CLERMONT - Gunfire echoed down the wagon trail. Heading down hill and then back up through the woods, visitors of Heritage Farm Park, found themselves at the Alabama-Georgia border, Sunday. It was 1863, the middle of the Civil War.

The final re-enactment of Thunder in the Hills brought out three dozen viewers.

Gunpowder smoke rose up from a clearing outside the rebel encampment.

"Get out of here, you Yankees!" a waiting woman screamed.

Not long after, the Confederates gave up in the skirmish, and they collected a wounded soldier. Bone jarred out from Pvt. Beggs' flesh. Beggs, J.D. Fenech, Ames, groaned in the medical tent. Watching children turned away, as Doug Helgeson, Minnesota, began his surgery. Helgeson, representing the 4th Kentucky Medical, poured out a blood-like mixture and threw out bits of deer bones for the display.

An assortment of limbs and bones piled up underneath the doctors cot.

"I've seen more, plus worse, in real time," Helgeson said. He served as a medic during the Vietnam War.

Helgeson played under his real name, but imitated surgical tactics used in Civil War times.

He served on the Confederate side. They had agreed to give up Sunday - the Union lost on Saturday.

"Many a boy will have a corked leg after this war," said Colonel Albert Smith Marks, played by Dick Pohorsky, of Cedar Rapids.

But Fenech left the tent limping, leg intact, and member of the losing side Sunday.

"We split it up," Pohorsky said, "Blue wins one day and gray wins the other. Then everybody is happy."

Court Stahr, Thunder in the Hills, event organizer, said they held the first year's event at Heritage Farms as a drill, solely for the Iowa 32nd Volunteer Infantry.

"We wanted to be more authentic," said Stahr of West Union.

Stahr said members of the 32nd wanted to be correct in what they displayed to the public about Civil War times.

"You can't have a bottle of pop sitting out. That's no good," he said.

So they camped over the weekend for the first time last year, providing a living history. This year other units joined in the drill - enough for a skirmish between the North and South.

The fact it was on Juneteenth, a celebration of freed slaves, and also Father's Day was just a coincidence. Last year, Stahr mistakenly held it on Mother's Day.

The change in date and the re-enactment brought out three times the numbers through the weekend, Stahr said.

For more information on the Iowa 32nd go to www.Iowavalor.com.

Contact Jessica Miller at (319) 291-1581 or jessica.miller@wcfcourier.com.