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Fairfax City blended local history with Earth Day activities during HisTree Day on April 26 at Historic Blenheim, offering families hands-on lessons about the Civil War, traditional crafts and environmental conservation.

Members of the 28th Massachusetts Infantry, Company B, demonstrated military life for children, teaching them how soldiers marched, carried muskets and performed bayonet drills with wooden rifles. Musicians Rob Calhelha and Joe Abernathy played the fife and drum.

Melanie LaForce portrayed Civil War nurse Mary Morris Husband, who saved the lives of 300 Union soldiers. Another presentation explored inequality through tableware, contrasting the metal cups and plates used by enslaved people with the earthenware of the middle class and the fine china and crystal owned by wealthy plantation families.

Children also tried historic activities. Azaria Dasgupta, 6, and Anjali Dasgupta, 4, prepared clay with sand for a brick mold under the direction of Colonial Williamsburg brickmaker Madeleine Bolton. Others explored a replica of an early-1800s maze made from harvested grain sheaves.

Brothers Elias Ergas, 4, and Isaac Ergas, 7, played graces, a Civil War-era game in which crossed sticks launch a ribbon-decorated wooden hoop for another player to catch. George Mason University’s 8th Regiment Green Machine Band added music to the event with a Civil War-era waltz.

Nature-focused attractions included a butterfly tent, where 3-year-old Jo Jo Beveridge held a monarch butterfly. Pat McCann, an arborist with Bartlett Tree Experts, distributed three varieties of native trees.

Fairfax City Sustainability Programs Manager Stephanie Kupka used an Enviroscape model to show how fertilizers and pesticides can wash into streams and eventually reach the Chesapeake Bay.

Visitors could also learn about Fairfax City’s Urban Forest Master Plan and its accompanying photo contest from consultant Garrett Wolf and Urban Forestry Stewardship Coordinator Sophia Chapin. Maryam Dadkhah of Plant NoVa Natives shared information about pollinators and the benefits of growing native species.