Living History: Morgan County’s Myron Mooney a staple at Battle for Decatur

By Catherine Godbey | Living 50 Plus

As the faint sound of “Dixie” played on the harmonica drifted through the heavy air of late summer, the Rev. Myron Mooney manned his post behind a wooden table.

Beneath a canvas tent, Mooney regaled visitors with tales from the Civil War. He talked of how Confederate bands played “Nearer My God to Thee” after Pickett’s Charge, which killed more than 1,100 soldiers, how Confederates smuggled Bibles into the South from the North and how Gen. Stonewall Jackson and his wife sang a hymn based on Psalms 51 before his death.

Every year, the 71-year-old Mooney, clad in a woolen vest, Gettysburg wool pants, a haversack, straw hat and period glasses, joins hundreds of reenactors for the Battle for Decatur, an annual Civil War reenactment at Point Mallard commemorating the October 1864 four-day battle.

Mooney, the pastor at Trinity Free Presbyterian Church in Trinity, leads the annual church service held on the second day of the two-day event.

“This is a ministry for him,” Mooney’s wife, Barbara, who also participates in the reenactments, said.

Mooney’s ministry began by coincidence 34 years ago, while on a leisurely drive around Southeast Decatur.

It was a Saturday, Mooney recalled. After dropping Barbara, who had recently given birth to their fourth child, off at the doctor’s office, Mooney went for a drive with his children.

“I had no idea what to do with the kids while she was at the doctor, so we just drove around. One of the streets near the doctor’s office led out to Point Mallard and I saw the ‘Battle Today’ sign. I had never seen anything like it. When we got out here, the cannons were going off,” Mooney said. “I guess, in a way, my Yankee wife got me into this by having to go to the doctor.”

At the time, Mooney volunteered preaching Sunday afternoons at Christ’s Mission, a mission to the poor in the building now known as Vintage Faith Church next to Fort Decatur.

“A few people would come in every Sunday afternoon. It got me wanting to reach out to more people. I said, ‘Lord, I know there are other people we need to reach.’ Then I saw so many people at the reenactment. I said, ‘Next year, we will be out here with the tracts,’ not having ever read one of them before,” Mooney said.

The tracts had been in Mooney’s file drawer for years – ever since he brought them home from a pastors’ conference at Samford University.

“It was a couple of years before we participated in our first reenactment. A guy from the Stonewall Brigade gave out packets of the tracts. Being a West Morgan Rebel, I took some and stuck them in a file drawer with the intent of someday reading them,” Mooney said. “When I saw the reenactment, I knew this was the place I needed to bring the tracts.”

Leading up to his first Battle for Decatur, Mooney joined the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the 19th Alabama Infantry and started collecting more tracts to distribute.

The second year, Barbara made outfits for Mooney and the children.

The hobby became a family affair.

In the early years of reenacting, the Mooney family donned wool trousers and ankle-length dresses and traveled to battles in Gettysburg, Murfreesboro, Selma, Antietam and Lexington. Myron and Barbara Mooney described the events as living history lessons.

“I had no idea we would be participating in these reenactments for so long. But this is a way that I can reach people and it is something our whole family does together,” Mooney said.

Now the Mooney family — which, along with Myron and Barbara, includes their five children, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law and 25 grandchildren — typically participates only in the Battle for Decatur, held the Saturday and Sunday before Labor Day. Four of his grandsons participate in the mock battles each day.

“My wife has made the outfits for all 25 of our grandchildren. I told her, ‘You do not have to clothe a whole army.’ But she loves it,” Mooney said.

For Mooney, participating in the reenactments builds on a love of history, particularly Civil War history, he developed as a child.

“In 1963, my mother went into Kuhn’s, an old five-and-dime store, on Bank Street, and bought me two Confederate soldier figurines made in Japan out of porcelain. Ever since then, I have loved history and wanted to know more,” said Mooney, who participates in the Battle for Decatur’s school day.

Since participating in the reenactments, Mooney has focused on collecting tracts about religion during the Civil War and interesting figures.

Mooney rattles off the dates of battles and stories of soldiers with ease. He shares about Charlie Coulson, a drummer boy who lost an arm and leg during the Battle of Gettysburg, about John Girardeau, described as a preacher to the slaves, and about the slaves.

“During the Great Depression, the government commissioned a lot of unemployed journalists to take the final testimonies of those slaves still alive. It was published in 10,000 pages and is available at the Library of Congress,” Mooney said. “The past few years, I’ve been focusing on collecting slave narratives and letting the slaves, through tracts, share their own stories.”

A stop by Mooney’s tent, which is adorned with the blue Alabama secession flag featuring the Goddess of Liberty, a cotton boll, snake and the phrase “Noli Me Tangere” or “Touch Me Not,” also will include a lesson about the Battle for Decatur.

Mooney talks about Hood’s Army of 25,000, the burning of the railroad bridge, the soldiers buried at the Lafayette Street Cemetery and how the troops used the tin off of the roofs of the homes burned to make shanties.

“This really is a way to keep history alive and to get others excited about history,” Mooney said.