The 29th Annual Battle of Aiken Festival kicked off on Friday morning, at 1210 Powell Pond Road, hundreds gathering to step into the past for a day (or two, as the festivities last all weekend).
The event commemorates the eponymous Civil War encounter on Feb. 11, 1865, between Union Maj. Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and his corps from the Fifth U.S. Cavalry, and Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler and his cavalry corps, amid Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s invasion of South Carolina.
Wheeler’s forces, along with the Aiken Home Guard, managed to drive off Kilpatrick and his men to Montmorenci.
Spectators gathered to see a bustling living history expedition, with reenactors dressed in mid-19th century garb, dramatized battle reenactments and educational tours.
The Frontiersman Camping Fellowship, a program of the Assemblies of God’s activities-based Royal Rangers ministry for boys, pitched a small encampment of period-era tents and tools replicating a camp of mountain men.
History Ladies of South Carolina, a group that teaches the history on the lives of women in Colonial and Victorian eras, had a tent set up displaying Civil War-era dresses. Its coordinator, historian Jennifer Bowers, gave a presentation on women’s fashion of the time, demonstrating the elaborate process of how women of the time would put on their clothes every morning.
Siara Wallace manned a replica of a schoolhouse, explaining to spectators how children received education in the 1860s. Students from kindergarten to middle school age would often share one classroom, depending on the resources available in town, Wallace explained. Children were taught the “three r’s”—reading, writing and arithmetic, though some communities offered lessons in other subjects such as history, sciences and the Bible. Teachers were often not much older than the oldest children in class.
The Battle of Aiken Festival will continue through Sunday, starting at 9 a.m. and ending at 3 p.m.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
