BRODHEAD — Brodhead Historical Society invites the public to step back in time on Sunday, Aug. 11 when the 1st Brigade Band performs during Brodhead’s Covered Bridge Days. This unique, Civil War-era band will perform an Ecumenical Church Service at 10 a.m. and again at a concert from 2-3:30 p.m. Both performances will be in Veteran’s Park, which is near the Depot Museum on 1st Center Ave.  

The original band in 1864 included 18 men from the Brodhead Brass Band, who enlisted in the Union Army as the band of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 15th Army Corps. They left their rural homes to participate under the command of General William T. Sherman in the campaigns of Northern Georgia and the Carolinas. The “Tradition of Excellence” that these men established lives on today with the members of the 1st Brigade Band.

History comes alive as members play period brass band music on antique instruments while attired in uniforms and gowns circa the Civil War. The entire collection of 240 instruments, all made before 1865, and their collection of sheet music of the civil war era, numbering 690 titles help in the nostalgic portrayal of the atmosphere of days gone by.

While the abundant written and pictorial materials remain of that era, the mellow sounds of the brass bands of the 1860s were lost until the 1st Brigade Band, starting in 1964, began to locate and restore the dented and broken instruments and to retrieve and reconstruct the yellowed and torn music. Through their work listeners can now hear what Presidents Lincoln and Davis, Generals Grant and Lee, and their contemporaries heard. 

Covered Bridge Day events will conclude with the Brodhead Community Band performance at 6 p.m. in Veteran’s Park. Those attending are encouraged to bring a chair.  If the weather is bad, the afternoon concerts will be held at the Brodhead High School Auditeria.