Museum offers chance to see, and experience, what it was like to be a Civil War soldier
July 15, 2026
Have you ever wondered what it was like to be a Civil War soldier?
At the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum on Saturday, July 25, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., you can find out. A reenactment group called the Palmetto Riflemen & New York Zouaves are setting up a Camp of Instruction to show you the process of becoming a soldier in the 1860s. The program is free.
And at least to some extent, you will be invited to participate yourself. There will be things to see, but the event is being billed as “more semi-immersive than display.” It will feature such things as initial enlistment: the issuing of uniforms, weapons and equipment; and more, followed by a scheduled public drill for adults and children with wooden rifles or broom sticks.
The purpose of the event would be to teach the public about the lives, experiences and service of the average soldier during our nation’s bloodiest war, with specific emphasis being placed on units and individuals from South Carolina. As usual with such special programs, admission to the rest of the museum will be free on that Saturday, as well as the program itself.
During the “Camp,” semi-immersive static displays will walk visitors through enlistment, and also feature illustrations of daily lives of the civilians of South Carolina during the period.
Attendees, both adults and children will be invited to drill with the company and learn the School of the Soldier, Bayonet Drill and Sword Exercises. (But not with real weapons, mind you.)
Those who regularly attend events featuring living historians (more commonly called re-enactors) at the museum will see some familiar faces, such as that of Captain Kenneth H. Robison, who frequently wears his Zoave uniform to the Relic Room.
“This event is going to be more than ‘junk on a bunk’,” Robison says, referring to the purely “look but don’t touch” kind of event. Attendees will participate, and in more than just the marching. If they stay to the end, the paymaster will also give them their pay as soldiers – and not only in play Confederate money. There will be some play Yankee dollars as well.
About the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum
Founded in 1896, the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum is an accredited museum focusing on South Carolina’s distinguished martial tradition through the Revolutionary War, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam, the War on Terror, and other American conflicts. It serves as the state’s military history museum by collecting, preserving, and exhibiting South Carolina’s military heritage from the colonial era to the present, and by providing superior educational experiences and programming. It recently opened a major new exhibit, “A War With No Front Lines: South Carolina and the Vietnam War, 1965-1973.” The museum is located at 301 Gervais St. in Columbia, sharing the Columbia Mills building with the State Museum. For more information, go to https://crr.sc.gov/.
