Leader article by Rick Kron
As members of both the Union and Confederate fell wounded to the ground, Dyan Dohnert, a medicine woman, ran out onto the battlefield to render care.
Even though she was a true Southerner, she still tried to save the injured Union soldiers, all except one.
“He was goin’ die anyway, so I shot him and stole his horse,” she said, not in an interview in 1863, but Sunday after a re-enactment of the Battle of Reed’s Bridge in Jacksonville.
She had her leather medicine bag open and was checking on her supply of spirits and homemade needles while in the comfort of a rocker under the fly of a canvas Confederate tent.
She was retelling her actions in the re-enactment to two other southern ladies in the encampment, Dot Hardage, one of the best cooks there, and Kayla Kalkbrenner, an ice angel.
“I would have taken that Yankee’s gun too, ’cept I couldn’t find it,” Dohnert said.
She and the ladies were part of more than 150 re-enactors that set up camp at the battlefield most of the week and performed two re-enactments of the 1863 battle for crowds that parked in makeshift parking lots up and down Hwy. 161.
About 500 people watched the battle on Saturday and slightly more were on hand Sunday.
Besides the battles, there was a wedding and an old-fashioned barn dance Saturday evening.
Kalkbrenner, from Pine Bluff, who as an ice angel walks the battlefield providing soldiers with water and ice. She said, “We are just regular people with a love for history.”
She’s in college working on a degree in fashion design and a minor in history. She hopes to work with designing historical outfits. Kalkbrenner has been going to re-enactments since she was a wee one. “My dad saw a flyer about battlefield groups, got hooked and we’ve been at it ever since,” she said.
Hardage, from Dumas, spent most of Saturday making and icing a five-layer cake for the wedding. “This is our hobby. An expensive one, but our hobby. We get to spend time with friends, visit historical places and enjoy great camaraderie,” she said.
“It’s something we truly believe in and it’s very fulfilling.”
Hardage added, “We are here as historians.” She and her husband have been active participants for more than 10 years.
Dohnert, who has been involved in re-enactments and living histories for about eight years, has performed in seven states and once on television. She said she tries to be as realistic as possible.
She said there were a number of medicine women working during the Civil War. Dohnert said as the Union advanced into
Arkansas, there were two surgeons at Arkansas Post.
“The second volley of shells killed them both and women had to jump in to do the doctorin’,” she said.
Dohnert said medicine women often followed the troops “wiping snotty noses and taking care of feet.”
Feet were important, she said, since troops on both sides walked a million miles plus. “Did you know that 78 percent of our boys returned home without shoes and many of them walked barefoot for the last two years of the war?” she said.
Dohnert and Kalkbrenner belong to the First Arkansas Confederate Infantry, while Hardage is a member of the Ninth Arkansas Confederate Infantry.
She said all the cooking done in Dutch ovens and as close to realistic as possible. “We do pre-make a lot of things now and then, and just heat it up in the Dutch ovens.”
Kalkbrenner piped in, “That keeps the bugs out of the chicken and dumplins’.”
Kalkbrenner is a former president of Arkansas Children of the Confederacy and said she does a lot of living-history shows at school and other functions.
“When the Delta Queen used to stop in Pine Bluff, we would dress in period outfits and meet it,” she said. Her dad and boyfriend do about 20 to 25 shows a year.
The ladies said that most of the re-enactors own both Confederate and Union outfits, and each handmade outfit can run hundreds of dollars.
“Nobody wants to be the Union soldier, but we need someone to fight and we can’t get any Union troops to come down here usually,” said Hardage.
Kalkbrenner said what makes the Reed’s Bridge re-enactment so special is that it’s on a real battlefield. “It’s a privilege and something special,” she said.
Because of the respect the re-enactors have for the battlefield, they make sure they leave it in pristine condition.
After Sunday’s battle, more than a dozen of the participants went through the battlefield picking up cannon fodder, paper and anything else that was on the field that needed to be picked up.
