Playing against a background of booming cannons and rifle fire, one wool-clad group of local Boy Scouts is bringing a bit of music to the Civil War re-enactment scene.

"You kind of get this adrenaline rush because you're out there," said Ben Andrick, who serves as chief fifer for Mount Joy-based Troop 53's fife and drum corps.

"You hear the gunshots, you sit there, and in your mind you're thinking, 'Maybe this is what my relatives went through all those years ago.' "

Andrick, a 17-year-old junior at Donegal High School, has been a member of the Boy Scout Troop 53 fife and drum corps since it was started by assistant scoutmaster Mike Cassidy and his wife, Jeanne, more than three years ago.

The corps, which performs in regional parades and Civil War re-enactments, was featured in the August issue of Boys' Life magazine, the national magazine of Boy Scouts of America.

The Cassidys said the idea to start the corps first came about when their son Patrick, a 15-year-old Catholic High School student, got interested in re-enacting. They said they also were looking for a way to revive interest in the fife and drums.

Patrick Cassidy, who joined the Boy Scouts five years ago, is now a drummer in the corps. He said he recruited several other young people from his re-enacting group.

"You get to re-create history and usually explain some stuff to people and give them a better idea of what life was like during the time of the Civil War," he says of his interest in re-enacting.

The group initially marched in parades such as the Mount Joy Memorial Day parade.

The corps started participating in re-enactments two years ago, Mike Cassidy said. They have performed at such events as a living history program at Gettysburg and a re-enactment of the Battle of Bull Run.

The group will next perform in a re-enactment Saturday and Sunday in Elizabethtown.

"You get to know the guys a lot better than you would if you were just in the troop, because the fife and drum (players) get to do a lot of other activities," Patrick Cassidy says.

The group meets several times a month during the school year to practice, with the fifers and drummers taking lessons separately with local teachers.

One of the biggest difficulties for the troop, however, is acquiring enough uniforms for its 15 members, who range in age from 11 to 17.

"We still scrounge," Mike Cassidy said.

While the troop owns several uniforms for the boys, most uniforms have been borrowed from contacts in the re-enacting community. The corps is currently fundraising to purchase more Union soldier ensembles for the group.

Even with the uniform shortage, members said they enjoy participating in the re-enactment activities.

Andrick, who has played the tenor saxophone since fourth grade, said he is in the corps partly because he likes the historical music the group gets to play.

"When we get to go on re-enactments, I find it really interesting to actually get to live history as opposed to reading about it in a classroom," the self-described history buff said.

The most surprising part of the process, Mike Cassidy said, is the response from other re-enactors, who often appreciate the addition of field music to the battle's ambiance.

At one re-enactment, the triumphant Confederate soldiers even paused to thank the scouts, he said.

"As the band was lying dead in the field, the Confederates stopped to tell them what a good job they were doing," he said. "It's quite gratifying."

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