For three days in early June, the hometown of Pennsylvania’s Civil War governor, Andrew Gregg Curtin, will host reenactors, historians, scholars, musicians, authors, cooks, actors, local amateur experts, and visitors who care about our Nation’s greatest conflict and wish to explore it with others.

The Civil War Weekend in Bellefonte is not one thing, but many. It begins on a Friday with the Colloquium, an exclusive six-hour event featuring lectures by three well-known Civil War experts and a reception with special guests Generals Grant and Sherman. Across town, the Weekend offers several free events including a reenactment of Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address and a tour of the historic Union Cemetery focusing on the Civil War soldiers and leaders buried there.

The pace picks up on Saturday with an opening ceremony at the Courthouse in the center of town followed immediately by a living history rally to recruit volunteers to form a new company of soldiers to defend the Union. Soon after, Camp Songer, packed with Civil War reenactors including specialists in medicine, photography, artillery, embalming, and camp cooking, will open. Throughout the day six scholars and local historians will make presentations, an extensive book sale will be curated by the Civil War and More Bookstore, a panel of experts will answer questions about the War, a brass band will play period music, Rudely Stamp’d Historical Impressions will present a play about the evolving relationship between Generals Grant and Sherman, and a Penn State professor will reenact a stirring speech originally given by Frederick Douglass in 1852.

The Weekend winds down On Sunday. Camp Songer will remain open into the early afternoon and there will be another tour of the Union Cemetery. Visitors can sign up for a train excursion to the Eagle Iron Works and Curtin Village, both located on an iron plantation founded by Governor Curtin’s father, where a tour will explore how its workers contributed to the War. An interdenominational church service will address the challenge of war, and a solemn ceremony will close our Weekend at a place where all wars lead, among the green grass and white stones of a cemetery.