BALTIMORE, Ohio -- Modern-day soldiers fighting in the Iraqi desert weren't far from the thoughts of men with muzzleloaders reliving wartime events of 142 years ago in a damp field yesterday.

"It does seem strange," said Springfield resident Jim Ruley, 43, who carried a saber as a captain with the 30th Ohio. "We're staging this for fun when other people are doing this with deadly earnestness."

About 100 Civil War re-enactors gathered during the weekend to bring to life the April 1861 muster of the 17th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

The past, in some ways, was present.

"We went through the same thing in 1861 - loved ones were going to war and you didn't know if they were coming back," said Greg Forquer, 40, a real-estate appraiser from Lancaster and a corporal with the 1st Ohio Light Artillery.

Several re-enactors with military reserve units and the Ohio National Guard have been called to duty in Iraq, Forquer said.

"We miss them and want them back safe, just like their families."

So as they staged drills and slept in tents reminiscent of Camp Anderson near Lancaster, the re-enactors remained mindful of today's war.

Ruley, an aeronautical engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, said high-tech warfare and superior training have kept down the number of U.S. troop fatalities.

"In two weeks, we've overrun Iraq with less than 100 combat deaths," he said. "Back during the Civil War, it was not unusual to have thousands killed in a single battle in a single day."

Ohio supplied more than 313,000 troops to the Union during the Civil War, with about 30,000 killed. Three Ohioans have been killed in Iraq. Their sacrifice was honored by the "troops" with a moment of silence.

Don Pontious, 54, of Columbus, a private with 1st Ohio Light Artillery, said the encampment provided a chance to "portray war so people understand what we've gone through in the past."

The re-enactors said it would have been a surrender of sorts to cancel the muster.

"The terrorists and so forth would like us to hole up and stop doing everything, stop living our lives, but that's why our soldiers are in Iraq," said Carlisle resident Don Dawson, 64, who played a surgeon at a field hospital - replete with a bucket containing amputated "limbs".

Forquer, once an Army artillery man in real life, agreed.

"If we had canceled, it would really demoralize our guys over there. They don't want the lifestyle to change back home; that's one of the reasons they're out there."

In a re-creation of the Lancaster Soldiers' Aid Society - which sold homemade items to assist Union soldiers' families - a baked goods auction raised more than $500 for military relief groups.

The encampment at Smeck Park in Fairfield County, south of Baltimore, appeared authentic - except for one thing.

A sign hanging in front of four portable toilets dubbed the area the "French Embassy," apparently a commentary on France's opposition to the Iraq war.

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