On a hot summer day, visitors are likely to find Vicksburg National Military Park rangers Will Wilson and Jake Koch clad in heavy wool uniforms while toting muskets, loading a cannon and sharing the lives of Civil War soldiers.

Both rangers started at the park in 2009 and have been involved in VNMP’s effort to bring history alive ever since. This past weekend both were part of a cannon crew at Battery DeGoyler where they shared the boom of the 12-pound Napoleon and stories of American sacrifice with hundreds of visitors.

“These demonstrations really let them connect with a place like Vicksburg. For someone to bring their family out and to see something like this, hopefully it’s that something tangible they can then take with them and remember it for the rest of their life,” Wilson said.

The team led by the two full-time rangers also includes two seasonal rangers, an intern and several high school students, Koch said.

“We have a whole week of training before we end up going live,” Koch said. “It’s an immense amount of work.”

The program wouldn’t be possible without volunteers, both said. Wilson started his service at the park as a volunteer in the living history detachment in 2008.

Koch is certified through the National Park Service in black powder weaponry after attending a training course at a National Guard base in Alabama.

“Some of these kids have drilled so much over the years they probably know the drill as well as the original soldiers did,” Koch said. “You can’t be on the gun until you’re 16, but we still have kids younger than that who come out and they get to drill.”

The specialized training goes into helping tell the stories that make Vicksburg National Military Park hallowed ground.

“We aren’t here to tell just one side of the story. We’re here to honor the men both north and south, for whatever reasons they took up fighting. The monuments tell the stories of the commanders and the states. They don’t tell the stories of the individual soldiers,” Wilson said.

Living history fills that gap left behind by unit position markers and monuments to generals, and the programs are in full force every summer. Since early June, the living history detachment has been performing rifle and cannon demonstrations every Friday through Tuesday in front of the park’s Visitor Center, Wilson said.

The next major living history program will be July 18 and 19 at Fort Hill.

“It’s going to be set in 1865 and be part of the Union occupation because that’s a story we’ve never really told before,” Koch said.

In the course of bringing history to life, Koch, an Ohio native, and Wilson, a native of Mississippi, wear both Confederate and Union uniforms.

“We do honor both sides. Most of the time I’m dressed as a Confederate soldier in our living history area. But to be here at Battery DeGoyler on the Fourth of July it’s also something special because of the significance and the role that it plays in American history,” Wilson said.

The color of the uniform — blue, gray or National Park Service green — doesn’t seem to matter to visitors, who always want to know if those thick wool uniforms get hot.

The answer? Yes and no.

“The thing is once you’ve been doing this as long as Jake and I have and as long as some of our volunteers have, it’s something you get used to,” Wilson said.