DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997                TAG: 9703300147

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER

                                            LENGTH:   43 lines

CIVIL WAR BATTLE RAGES AGAIN BATTLE OF SOUTH MILLS HELPED CREATE THE CONFEDERATE MYSTIQUE THE RE-ENACTMENT

A color re-enactment of the Civil War battle at South Mills will be staged April 19-20 at the scene of the original 1862 fight in a nearby cornfield.

Phil Scott, 35, a Moyock cabinetmaker, and Robert Colston, 29, a Norfolk-based Coast Guardsman, are members of a Civil War historic organization that will put on the show.

The Confederate and Union ``soldiers'' will clash at 2 p.m. each day on the battleground two and a half miles south of South Mills on N.C. Route 343.

The troop encampments in woods near the battle scene will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Admission is $2, free for children under 12.

``Each volunteer soldier for these re-enactments buys his own uniform and his own rifle and it costs more than $1,000 to put just one trooper in the field,'' Scott said.

Scott and Colston have recovered dozens of artifacts, including bullets and uniform accouterments, from the tree-ringed cornfield where the battle was fought.

Many of the relics have been put on display at the N.C. Dismal Swamp Welcome Center on U.S. Highway 17 just north of South Mills.

``All of us at the Welcome Center have been boning up on Civil War history so we'll know what we're talking about when visitors ask about the artifacts,'' said Penny Leary-Smith, director of the center.

The battle site is an easy drive from the Welcome Center, where directions are available. ILLUSTRATION: COLOR PHOTO: DREW WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Phil Scott, a cabinetmaker from Moyock, is a member of the Civil War

historic organization that will stage the re-enactment of the Battle

of South Mills next month.

MAP: Tracing by Joanne Pennington of the official Union army map of

the battle scene

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