the reenactors age

[FriendlyFire104]

I’m doing a survey and am wondering what the average age of a reenactor is.
Thank you



Bob Spellman

[tenfed1861]

On July 27,I'll be 18.

Cullen,

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Authentic Campaigner Forums

[Pritchett Ball]

Well:

My Age is my business, and on July 2nd, I'll have been in business for 45 years! :rolleyes:

Kevin Dally
I was 40 when I got into this hobby, mess

[DougCooper]

As we "vote" on this, it might be useful to discuss life expectancy in the 1860's. Anybody have a good idea on that? Bell Wiley had the average age as 20 and the single largest age group in the army as 18.

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo Kameraden!

Hmmmmmm. A difficult concept that.

"Life expectancy" is a strange concept that I believe no two experts and reference books quite agree on. My references come from a number of my college anthropology courses (one of my minors, and internships).
While human "life span" (the length of time a human may live) remains constant (other than in the Bible), anthropologists like to ocme up with what was the "expectancy" one could hope to achieve in years based upon all of the factors of "life" such as food supply and nutrition, living conditions, ease or hardness of life, sickness and health and medicine, etc., etc.

For example, "Neanderthal Europe" it was given as 18. Ancient Egypt, 22. Ancient Rome, 25. Colonial America, 35. The Civil War, 40. The turn of the 20th century, 45. And then soaring after WWI.
Of course, different experts and books vary. And Euro-American "values and ranges" are different than Third World countries.

The problem with "life expectancy" is that it is made up. "Life span" is fairly constant- humans simply do not live to be 150 or 175 or 500 years- and I am slightly behind on the life expectancy for American men and women in 2004- 74 and 76?, or so.
That does not mean that there were no "old" people in 1861-1865, obviously no, but the percentage of the "Senior Citizen" population was much smaller.
That does not mean there were now 120 year olds either. (Just fewer of them.)

A few years ago, I did an "informal" study of grave stones and age at death at an 18th century Irish cemetery. The mean age at death was 43. Granted, it was a local Irish community, but the "mean" was higher than the "35" I learned for the period.

My point would be, even though there is not quite universdal agreement among anthrologists- they still use "life expectancy" as a study tool.
But I would add that the "harshness" of life; amount and quality of diet; presence of disease and disease vectors; lack of medical science (how many die from infectious disease in the USA today) or surgery; level and amount of physical work/drudgery needed to make a living; natural disasters and wars; etc., etc., can all affect how "young or how old" a person looks and functions in any modern or past culture.

So, as I was taught- 40 in general America. (And 3 out of 7 children died before age 5)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt

[Rear Guard]

Fifty.

Jeff Lawson

[Rmhisteach]

I am 34 and have been in the hobby since I was 14.

[Spinster]

Young man! You made no provision for ladies "of a certain age" :wink_smil

Obviously Too Old To Be in This Hobby Mess,

[Possum Skinner]

Doug,

It was documented in the Dec. Issue of Civil War Times that the average age of the Confederate soldier was 26. Now I am not refuting their eveidence or certainly that of Mr. Wiley's, just pointing out that I have heard numerous "facts" about age and averages. I would like to see someone take the records and truly look at this. If you only took one unit, or a couple, as a sampling, you could really get some skewed data. The average age in 1861 vs. 1864/65 when conscription really changed the demographics for some.

I have done extensive research on my own ancestors, but not taken the full records and examined unit ages. Here are theirs as a reference point.

