Civil War hits Munfordville

By GINA KINSLOW
Glasgow Daily Times

GLASGOW September 11, 2008 01:47 pm

— Hart County will celebrate its Civil War heritage this weekend with the annual Civil War Days festival, which draws several thousand people each year.
One of the highlights of the festival is Civil War re-enactments during which battles between Union and Confederate soldiers come alive again.
The first Civil War re-enactment is set for 3 p.m. Saturday at Thelma Stovall Park in Munfordville. Another is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sunday, also at the park.
“We are going to have a narrator who is going to tell the story as the battle is going on,” said Debbi Griffiths, Main Street Tourism director for the city of Munfordville.
The Civil War re-enactments draw a large crowd each year.
“I would say a few thousand come between the two re-enactments,” she said.
Other events that will take festival-goers back in time are a debate between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church on Union Street, a high tea at the George T. Wood home, which was the childhood home of a Union general, on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. and a Blue and Gray Ball with music provided by the 52nd Regimental String Band on Saturday at 7 p.m.
Anyone who is not quite up on what type of dancing will take place at the Blue and Gray Ball can take dance lessons Friday at 9 p.m. at the Union Street tent. Lessons will be given on the Virginia Reel, as well as other Civil War period dances, said Carolyn Short with the Hart County Historical Society.
New this year is Kentucky’s Abraham Lincoln History Mobile Exhibit, which will be at area schools Friday, then at the festival Saturday and Sunday, Griffiths said.
Aside from activities depicting the Civil War era, there will also be regular fall festival events, such as a parade down Main Street at 10 a.m. Saturday; a quilt show, which opens at 9 a.m. Saturday at Trinity Baptist Church. There will also be about 100 arts and crafts booths, said Neva Brent, arts and craft booth coordinator.
The festival begins at 8 a.m. Friday in downtown Munfordville.
For more information, call the Munfordville Tourism Commission at (270) 524-4752.

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