Maybe I'm the only one still around who finds this thread interesting.

There's a movement among some classical musicians to use only historically accurate instruments, so that what we hear is virtually identical to what they heard in the eighteenth century or whenever.

Modern instruments often have a slightly richer and fuller sound.

On the other hand, if you're used to the modern ones, you might fixate on the difference in sound: something, of course, that the original audiences didn't have to think about.

So as usual, the demanded level of "authenticity" at some point becomes a matter of taste. That goes for all trad music-making, perhaps especially in the context of historical re-enactment for audiences who by and large can't tell the styles of Pete Seeger or Joan Baez from those of the Limeliters, Bill Monroe, or Sam Sweeney:

http://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2014/01/jeb-stuarts-banjo-player-and-famous.html

Over the years I've been collecting mp3s of Civil War music. It's almost *impossible* to find a recording that sounds "just like" or even "a whole lot like" what we know or can surmise about the sounds of the period. The "folk" voices are too polished, the bands too elaborate, the styles too bluegrassy, pop, or bluesy, the instruments too lush, piano accompaniments too modernist, etc., etc.

Maybe the old-timey fiddle-and-banjo duos come closest to the "folk sound" of the 1860s: but unless the banjo is gut-strung and fretless with a squirrel-hide head, the fiddle kind if squeaky, the tempo a little slower, and the eighth-notes a little scarcer, the sound still won't be absolutely "typical" for the period. Musical instruments could not easily be carried on campaign except in officers' baggage, and foot soldiers wanted to carry as little wight as possible.

The point of this is not to diss current renditions of Civil War music. It's simply to say that absolute authenticity sometimes has to take a back seat to what sounds good enough - or better, as the case may be.