Name regiment date of enlist age at enlist

E.M. Thomas 60th Alabama Infantry 5/3/1862 24

J.L. Darsey 59th Alabama Infantry 4/31/1862 38 died 1863

J.W. Dunnam 47th Alabama Infantry 5/13/1862 34 died 1862

J.S. Ogletree 60th Alabama Infantry 5/3/1862 42

B.F. Harry 46th Georgia Infantry 5/4/1862 33 died 1862

M.J. McWhorter 53 Ala Partisan Rangers 7/28/1862 25

Caleb Jones 14th Alabama Infantry 6/13/1861 23 KIA 1862

C.G.W. Bence 36th Georgia Infantry 1/15/1862 36 infirm 1863

I.C. Whaley 1st Alabama Infantry 4/14/1861 16

Only one baby out of the whole caboodle. The rest were mostly already married men with children. A couple who had sons old enough to enlist as well. Granted almost all of the ones over 30 died of disease, or were seriously debilitated by 1864. J.S. Ogletree is the one exception, but he was a teamster and not a regular foot soldier. So it would seem plausible that your age at enlistment correlated with your life expectancy as a solider. An over 30-35 year old did not seem have as good a chance after real campaign work began.

It would seem from my little sampling that the younger you were, the better your chances of surviving the war. So 1861/1862 data would show more older men, while death, disease, and conscription would show younger ones in 1864/1865 as an average.

I have never spent much time looking at Union men, so I don't know what the call would be there.

[PrettyBoyDonovan]

I'm 19 but look older, especially with a beard. I've been mistaken for 30 on more than one occasion.

I can tell you that my unit has gotten very young over the past year. I used to be the youngest guy in my unit, but now am one of the veterans. Unfortunatley the younger guys look exactly that, young. I'm worried that we start to look too young. It's just that a bunch of bady-faced 15 year-olds dosen't look as good as a bunch of rough and dirty mid twenty somethings.

So I'd say the average age in my unit is the mid-30's, but a lot of the new recruits are around 14-16.

[Andrew Jarvi]

Gentlemen,
I am 28, which for who I am portraying is a good age. I researched the officers of the 5th US Colored Troops and most of our officers were in the mid to late 20's.

After seeing this posting I pulled out the original regimental rost for the 5th USCT and proceeded to count those men 30 - 39, 40 - 49 and 50 + at their time of enlistment. Here are my results:

30-39: 156 NCO & privates
40-49: 70 NCO & privates
50-59: 3 NCO & privates

I then went back to see how long they made it through their service, mind you the regiment started forming June of 63 but didn't leave Camp Delaware til Nov. of 63. Only a handfull of these men were mustered out due to illness or disease. Many were mustered out with the regiment in Sept of 65 or when their terms of service expired.

This is an interesting topic, we might be really suprised at the health of men 30 and up.

Respectfully,
Andrew Jarvi
Capt. 5th USCT

[Eric Burke]

I agree fully with Donovan on the younger-looking reenacting community recently, but being only 16 years of age I don't have a whole lot of room to talk. The more youthful guys I see in period photos though, the more I feel that perhaps the reenacting community is sometimes too old. Of course, authentic reenacting in particular takes a level of discipline, dedication, and maturity thats often difficult to get a younger individual to subscribe to.

On another note ... my ggg grandfather enlisted in a combat unit as a full combatant when he was 15 years of age (1862) and fought at Atlanta when he was only 17.

[kemper_rifles]

I'm 20.

Hope I die before I get really old mess

[marlin teat]

While I really respect Wiley's contributions, it must be remembered that his data was collected a half century ago and a lot of the actual research was done by his grad students while at Emory University. We have no real idea of their methodology. Was it random sampling? If so, what were their sample groups? Did they include state troops (Ga. State Line, etc.), militia, and Home Guard? Was it based on an average over four years or just a spot in time? Early, mid, or late war? Eastern, western, trans-Mississippi, or all?

All of these factors can skew the results.

[LindaTrent]

So, as I was taught- 40 in general America. (And 3 out of 7 children died before age 5)

The following information came from the University of Michigan Making of America Site, from a book entitled, *Report on the Vital Statistics of the United States, Made to the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, 1857.*

... average life expectency of certain occupations, the following table is from Boston, the years 1843 to 1854:

