The horn call went out. Gray and blue uniforms rose from their respective hills, coming into each other’s sight. Somewhere, a cannon boomed and a smoking crater erupted from the ground. One soldier, a Confederate, hung from a crooked fence, dead. Dakota Bown, a 14-year-old private with the Fourth Virginia Regiment, saw this and advanced anyway. He advanced until a Union officer rode up on his horse and shot him six times from point blank range, killing him.

The above could be a description from a detailed history book about the American Civil War from the perspective of a young soldier. But Bown isn’t a battle-felled Virginian – he’s a modern day Glacier Middle School eighth-grader. Bown is a precocious student who plays the trombone and lists both Airsoft guns and jazz music on his list of favorite interests.

But he is also a member of the Northwest Civil War Council, a historical reenactment society in Oregon. He belongs to the 4th Virginia Infantry, a real-life volunteer regiment for the Confederate army which fought in the Stonewall Brigade.

He and his family got interested in the reenactment subculture last year during a vacation.

“We went down to Fort Stevens in Astoria on a camping trip around the same time a civil war reenactment was going on,” mother Phyllis Bown said. “We watched the battles and got interested.”

Bown signed up for a $10 weekend pass to fight in the reenactments. He attended a safety class, borrowed a uniform and armaments and took to the battlefield. Afterward, he and his father decided to sign up for full memberships.

The Northwest Council doesn’t reenact any specific battles, but the regiments are historically accurate. The goal could be said as being to recreate the period’s battlefield environment and lifestyle in the soldier and civilian camps.

Bown chose to sign up with a Confederate regiment in part because of a friend who recently moved to Georgia, he said. He’s learned a great deal of Civil War history from veteran reenactors and his own self-study of the period, inspired by his hobby. Bown looks forward to the Civil War unit in his American history course at school.

“The Civil War unit is taught at the end of the year and I’m going to try to work the other aspects of secession besides slavery into the discussions,” he said. “A lot of people today think the war was fought entirely because of slavery, but there were states’ rights issues too. Only 6 percent of the soldiers fighting in the war owned slaves. In some areas of the south, they call the war the ‘Second American Revolution’ or the ‘War Between the States.’”

The 4th Virginia regiment Bown belongs to had no slave-owning soldiers, he said.

Reenactment events typically take place over the course of a weekend, with two approximately hour-long battles a day. It’s a full experience that includes camping out during the event, forbids intermingling of soldiers across enemy lines and is preceded by “quarters,” a three-day training camp that requires reenactment soldiers to live in barracks and prepare for the faux battlefield.

The battlefield itself is set up to resemble a historically accurate battlefield, complete with defensive obstacles. Soldiers fire real rifles at each other (filled with powder, but no ammunition), and cavalry mount horses and fire pistols. A few napoleonic cannons are present to make a big bang. Dead or wounded soldiers may be carried from the field, as Bown was by his father in one of their early battles. A commentator will fill in the historic background of events for spectators.

“The first time out I was pretty nervous and shaking,” Bown said. “I was worried about screwing up or afraid of the enemy. But after a while, I was itching to go out and shoot guns and hear the cannons.”

Nothing is rehearsed, though a sword battle may be planned. In this sense, reenactments are like a game rooted in a historic setting. And, like all good games, the point is to have fun.

Though soldiers caught in a volley or in the path of a direct hit are supposed to “die,” reenactors typically aren’t forced off the battle if “hit” early in the hour.

Reenactment isn’t a cheap hobby. The initial investment is around $500 for period-correct costumes and weapons, and a family membership is $40 per year, Phyllis Bown said.

But in return they have an activity they enjoy as a family, and her son benefits from the “wonderful mentorship” from members of the Northwest Council, she said.

The family may become involved with a Washington state based reenactment society in the future, but they plan to continue to participate in Northwest Council events.