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“It’s kind of bred into you, if you know what I mean,” Ellis said. “When I was young we never played army or cowboys and Indians, we played Civil War.”
That early interest has grown into a vast collection of artifacts from the War Between the States, including 188 Civil War-era guns. Ellis, who now lives in Lincoln, brought his collection to North Bend Central last Wednesday to take part in the school’s Civil War Living History Day.
Ellis’s Guns of the Civil War display was one of eight stations students rotated through, spending 15 minutes at each looking at artifacts and hearing experts dressed in period clothing talk about technology, life and times during the Civil War.
The event was organized by NBC social studies teacher Ken Streff and art teacher Dan Wright. For several years the pair has put on small marching and drill demonstrations for NBC juniors. Streff provided the history students. Wright provided the Civil War uniforms.
“I’m just a guy who likes to make stuff,” Wright said. “I watched the movie Glory and I thought, ‘I bet you I could make that uniform. I bet you I can figure out how to run a sewing machine, and I’d have that for things at school.’”
So he did. His interest in authentic period clothing brought him in touch with the Civil War reenacting community. On occasion he will participate in a reenactment, but he’s more comfortable just making uniforms.
“I barely can follow orders on the battlefield at a reenactment. These guys,” Wright said, waving his arm at a pair of Confederates explaining a Civil War campsite to a group of students, “were officers at the 155th (anniversary of the Battle) of Shiloh two weeks ago. He was running a brigade, and I can’t even be a private worth a darn.’”
Over the years, Wright and Streff’s demonstrations for NBC history students grew. Last year, elementary teachers asked if their students could come up and partake in the demonstrations.
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