No. Profession Age

9698 Agriculturists 47.16
29 Artists 40.10
11 Bank Officers 62.72
688 Blacksmiths 51.41
124 Butchers 49.63
198 Cabinetmakers 47.04
1498 Carpenters 49.33
234 Clergymen 56.61
437 Clerks 33.73
286 Coopers 58.84
263 Gentlemen 63.83
21 Glass Blowers 39.86
111 Hatters 54.90
7 Judges & Justices 67.19
92 Jewelers 42.56
6410 Laborers 44.57
171 Lawyers 56.60
363 Machinists 37.63
313 Manufacturers 44.30
359 Masons 41.61
408 Mechanics 42.88
816 Merchants 52.06
69 Millers 61.58
50 Musicians 40.46
260 Operatives 34.19
368 Painters 42.10
356 Paupers 65.19
322 Physicians 55.25
129 Printers 36.55
80 Ropemakers 55.95
2299 Seamen 45.99
238 Shipwrights 56.48
2436 Shoemakers 43.66
194 Stonecutters 43.66
287 Tailors 42.51
175 Tanners & Curriers 47.37
648 Traders 46.53
95 Weavers 46.83

Of these 33,580 individuals the combined ages amounted to 1,724,031 years, or 51.34 years to each man.

A portion of the females who died during the same time, admit of the following classification:--

Domestics 43.96
Dressmakers 32.36
Housekeepers 51.15
Milliners 35.53
Nurses 54.61
Operatives 27.69
Seamstresses 41.83
Shoebinders 45.59
Straw-braiders 35.09
Tailoresses 40.63
Teachers 28.70

The aggregate ages of the 2,376 females thus given, amounted to 109,724, and the general average of the whole gives 50.39 years to each individual."

Linda Trent
lindatrent@zoomnet.net

[Hank Trent]

This is from Fox's Regimental Losses, Chapter VII, concerning the Union army:

The muster-rolls are provided with a column in which is entered the age of each recruit. From the figures in this column it appears that the mean age of all the soldiers was 25 years. When classed by ages, the largest class is that of 18 years, from which the classes decrease regularly to that of 45 years, beyond which age no enlistment was received. Of 1,012,273 recorded ages taken from the rolls, there were 133,475 at 18 years; 90,215 at 19 years, and so on. The number at 25 years of age was 46,626; and, at 44 years, 16,070.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[huntdaw]

From the very interesting information Linda posted, it looks like being a gentleman was the way to go if you wanted to live a relatively long life.

I have a question about the female avocations - what was an operative? Is this someone who worked in a factory setting?

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Actually, being a judge/justice was 67 years and gentlemen were 63. :-)

[PrivateRBDavis]

32. My first person impression is of an 18/19 year old. Despite my height and beard stubble, I've successfully passed as 18.

[LindaTrent]

what was an operative? Is this someone who worked in a factory setting?

From an 1853 Webster's Dictionary, "Operative, n. A laboring man; a laborer, artisan, or workman in manufactories." I'm not quite sure how this differs from laborer or machinists, but... I assume a mechanic is one who has his own shop, like a smith, etc.

Linda Trent
lindatrent@zoomnet.net

[Dave Grieves]

Linda,

Interesting statistics. A clerk's life expectancy was 33 years, and a pauper's, 65. I wonder why the great difference.

[ChrisM(armyguy)]

i think that to have a healthy mix of ages is appropriate. anyone who has been in the armed services in a combat role can tell you that a few years of line work will make you look ten years older. you can imagine then from the faces of some of those men we see in the pictures that they are very weathered from exposure. This tends to happen to people on the line. I myself have been asked if im in my thirties (which im sure some of you would take as a compliment...). Even the most baby faced, acne ridden teens would appear the veteran after a season of good campaigning.


Chris "im getting too old for this army stuff" mattingly

[LindaTrent]

Linda, Interesting statistics. A clerk's life expectancy was 33 years, and a pauper's, 65. I wonder why the great difference.

Hi Dave,

Hank and I were wondering the same thing, and what we came up with a possibility which is that the statistics actually show what a man was doing when he died, not necessarily what he was doing all his life. An older man, for example, who didn't work, would be more capable of spending down to nothing, and passing away penniless. Thus a pauper died at such an old age.

Just a thought.

