Ahoy Neil;

Speaking of the 25th Mass.,(an Ancestor of ours was a Color-Bearer with the Old 25th, wounded at Cold harbor); by any chance are you falling in at the Sutton MA event this coming weekend?
I seem to have evoked the pity of my Adult Female Responsible Guardian sufficiently to cajole a 2-day pass from the galley up here in Yarmouth, ME to join my Pards of the 3rd Maine there.
We recently were accepted as a Line Company of the USV, and this is going to be a USV event, apparently, so as a "Maximum effort" 3rd ME event, most of us are planning to attend.
The Co. Cook just informed me tonight that we have about 40 signed up for the weekend Mess already, so we ought to be able to put around 23 rifles in the field as well as a pretty fair regimental Fife & Drum Corps and support staff.

I will plan on bringing the parlor guitar along if there is room for it (as well as my kit) in the ride I will bum to get there. There ought to be room for the fife and tin whistle, anyway!
It would be grand to jam around the watchfire with ye!

Portraying History "as it was" can be a delicate issue in our modern, sensitive, PC culture where sometimes it seems that the only "history" folks want to hear is the PC approved "revisionist" version where Americans are always the font of every evil in the world, particularly if they are of European descent, male, and/or "religious".
We don't go out of our way to look for trouble, but then we generally will whitewash History about so much (not much if at all) - we try to keep the vulgar language common in CW Camps under control, use the porta-potties in stead of digging "sinks" out behind the tents, and that's about it. If anybody finds our impression paticularly "offensive", they may content themselves with the Kora Temple mini-jeeps in their parade next year, or a herd of blooming goats for all we care; The Third is typically booked up with requests 2 years in advance so needn't tarry where American History offends the delicate sensitivites of the socially enlightened inhabitants.
Having said that, there are some points at which discretion becomes the better part of authenticity; South of the Mason - Dixon Line we generally refrain from that H. C. Work piece previously mentioned; it was a very late-War composition anyway and inapropriate for most impressions to boot. It is written that even General "Uncle Joe" Sherman rather disliked it.

Reenacting is fraught with touchy issues; what do you do when a "person of color" wants to join your unit as a combattant, but the Unit is a portrayal of an "all-White" Company / Regiment, as they were racially segregated even in the Union Army? I have seen some credible accounts of there being more racial integration going on in some Confederate outfits than amongst the Yankees!
Interestingly enough, the Navy was completely integrated, and apparently had been by tradition all along.

Speaking of the Navy; do you know if they ever got a Reenacting Crew up for the USS Contellation? It would be nifty if they could sail her on tour up and down the coast some Summer.