There is no point to re-enactments of historical battles. Despite the meticulous attention to getting the uniforms right and the cannon smoke, the simulation of being there fails on every level: there is no real danger of death and you know what the outcome will be. It is merely an exercise in pageantry. In history-as-lived, the participants at Gettysburg did not know that the Confederates were not going to win, while in a scripted re-enactment everyone knows their role and destiny from the outset.