Linda Trent

[huntdaw]

Actually, being a judge/justice was 67 years and gentlemen were 63. :-)

Yes, I noticed that, but there were only 7 of them compared to 263 gentlemen which would produce a more accurate representative number I thought.

[SCSecesh]

So which category do you pick it your on one edge or the other - 35 to 40 or 40 to 45??

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo KAmerad!

Just a quick note...

You may be more interested in the "mean age" rather than the "average age?"

Meaning,(no pun intended) with an "average;" if we have a unit of 30, with 20 50 year olds and 10 of their 15 year old sons- the picture gets skewed....with the average being 38 years old. ;-)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt

[weed]

I am 52 years old, but look like my mid 30's. i have been doing HARDCORE living history for 32 years and have no plans to stop. I started with the 15th Illinois which later turned into a base unit for The Mudsills (5th Kentucky Vol's) in 1974, and finnally now with the 33d Wisconsin and Hardhead Mess

Age is a thing of mind. you are ONLY as old as you want yourself to believe!

John M. Wedeward
33d Wisconsin Vol Infantry

ps. we arestarting to get the "Reseach Articles" "BACK" on or web site (33d Wisconsin)

When I have time, I scan them and our web master who posts them.

www.33wis.com/articles/index.htm

"Weed"

[billwatson]

"Age is a thing of mind. you are ONLY as old as you want yourself to believe!"

Well, then, I'm 15.
My body, however, is 54. And my knees are apparently, respectively, 74 and 64. :-)

I can, with General Beauregard's solution, blend into the crowd quite nicely. But I'm finding it takes longer to recover physically from the more strenuous weekends, and longer to tune up ahead of them. Due to an extensive aerobic conditioning career earlier in life (muskrat trapping in January, February and March in New Jersey salt marshes for a dozen years. Almost as good as running marathons :-) ) I've got a core infrastructure of muscle and lungs that don't let me down during the weekend itself -- but I pay afterwards.

When I can't keep up or when it's clear I can't reasonably blend into the correct age bracket, I'll stop going to events where that matters, at least as a participant. But really, it seems most guys are out of shape even when they are the right weight, that is, the number of guys who can do 10 miles on a preservation march and end up ready to play baseball before dinner is pretty darn small.

[Gallinipper]

"Age is a thing of mind. you are ONLY as old as you want yourself to believe!"




Well said Bill! Let me in on some of that action, as long as this is turning into a "I'm really this age, but I LOOK this age" kind of thread. (Sounds like a dishwashing liquid commercial from the 60's....). OK then-- as for me, I'm 44 but I look 7!

Maybe we can take a poll on reenactor's WEIGHT next?

Rich Croxton

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo Kameraden!

Just to be crabby, what does this have to do with much of anything? ;-)

I am 3,984, but listed as 37-38, well-muscled.
(5' 10", 168 pounds, black is my favorite color, and my sign is Sagitarius. Last movie seen "The Terminal." Last book read: Too many too remember. Favorite food: pizza. Turn-offs: flame baiters and trolls. Turn-on's: Private.)
:-)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt
Hyper Sapien Mess

[DonSmithnotTMD]

Hallo Kameraden!

Hmmmmmm. A difficult concept that.

"Life expectancy" is a strange concept that I believe no two experts and reference books quite agree on. My references come from a number of my college anthropology courses (one of my minors, and internships).
While human "life span" (the length of time a human may live) remains constant (other than in the Bible), anthropologists like to ocme up with what was the "expectancy" one could hope to achieve in years based upon all of the factors of "life" such as food supply and nutrition, living conditions, ease or hardness of life, sickness and health and medicine, etc., etc.

For example, "Neanderthal Europe" it was given as 18. Ancient Egypt, 22. Ancient Rome, 25. Colonial America, 35. The Civil War, 40. The turn of the 20th century, 45. And then soaring after WWI.
Of course, different experts and books vary. And Euro-American "values and ranges" are different than Third World countries.

