ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, July 8, 1996                   TAG: 9607080107
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-4  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: GETTYSBURG, PA.
SOURCE: Associated Press 

MUSKET BLOWS UP, INJURING 4, AT RE-ENACTMENT

A musket carried in a re-enactment of part of the Battle of Gettysburg blew up Sunday, injuring four men from a group re-creating a battle scene.

An unidentified member of the 23rd Virginia infantry regiment suffered severe injuries to his hand, another suffered facial cuts, and two others had minor injuries, according to a spokesman for the re-enactment group Gettysburg Living History.

Spokesman Brion FitzGerald said the accident happened shortly before noon during Herr's Ridge 1996, a re-creation of the events of the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.

He said the re-enactor stumbled during a troop movement and his gun barrel went into the mud. The man didn't realize that the gun barrel was plugged with mud when he tried to fire it, and the weapon blew up.

FitzGerald said the gun was a modern reproduction of an Enfield musket, a weapon a soldier would have carried during the Civil War battle.

The scenario was stopped immediately, while ambulances were brought out for the victims.

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