The rat-a-tat-tat of the snare drum, accompanied by the thundering beat of the bass drum, was all Kalamazoo’s Orcutt Post veterans of the Civil War needed when marching in local parades or rousing the men’s spirits at events and annual reunions.

If, as some have said, the Vietnam War was the first war to be seen on television, then the Civil War was the first American war that citizens on the home front could experience in photographs.

Like Meijer or Target or Walmart, the general store was the “superstore” of the 1840s. General stores served many purposes in frontier towns like Kalamazoo.