By Dustin Brown
On April 9, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, bringing the Civil War to a close with the nation intact.
But sometime in the mid-1960s in Astoria, the story reached a different resolution. With the kids of 32nd Street playing the Confederates and a gang from 31st Street portraying the Union army, 32nd Street emerged the victor after a few hard-fought battles featuring toy guns, plastic cannons and piecemeal blue and gray uniforms.
“After it was all over the Confederates won,” said Patrick Falci, the mastermind behind the Astoria Civil War who accepted the Union Army’s surrender while playing the role of Lee. “The only time in history it happened.”
Falci’s hand in Civil War re-enactments did not end with his glorious declaration of victory at the tender age of 11.
Indeed, Falci’s knowledge of Civil War history is now immortalized twice over on the silver screen. His eyes oversaw the historical accuracy of “Gods and Generals,” the nearly four-hour Civil War film epic based on the novel by Jeff Shaara that opened in theaters late last month.
The movie is a prequel to “Gettysburg,” a 1993 film by the same director, Ronald Maxwell, that was adapted from the novel “The Killer Angels” by Shaara’s late father, Michael Shaara. Falci played a similar role in the creation of “Gettysburg,” serving as Maxwell’s historical adviser for five years before aiding him on the set during filming.
You can bet he stuck closer to the way things really happened than he did as a boy in Astoria.
Falci, a 50-year-old Rosedale resident, spent four months at the end of 2001 in Maryland and Virginia on the “Gods and Generals” set, where as historical adviser he paid attention to such details as the characters’ uniforms — which changed over the three-year span the film covers — and the way soldiers assembled for battle.
“My job was to make sure something we filmed for 1862 didn’t have anything from 1863 in there,” Falci said. “You want to make sure they have the correct rank on, the right sash.”
He even had a hand in the novel itself. Before Jeff Shaara wrote the prequel to his father’s book, Falci brought him on a tour of Civil War sites so he could see where it all happened.
Asked whether his devotion to Civil War history is more a profession or a hobby, Falci didn’t mince words: “This is an obsession.”
Indeed, he sports a long beard and hairdo identical to that of Gen. A. P. Hill, whom he played in “Gettysburg” and often depicts for lectures, and he wears a Robert E. Lee belt buckle. He even married his wife at Lee Chapel in Washington and Lee University on April 9, the day Lee surrendered to Grant.
It is a passion that began when he was a 10-year-old living in Astoria and his parents gave him a book about the Civil War, which they rapidly followed up with a one-day trip to Gettysburg, Pa.
“I was hooked,” Falci said.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Falci was particularly fascinated by Lee, who he said “just leapt off the pages, was just larger than life.”
Falci’s hand in the Civil War films began in 1988 when he met Maxwell at a Civil War re-enactment, which led the director to turn to Falci for historical guidance as he put together his screenplay.
For 25 years Falci worked for Verizon, but he accepted a special pension package four years ago that gave him early retirement at age 46.
Although his bosses typically gave him time off for his film work, his schedule is now devoted full time to historical research, lectures and battle re-enactments. His calendar is already packed with 22 speaking engagements across the country over the rest of this year.
“If I can entertain and inform, that’s the way I love to do it,” he said. “History should be exciting — this was real, there were exciting people.”
It is a story people need to hear and understand because “if we can learn from what happened 140 years ago, it will make us better people today,” Falci said.
“What happened in the Civil War brought everybody together,” he said. “This war made us what we are today. It was a horrible time, it’s just that what came out of it brought us all together, made us one.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
