After Hours: The Civil War Reenactor

On weekdays, Don Worth works in the high-tech world of Administrative Information Services as an assistant vice chancellor. But on weekends, he steps back almost 150 years to don the hand-sewn uniform of a corporal in the Confederate Army or a Yankee private, hefting a 10-pound working musket. He serves proudly on the "battlefield" in tactical exercises, in UCLA history classes and at junior highs where he gives students in precise detail "a worm's-eye view of what it's like to be a Civil War soldier." Go to www.3gvi.org.

WHY DO IT?: "Civil War reenactors want to immerse themselves in that period. They want to feel like they've gone through a time machine. They want everything to be as accurate as possible. Reenactors refer to this as having a 'Civil War moment.' "

HIS MOMENT: "I've had several. I was once marching down a dirt road, a long column of soldiers in front of me. As we passed through this huge cloud of dust, trees arching overhead, it just hit me that this was how it felt to be a Civil War soldier. Another moment came when the Georgia Volunteers (Worth's regiment) participated in a reenactment of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. It was the 135th anniversary of that battle. For three days, we relived it with 28,000 other reenactors, some 200 cannons blasting away."

HOW HE GOT STARTED: "I've always been a Civil War buff. I was 12 when the centennial of the war was celebrated. There were movies and TV shows on the war. In 1997, a neighbor got me started. He was with the Third Regiment Georgia Volunteer Infantry — the Confederate Light Guards. I did Third Georgia for a long time. Then at some point, I wanted to see what it looked like from the other end of the field. So I also joined the Second Vermont, a Yankee group."

ACT OF TREASON?: "I took a lot of heckling. The company commander of the Third Georgia actually put a bounty on my head. ... I don't have a political ax to grind either way. I just wanted to see what it was like to do both."

PROUDEST POSSESSION: "I never knew I had any family in the Civil War until two years ago, when I discovered through my interest in genealogy that I had a great-great-great-great uncle who joined up in West Virginia and served for most of the war until he was captured. He died two weeks after being released from prison. Right after the war, West Virginia issued 26,000 medals to all the soldiers who served or their families. The state still had 3,000 medals left when I looked online and found William Anschutz. I spent six months documenting our relationship, even finding letters written by my ancestors mentioning his birth. Six months after I presented my claim, the state sent me his medal in its original box, untouched for 135 years."