Several hundred visitors stepped back into another time as the Woodlawn Plantation was turned back into Camp Davis on Saturday.

Camp Davis was created 150 years ago to train Confederate soldiers, all from Georgia, just north of Guyton. Camp Davis is now Woodlawn, currently the home of local attorney Warren Ratchford.

"This is the culmination of 30 years of cleaning up and arguing and doing a whole lot of other stuff to get this to happen," he said. "But it would not have happened if not for the help of a lot of people. It’s incredible to see the volunteer help that has come forward."

Nearly 5,000 soldiers trained at Camp Davis, one of three such sites established in Georgia. The Central of Georgia Railroad ran right in front of the camp’s entrance, making the trip easier for recruits from Savannah and Coastal Georgia. For those who made the trek from as far as Albany and Thomasville, they had to make the journey on foot or on wagons.

"It was a pretty incredible movement," Ratchford said. "At that time, there wasn’t any other way to get here."

An edict from Gov. Joseph Brown created Camp Davis, and his order called for men between the ages of 18 and 45 to report for training.

James Cavanah spoke as Gov. Brown to the guests and descendants of Confederate veterans gathered Saturday.

Re-enactments were conducted throughout the fire, with the boom of an artillery battery followed by the report of a musket volley from infantry. There also were the new "recruits" to Camp Davis, who went through medical testing before going through drills.

The assembled troops even learned how to do the spine-chilling "rebel yell," courtesy of Edmund Ruffin, portrayed by Dick Watson, a history teacher from Brunswick by way of Massachusetts. Ruffin, who had been a Virginia Congressman, is said to have fired the first shot at Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C.’s harbor, the first shot of the Civil War.

Cavanah said Saturday’s commemoration should honor and celebrate the legacy of the soldiers who trained at Camp Davis.

"It’s our history. It’s who we are," he said. "It is our past and in remembering that, it tells us who are today and where we came from but more importantly, where we go in the future, both good and bad. We imitate the good and we push aside the bad."

Said Ratchford: "We want to celebrate the valor of those people who served here and many of whom died here, fighting for a cause that some of them understood and some of them didn’t understand. But they all knew they were threatened. We’re celebrating today how far we’ve come. We can show that we’ve learned from our history."

Effingham Convention and Visitors Bureau members were delighted with the number of people who attended. The Camp Davis commemoration is the first of four events marking the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Next year, a program will highlight the Confederate hospital in Guyton.

"We are very pleased with this wonderful turnout," said Sherry Loper of the Effingham CVB. "The weather is perfect. There’s a lot of interest in this."