The problem with "life expectancy" is that it is made up. "Life span" is fairly constant- humans simply do not live to be 150 or 175 or 500 years- and I am slightly behind on the life expectancy for American men and women in 2004- 74 and 76?, or so.
That does not mean that there were no "old" people in 1861-1865, obviously no, but the percentage of the "Senior Citizen" population was much smaller.
That does not mean there were now 120 year olds either. (Just fewer of them.)

A few years ago, I did an "informal" study of grave stones and age at death at an 18th century Irish cemetery. The mean age at death was 43. Granted, it was a local Irish community, but the "mean" was higher than the "35" I learned for the period.

My point would be, even though there is not quite universdal agreement among anthrologists- they still use "life expectancy" as a study tool.
But I would add that the "harshness" of life; amount and quality of diet; presence of disease and disease vectors; lack of medical science (how many die from infectious disease in the USA today) or surgery; level and amount of physical work/drudgery needed to make a living; natural disasters and wars; etc., etc., can all affect how "young or how old" a person looks and functions in any modern or past culture.

So, as I was taught- 40 in general America. (And 3 out of 7 children died before age 5)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt

and don't forget weirdness -- my g-grandfather died at 65, my grandfather was 84 (he had brothers who made it into their 60s and 70s and one who is still alive at 84) and my father was 60. Hopefully, it skips a generation.

One thing I firmly believe is that working hard seems to have something to do with it, as well as not having crap in your food, but that's another thing.

[TheFenian]

Curt-Heinrich,

Would you have been by chance referring to "median" age rather than "mean" age?

From what I remember from my statistics studies (lo, these many years ago) are not "mean" and "Average" the same thing?

Bill Eiff

[tinsmith]

HI,
I have been doing this reenactor thing for 25 years, and I'll give it up when I can't mount a horse any more.

I'm 54

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[sdreenactor]

im only 13 and ive been in this sence i was 11.....but i live in south dakota so i mostly do early indian war era but also some civil war

Randy Owen

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo Herr Bill!

Yes, indeed, thanks for the correction (Modland brain lapse at work...).

When speaking of a "middle" score we think of what is the "arithmetic mean" (just "mean," for short). This is what most people also refer to as the "average" of a set of scores. However, a strong case can be made for calling the median "average," too.

Basically, the "median" value is that number which is in the "middle" or a range of numbers- meaning (no pun intended) there is an equal number of numbers above and below that one.

50, 46, 46, 45, 44, 43, 43, 42, 41, 35, 34, 30, 29, 28, 25, 24, 23, 21, 20, 19, 18

Which would we say is the "middle" age: 35 or 36.7?

If you chose 35 as the "middle" age, you picked a statistic known as the median.

If you chose 36.7 as the "middle" age, you picked a statistic known as the mean (in this case, the average).

What I dislike about means/averages is this. If there were just two CW soldiers, and one was 10 foot tall and the other 2 foot tall- the "average" height of a civil war soldier was 6 feet. IF there are wide extremes at either end of the "median," such as large numbers of 10 year olds and large numbers of 90 years olds- it will skew the picture.

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt
Not Responsible For Abacus Failures

[billwatson]

"Just to be crabby, what does this have to do with much of anything? ;-)"
--Curt


Curt

I think it has to do with how long some of can keep on playing before we spoil it for the other kids. The prospect of archaic reenactors getting about with walkers is kind of a downer. Really slows down the march pace. :-)

I think, upon reflection, I fell into a mainstream fallacy of sorts in my earlier post. While it is quite true that the overall lack of conditioning among history-heavy reenactors allows those of us who are older but in pretty good shape to blend in and keep up, that really doesn't address the question of whether we're accurately depicting history. We're blending in and keeping up with a group of reenactors, after all. Just because overall conditioning isn't accurate doesn't justify other inaccuracies, just as a cooler in the tent is no more acceptable simply by virtue of not being by the campfire. The real issue is, how do we blend in with the depiction of history?

However, whenever I follow that reasoning to its logical conclusion, I am dismayed to find that it means only about 16 fellows ought to take to the field. :-) And that brings me back to the concept that you need to fix everything that's fixable and not let what can't be fixed force you into staying home to mow the lawn.

