RAIN, MUD PROVIDE REALISM TO BATTLE; BATTLE OF BELMONT CONTINUES TODAY NEAR EAST PRAIRIE

EAST PRAIRIE -- The re-enactment of the Battle of Belmont Saturday probably couldn't have come closer to the original battle right down to the water, mud and neophyte general Ulysses S. Grant.

Undaunted onlookers turned jacket and plastic trash bags used as raincoats to wind and rain to see the battle at the original site, a swamp at the time of the Civil War.

"I think it's been fantastic because this is under as much adverse conditions as could be," Shirley Pritchett, publicity chairman of the Battle of Belmont Re-enactment Committee, said Saturday of the event. "Anyone who hasn't stepped in gumbo (dirt) doesn't know what they're missing."

Saturday marked the first re-enactment of the Battle of Belmont at its original site. Pritchett said about 1,500 re-enactors, plus wives and children, were on hand for the battle's 130th anniversary. The re-enactors hailed from across the nation: California, Wisconsin, Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and, of course, Missouri, she said.

Pritchett said she didn't know the number of observers, but that organizers had expected 10,000 per day.

Activities at the re-enactment continue today, including a second battle at 1:30 p.m. There will be fewer calvary forces than Saturday because some re-enactors left, fearing their horses would get hurt in the mud, said Pritchett.

The re-enactors' camps will open to the public at 8:30 a.m. today. There is a $2 charge for bus or tractor rides to the area.

On Saturday, the North and South drew sabers and exchanged gun and cannon fire on a field that a week earlier had grown soybeans, Pritchett said. About 45 minutes later, the field still wispy with smoke, the battle ended as in 1861 with both sides claiming victory.

"If it hadn't rained, it would have been a good battle," said 15-year-old Matthew Scott of Calvert City, Ky., a mud-splattered Confederate infantryman with the 3rd Kentucky, Company C. "They had a lot of artillery. The calvary battle was really good, too."

David Grootenhuis, a Peoria, Ill. banker, and Lincoln Morris, an accountant from Normal, Ill., played along Saturday as blue-coated Union members. But neither fought in the battle. Instead they watched and took photographs.

Grootenhuis said the re-enactment camps are pretty realistic.

"This was known as the age of mud and we're knee deep in it. We're eating in it and we're sleeping in it," he said.

But Grootenhuis said Saturday's battle, by the same measure of realism, failed somewhat. With the weather as it was, he said, an attack would have been postponed for another day.

"With horse-drawn wagons and artillery pieces being pulled by horses, they wouldn't have been able to move quick enough to carry out an attack."

Union soldiers, on foot and horse, first pushed back the Confederates, taking Confederate Fort Johnston. But, heady with their success, the Union soldiers stopped to loot and burn the camp, only to suffer a counter-attack by the rebels that drove them back to the Mississippi River.

The original battle ended with 610 casualties for the Union and 641 casualties for the Confederacy, or 20 and 16 percent of the respective forces for each.

Pritchett said the Battle of Belmont was important because it served as the first battle for Grant, a brigadier general. Tennessean Marc Griffith played Grant in battle.

Observer Terry Wheatley, of East Prairie, said the battle was neat, although the weather proved to be terrible.

"It's something to see one time. We enjoyed it," he said. Wheatley came to the battle with his son, Brandon; mother, Marjorie; and nephew Jerry.

Marion, Ill. resident Mike Pieper said he's taken part in re-enactments for 16 years because he's a history buff and his great great-grandfather fought for the Confederacy. Relatives on his family's other side also fought in the war, he said.

On Saturday, Pieper, an infantryman with the 31st Illinois Volunteers, Company C, helped loot Fort Johnston.

"I was one of the best looters. I even brought some souvenirs back with me some rebs' underwear," he said. While looting the camp, Union soldiers took to tossing the Confederates' underwear through the air.

For 15 years, Pieper said, he fought as a Confederate with his own company, the 12th Kentucky Mounted Rifles out of Christian County, Ky. His turncoat status, he said, has caused some "animosity" with his former comrades and friends.

Pieper said he plays tricks on his ex-compatriots, like tearing down their tents at night while they sleep and pitching the tents elsewhere.

"They've got a reward out for me," he said. "They have a case of beer on my head if they can capture me."