BRUNSWICK

As the curriculum changes at Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School, so does a Civil War reenactment tradition older than the school. This month marks the final Pickett’s Charge at HBS — ending the evolution of a cross-curriculum tradition that began 20 years ago at the now-defunct Jordan Acres school.

HBS fifth-grade teacher Lou Sullivan said changes in the curriculum committee of which he’s a member have meant steering away from the Civil War. It is a topic students will study more in depth in eighth grade.

Still, it’s a bittersweet ending for Sullivan as focus will now move on to the American Revolution.

Sullivan said students have come to look forward to the reenactment, which includes a stage show, demonstrations and exhibits and a picnic lunch, followed by a reenactment of Pickett’s Charge.

“It’s kind of neat because I forget how magical it is for them,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said it all began when he and two other teachers realized they were ending the year with the American Revolution because there just wasn’t enough time to move further.

Realizing it was their duty to teach the Civil War, Sullivan said they decided on a date where they would stop what they were doing to include the war before the year’s end.

Kids began with broom sticks and whatever blue or gray they could find for the day. The 75 or so students were assigned numbers corresponding with movements and the charge was effectively choreographed.

“I watched it and said, ‘wow, this could be really cool,’” Sullivan said.

The options for expanding learning possibilities opened up to Sullivan and the others as they looked to explore clothing, food, music and medicine of the period.

Within two years, Goodwill had been stripped of blue and gray jackets. Parents made cannons and rifle “blanks” out of two-by-fours. Soon, the music teachers were getting involved to put together a stage show with speeches and songs.

Kids would drill on the field and then man their stations to teach visitors about what they learned about various aspects of the life of a soldier in the Civil War.

The gym teacher would then take the kids out for a round of Civil War- era baseball. Lunch would be served with tin-can biscuits and stew, so the students could eat like their historical counterparts.

“Pickett’s Charge is kind of the culminating activity,” Sullivan said, but noted that the battle is only one part of a greater tradition. The most important part of the day is the 90-plus minutes student spend showing others what they have learned.

Sullivan said over the years there have been a few critics of the battle scene, but noted neither that criticism nor recent controversy over the Confederate flag were factors in the decision to end the Civil War studies.

The great majority of Sullivan’s students treat the war with seriousness and respect, he said, and many have said how they wish the Civil War — which claimed more than 620,000 lives and was America’s bloodiest conflict — never happened.

“I think we get the idea to them that this is a pretty hard time for our country,” Sullivan said. “It was really devastating — it was awful and we still feel the division between the North and South sometimes.”

The HBS reenactment takes place on May 27.

dmcintire@timesrecord.com