A statistician probably needs to go over these numbers when they stop adding up, and see if the proportions we've got are, broadly speaking, within the same kind of distribution range as the armies. If not, it's fodder for third-person interpretation when folks ask about average age of Civil War soldiers, average age of reenactors -- which comes up. My first impression is that the reenacting community at this end is much closer to the CW norm than I'd expected. Not on it, of course, but much better represented at the young end.

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo Kameraden!

"I think it has to do with how long some of can keep on playing before we spoil it for the other kids. The prospect of archaic reenactors getting about with walkers is kind of a downer. Really slows down the march pace. :-)"

I fully agree.

"War is young men dying, and old men talking. You know this." -Odysseus to Achilles, in TROY

I figure with a little training and practice, that my motorized wheel-chair will speed up our company wheels- and definitely have an advantage over walkers with their yellow-green tennis balls covers.

Seriously, it is unescapingly true, we DO distort and misrepresent history when the Civil War "average age" was say 26 and the CW Community's "average age" is say 40. Granted there were "older men" in service and in the ranks- I was just looking at two sharpshooters (federal and state) in their 50's who lied- taking off roughly 10 years. But, "war" is, and was, a "young man's"
thing...

I believe that the older ages among CW folks is a direct result of a number of things:

1. It is not 1861-1865
2. Uniforms, gear, and firearms are not free as issued at Government expense.
3. The Modern World has 18-24 years side-tracked with finishing high school, developing or trying to develop relationships with significant others, getting a car/clothes/toys, CD's, going to or finishing college, getting a job that pays more than Minimum Wage, getting an apartment, starting a family, starting a career.
4. The Modern World has 18-24 years at a disadvantage when it comes to
income and disposable cash, leisure time, and a desire to study and learn "history" which many ignored or slept through the first time or two around.

IF we could get this "cohort" of 18-24 year olds, uniformed and equipped, trained and drilled to H/A standards so that they COULD make up the 80-some per cent of the ranks men and boys under 24 should occupy- maybe I speak more strongly against "over 40 year olds" creating a new hobby- as one of us suggested- a GAR impression.

However, realizing the "limitations" of the "18 to 24 year old chort," in all things and all ways- I believe the CW Community would be gutted and bled to death if the maximum age was set at 35 or 40, etc. Yes, older men distort the "Purity of the History," but if the choice was no CW Community or a near totally F/M hobby, IMHO, the lesser of two evils is the walkers and wheelchairs. ;-)

I had a kind of TBG comrade who chose as his impressona and persona a CW soldier who was 42, the same age as he. While researching the man, he learned that he was actually 54- which only came out sortly before he died in hospital of intestinal blockage.
Historically, it was "authentic" for my comrade to be "42." For that impression/persona it is hardly wrong. But if everyman in the company was 42, we have skewed history well beyond Believable Image.

Another non-historical "consideration" is, where does the bulk of our CW knowledge and history lie then? What happens if everyone over 35 or 40 must quit- solely on the basis of chronological age (up to a point, "age" is a relative concept and determination)? Where does the bulk of our CW knowledge and history go?

One of the reasons I joked about being crabby and this having much to do with anything was not to put a damper on the historical discussion- but to point out there are, sometimes, "differences" between the CW and Today that we might just not be able to fix. ;-)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt
Too Old (at 38) But Not Ready To Quit Mess
A Proud Member of the "Resource" Rifles

[hireddutchcutthroat]

363 Machinists 37.63


Gah! I only have 8.4 years left!

[Dale Beasley]

You guys between 35-45 help me out. Wonder what was the average age of the Reenactor who fell-out of the Port Gibson 03 Preservation March? :confused:

[Smoked]

I'm 15 now, started when I was 13. From Cananda so I've done a mix of Civil War, Indian Wars and WWII.

