival, a battle between Union and Confederate troops. Rifle shots and artillery blasts - all blanks, of course - made the ground beneath the spectators and re-enactors shake and filled the air with acrid smoke, what the battle's narrator aptly described as the "fog of war."

Civil War Days, now in its 18th year, was staged by the Lake County Discovery Museum, which is located at Lakewood and is owned by the county's forest preserve district.

In addition to the battle, guests could interact with men and women in 19th century clothing and learn what life was like when the nation was divided by war.

Among the historical figures present were Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Confederate military leader Robert E. Lee and Union cavalry officer George Armstrong Custer, who gained infamy after the war at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

And what's a Civil War re-enactment without a visit from President Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln? Max and Donna Daniels of Wheaton portrayed the couple Sunday. They answered questions, signed autographs and posed for photographs.

"I like your hat," Max Daniels told a young boy wearing a small version of Lincoln's trademark stovepipe hat.

Elsewhere, men and women in period clothing sold replica guns, rifles and other 19th-century wares in tents set up near the battlefield.

Kenosha resident Laura Zielinski, wearing a plaid skirt, a white top and a hat adorned with peacock feathers, tried to interest customers in her aromatic, handmade soap.

A chemist by trade, she's been attending re-enactments in Illinois and Wisconsin for about five years.

"I enjoy dressing silly," she said. "And I enjoy the people."