150th Anniversary of The Battle of Shiloh touches Rector

150 years.  Much ado. 
A steam locomotive troop train carrying Reenactor Confederate and Union Troops and Civil War cannons sped through Rector yesterday, March 28, 2012, at 12:55PM.  The troop train was headed to Marion, Arkansas, where the Reinactors would then join a caravan headed to Shiloh.  The train would continue into Little Rock, AR, where it would remain for a day hosting school children and tourists wishing to tour the train and participate in the event.
Marvin scoped out our vantage point and we loaded up and drove to the former Rector train station and Downtown Park.  Several classes of Rector School students were there, watching from the park's Gazebo, and along the sidewalk and side street. Dozens of local citizens joined the crowd that awaited the locomotive's arrival.
We clammored into the truck bed and sat on the tool box, each one of us with a camera;  Pam took stills, I took video, and Marvin could take both.  The train came toward us, whistled and blew its very loud whistle, whizzed past with the Troops waving to the crowd from within the passenger areas.  It took all of 50 seconds to fly past us.  150 years, not so much.
I do remember the decade of the 1960's with the Centennial celebrations.  Camden's part in the Civil War was also commemorated as Camden had been overtaken by the Yankees during the Civil War since it was the largest town in south Arkansas, and a port city, and a railway hub. Some of the made-for -tv movie, The North and the South,  with Patrick Swayze, was filmed there during the 1980s, at the Reader Railroad.  Several generals from the Union set up headquarters in the homes on Washington street, declaring the town "too pretty to burn."  As in Savannah, GA, the end-mark for General Sherman's March to the Sea, in Camden, the Confederates had already retreated.  That fact saved Savannah from certain destruction (Atlanta was torched), and it saved Camden, too.
Seeing the troop train head toward Shiloh for the 150th Anniversary Reenactment was a thrill to see.