Jeff, you need to sign your full name to all posts as you agreed to do when registering for membership. Please edit your auto-signature to reflect your full name. - Mike Chapman

[13thnhv]

Chronologically, I am 44.
Attitudinally, about 25.
Shoulders up: look 40, think 18.
Midsection: 55.
Waist down: 70.
If I had one wish, (and I think all of you older guys would agree with this), I would want to be about 24 and know what I know now.
And have what I have now.
Been doing CW since I was 30.
Rev War from 27-30.
The thing I most enjoy about my current age is the fact that I can get away with a few more naps than in the past.

[Lone_Rebel87]

I'm currently 16 but my right knee feels like it's 70 sometimes(torn MCL, LCL and other injuries).

Jordan Davis

[amazingkenneth]

41 Years old here. I hve been in reenacting for 12 years so far. Wish I was able to get in when I was younger.

Your Servant,
K.J.Reihl

[FootsoreFederal]

In my impression I'm 20 because no one can believe that I'm 16 in real life. I'll be 17 in September and have been reenacting for four years now.

Zach Whitlow

[Cracker Line]

I'm 16, started when I was 8 1/2 as a musician working at a local state park. Started doing early colonial (1650-1750) about 3 years ago, but am still doing civil war here in the deep south.

Cheers,
Adam

[GeraldTodd]

When I started this stuff I was 14 in the summer of '75. Now I'm watching 44 approach.

Figuring one 2 day weekend a month for 30 years is 720 days - I'm 5 events shy of having been in the war for 2 years!! I figure I'll quit when my 3 year enlistment is up. ;)

[johnyreb62]

Just turned 40, have been reenacting in this great hobby in the midwest for 20 years.

Brad W. Amend

[Pvt.CLC]

I am 17 and lovin it! :tounge_sm ive been reenacting for almost a year and held the passion ever sence I was about 6...

[Pvt.CLC]

When I started this stuff I was 14 in the summer of '75. Now I'm watching 44 approach.

wow.....well thats a long time to make 2 years.... :D

[David Lanier]

I'm fifty-three but have always looked younger than my actual age. I've been re-enacting for eight years.

[hardtack1864]

I'm 16, been reenacting for just a little over 3 years.

[RN_PAC]

Okay, I have been seeing this thread on "new posts" for what feels like a month and a half so I'm gonna cave and post on it...of course thereby ensuring that it will stay on "new posts" for another day or so :wink_smil

I'm 31. Started in the hobby in '88 at age 15 and absolutely loved it (despite ensuring that I would end up forsaking a normal adolescence in my case) secondary to a lifelong obcession with the study of the War initiated when I watched that awful miniseries "The Blue and The Gray" when I was eight. However, I fell out of touch (with the hobby but not my study of the War) after '94 because of my career and ultimately going back to school again. I just became active again this year and couldn't be happier; makes me wonder why I didn't try to get back into it sooner. It sure is a whole lot different versus 10 years ago.

Its rather hard to believe that if I had not taken that time off from the hobby that I would have been in it for 16 years now. Holy Christmas....!!

Best regards,
Tom Scoufalos

[hireddutchcutthroat]

It is interesting that my own 25-30 bracket is one of the lowest. Is it that we are all unemployed or working 60hr work weeks, and or just to busy or broke to reenact? Or is Gen X just to jaded to post?

[Angel of Mercy]

I'm 17 and have been doing Living History at Fort Delaware for 8 years and reenacting for 7 years.

[modelf85]

Thirteen years old

[weed]

The average age of a Civil War soldier vs the average age of the Civil War reenactor/living historian. That is an interesting question. Ben makes a good point that the average age of a Civil War soldier would seem to be older in 1862 than in 1864. Also, the draft, would factor into this on the Northern side. My great grandfater lied about his age to enlist. He gave it as 31 years old when he was actually 43 and he survived the entire war. We must also consider that the Civil War lasted 4 years, while reenacting it, has been around a long time, thus giving the reenactor a longer chance to grow older (without being killed in the process, as a REAL Civil War solder faced all the time). I am 52 years old and have been reenacting (hardcore) for 33 years, thus the opportunity for me to get older in reenacting was there, but in the real war, 4 years older than when I started was as old as I could have gotten. I am fortunate enough to look like my late 30's rather than my real age. I have seen MANY reenactors come and go, for various reasons, over the years. I do like it when I see young members joining. For a "hobby" I am a school teacher in "real life". I see so much apathy towards learning (and history in general) from the students I work with, that the younger reenactors gives me a sence of hope for our future yet!

