CANNON and rifle fire shook Highcliffe Castle as American Civil War re-enactors took over for the weekend.

Members of the Southern Skirmish Association (SoSkAn) – the oldest US Civil War re-enactment society outside the states, celebrating its 50th anniversary – brought the terrible conflict to life with battle demonstrations, drills, and an authentic army camp.

Member Malcolm Weavers, who portrays a federal surgeon during the re-enactment but also delivers an information battle narration for the crowd, said the society was also one of the first ever set up.

"We were founded in 1968 and you either joined the Sealed Knot for the English Civil War or us for the American Civil War," he said.

"People had grown up with the movies of John Wayne, and they also had an interest in the history of this period and they wanted to see what it was like to live like a Union or Confederate soldier.

"At one point the society was at near 700 or 800 strong."

Mr Weavers said the cost of maintaining period-accurate costumes and props had led to a decline in the spread of re-enactment societies, but SoSkAn's 300-odd members travel nationwide putting on displays and spreading the knowledge of history.

"It is like in archaeology, until you actually try to do something, whether smelting metal for the Bronze Age or living in the woods like this, trying to keep a fire going when it's damp, trying to live off the rations they lived off – hard tack, salt pork and coffee – doing that for a few days when you are soaked through to the skin it does allow you tell people what it feels like."

Members of the association are trained to authentically recreate history in all aspects of the re-enactments, including handling weapons, drill procedures and life in camp.

The American Civil War ran from 1861 to 1865 with a variety of long-term causes, most notoriously the orientation of the economies of the southern states of the self-declared Confederacy toward slavery, and growing disgust for that institution in the North.

Britain and a number of other European powers sympathised with the South's desire for independence, however Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which effectively declared slavery illegal in the Union, made European support for the Confederacy politically impossible.

The war, which left hundreds of thousands dead and tore the new nation apart, was won by the Union at the Battle of the Five Forks in Virginia.

For more information visit soskan.co.uk