ATLANTA: An Abraham Lincoln impersonator autographed copies of the Gettysburg Address, a Scarlett O’Hara look-alike posed for pictures, and men attired in 19th-century blue and gray battle fatigues strode past hip-hop clubs and tattoo parlors.

They were among a crowd of about 100 Civil War re-enactors who descended on East Atlanta Village on Saturday to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the pivotal Battle of Atlanta, which was fought just outside Georgia’s present-day capital and ended in a Union victory.

But the influx of Civil War aficionados, accompanied by cannon shots, a rifle volley, a brass band and old-time fiddlers, caused little stir from the hipsters who regularly frequent the city’s self-described most peculiar district.

“That was Lincoln for real?” Amy Ross, manager of East Atlanta Tattoo, asked facetiously about the man in the black stovepipe hat holding court across from a dragon sculpture. “Everyone is so weird here anyway, it’s hard to tell if someone’s dressed up or not.” Ross, like many residents, was unaware their neighborhood was the site of a battle that claimed the lives of some 9,000 men from both sides and altered the course of US history.

The Confederate defeat and subsequent fall of Atlanta to Union forces are credited with helping ensure Lincoln’s 1864 re-election victory. The city’s burning by Union General William T. Sherman’s army before he embarked for Savannah on his “March to the Sea” helped galvanise Southern hatred of the North.

Mookah Adansi, a barista at Joe’s Coffee, said he hardly noticed the costumed visitors on Saturday.

“They just blend in man. Live and let live,” he said.

Lincoln, portrayed by Dennis Boggs, 64, of Nashville Tennessee, said no one even asked him if his beard was real.

“Lincoln was famous for his sense of humour, and I think he would have mingled with this eclectic group here as well as anyone,” said, Boggs, a retired grocer.

Published in Dawn, July 21th , 2014