John M. Wedeward
33d Wisconsin Vol's
"The Raccoon Regiment"

[Army30th]

I am currently 36, almost ready to turn 37. Began reenacting at the age of 22. When both of my great great grandfathers enlisted, they were 27 and 28, having been born in 1834 and 1835 (not respectively). They both passed at the turn of the 20th Century, 1900 and 1901, thus making them between 65 and 67 depending on when their birthdays fell. Ironically, they could have both been 66 when they died, depending on who died first.

I recreate the "persona" of a young man in his mid-twenties from New Jersey. I was born and raised in NC and both greats fought for the South. (Don't ask)...

William Lee Vanderburg

[Bummer]

What can I say? I am a centennial veteran. Been doing this since Sept of '62. :rolleyes:
But still a hardcore Private sleeping on the ground in my issue blanket and marching with the best of them...and hope to continue for a while yet.

Spence Waldron~

[75th OVI]

33 yrs old, in for 10. 1/2 of the company is at least 45 or older, most of them former military who run rings around us younger guys!

"For Union & the Constitution"
Tom Criscuolo
75th OVI
www.75thovi.com

[dwbishop]

Hallo Kameraden!

Hmmmmmm. A difficult concept that.

"Life expectancy" is a strange concept that I believe no two experts and reference books quite agree on. My references come from a number of my college anthropology courses (one of my minors, and internships).
While human "life span" (the length of time a human may live) remains constant (other than in the Bible), anthropologists like to ocme up with what was the "expectancy" one could hope to achieve in years based upon all of the factors of "life" such as food supply and nutrition, living conditions, ease or hardness of life, sickness and health and medicine, etc., etc.

For example, "Neanderthal Europe" it was given as 18. Ancient Egypt, 22. Ancient Rome, 25. Colonial America, 35. The Civil War, 40. The turn of the 20th century, 45. And then soaring after WWI.
Of course, different experts and books vary. And Euro-American "values and ranges" are different than Third World countries.

The problem with "life expectancy" is that it is made up. "Life span" is fairly constant- humans simply do not live to be 150 or 175 or 500 years- and I am slightly behind on the life expectancy for American men and women in 2004- 74 and 76?, or so.
That does not mean that there were no "old" people in 1861-1865, obviously no, but the percentage of the "Senior Citizen" population was much smaller.
That does not mean there were now 120 year olds either. (Just fewer of them.)

A few years ago, I did an "informal" study of grave stones and age at death at an 18th century Irish cemetery. The mean age at death was 43. Granted, it was a local Irish community, but the "mean" was higher than the "35" I learned for the period.

My point would be, even though there is not quite universdal agreement among anthrologists- they still use "life expectancy" as a study tool.
But I would add that the "harshness" of life; amount and quality of diet; presence of disease and disease vectors; lack of medical science (how many die from infectious disease in the USA today) or surgery; level and amount of physical work/drudgery needed to make a living; natural disasters and wars; etc., etc., can all affect how "young or how old" a person looks and functions in any modern or past culture.

So, as I was taught- 40 in general America. (And 3 out of 7 children died before age 5)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt
Another point to be taken is the mortality rate of infants and children in that time period. When these early deaths are included in the overall numbers, this would lower the "average" life expectancy. It does not give a good indication of your expected life span if you survived childhood, and therefore does not give a accurate impression of age groups within adult society.- dwbishop

[ChesterfieldYJ]

I'm 18, and have been doing this since i was 11.

The majortiy of my group is 40 and above but lately our recruiting has brought in primarily younger guys about 15-18.

[csa blacksmith]

i'm 31 and been reenacting 3 different time periods and like civil war best, i've been reenacting 15 years.