The Daily Globe, 8/12/2002

PIPESTONE - Balancing a parasol, Keturah Hagen and her female companion, Lisa Egan, adjusted their skirts and primly perched their behinds on the wooden plank bench in the back of the tent.

That was no easy task, because both of the women were wearing hoops and crinolines that extended their skirts out in a wide circle around their bodies.

"You have to practice a bit," said Hagen about the sitting-down process.

"So you're not sitting on your crinolines," added Egan.

Hagen and Egan, members of the Living History Society of Minnesota, were awaiting the start of a patriotic rally, part of the goings-on at Pipestone's Civil Wars Day Festival. They were appropriately well away from the battlefield action.

"We don't usually do outdoor battlefield events," explained Hagen. "We're usually seen more in the social setting of the 19th century for men and women not in uniform. We try to strive for historical accuracy, not only in presentation, but in clothing as well."

The two young women were accurately garbed in what they termed a "summer sheer" dress.

"Only the younger girls would wear these," stated Hagen, who said she began her historical portrayal because of an interest in period clothing.

Egan had a different turn of phrase to describe their obsession with 19th century costume and manners.

"We're weird," she said succinctly.

But the two women were definitely not alone in their interest in matters historical on Saturday and Sunday in Pipestone. History came alive on the Song of Hiawatha Pageant Grounds with portrayals of battles, camp life, political rallies and even a medicine man show.

Daryl Duden of Red Wing and Brian Tomashek of Winona usually wear Union blue during Civil War re-enactments, but on Saturday, they'd been pressed into service to serve on the Confederate side of the battlefield and had switched over to the southern gray.

"Today, I'm a sergeant in the Fifth Company of Washington Artillery out of Louisiana," said Duden. "But we normally do federal impressions as the Second Minnesota Battery. The Second Minnesota has a lot of history in the state of Minnesota. They fought in the western theater of the war."

Duden became interested in Civil War re-enactments during the country's 1976 bicentennial, and the Minnesota battery was reactivated in 1985. But the Second Minnesota has a bigger mission than just donning costumes for weekend events such as the one in Pipestone.

"We want to learn about the men who served in the Second Minnesota, so we're doing research on them ... which has required numerous trips to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.," Duden explained. "We want to do a synopsis of every man who served in the battery, what they did before the war, what prompted them to serve. Minnesota sent so many men off to serve in that war, and to close the chapter, we want to find their final resting places. We've been able to locate, to date, 11 soldiers in cemeteries somewhere with unmarked graves."

By documenting where the men are buried and their service to their country, the current members of the Second Minnesota are able to get grave markers through the Veterans Administration, and then they work with the cemeteries to get them erected on the graves.

Tomashek has completed much of the research, and even came to Pipestone early to do some historical digging. He expressed relief that the Second Minnesota wasn't a larger company of men, or the research job might never get done.

"Three-hundred, twenty-eight is the number of men that at one time or another called the Second Battery home," he said.

The first grave dedication took place appropriately on Memorial Day, according to Dugan, and was for a soldier who originally enlisted to serve in Iowa. But when Iowa reneged on its promise to provide money for his wife, he left the camp he'd reported to and went home. So a warrant was issued for his arrest as a deserter. He then moved to Minnesota, where he immediately enlisted with the Second Minnesota Battery under a fictitious name.

"He served valiantly, and when the war was over, the charge of deserter went away, so he went back to his original name," related Dugan. "So they lost track of him. We found this all out through his wife trying to apply for his pension. Taking that paperwork, we could prove his service."

Researching the former members of the battery has given Dugan insight into their lives and a new respect for the men who served their country during those trying times. He figures those soldiers who have laid in unmarked graves, some for 150 years, are owed many, many Memorial Day observances.

"They had no idea what they were getting into," he said, "and yet how valiantly they served."