Civil War reenactor Gerald Leonard Drake was arrested this week for making threats against a Civil War reenactment at Cedar Creek Battlefield in Virginia in 2017. He was also charged with making and placing a pipe bomb at the site when a reenactment was taking place. Drake had recently been expelled from his reenactment group and he decided to close the event down, apparently in retaliation. Drake’s threats claimed to come from “Antifa,” at that time being blamed for a number of acts. For example, in 2020 there were two well-publicized murders of court security personnel in California by a member of the far-right Boogaloo Bois which were initially portrayed by the perpetrator as being carried out by “Antifa.”
On September 23, 2017, the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation’s (CCBF) visitor center received a letter with presumed “Antifa” symbols on it of a red flag and black flag. The letter said that the upcoming reenactment had to be shut down because it “clearly celebrates the war to keep African-Americans in chains.” The reenactment was held on October 14, 2017, in spite of the threats. The Battlefield Foundation had extra security in response to the threats, but on the second day of the event an unexploded pipe bomb was found in the suttlers’ area.
According to the local U.S. Attorney’s Office report:
On November 6, 2017, a letter was received by The Gettysburg Times at its offices in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Once again, the letter and envelope both bore Antifa motifs and warned that if the Gettysburg Remembrance Day Parade allowed confederate flags or confederate men and women to be in the parade, “we will disrupt the whole weekend.” The letter also stated that “we have a new person to make our bombs for us since the Cedar Creek one was a dud,” and “[w]e will also run over people with a couple of trucks and might have a shooter on the rooftop [or elsewhere] along the parade route.” However, the Gettysburg Remembrance Day Parade of 2017 occurred without incident despite these threats.
In 2018, one year after Drake planted the pipe bomb at Cedar Creek Battlefield, he sent another letter to the then-President of the CCBF as well as The Winchester Star, a local newspaper in Winchester, Virginia. In this letter, Drake warned organizers to “cancel this event or you will regret it!” and discussed the various ways in which a “suspicious package” could be smuggled into the event.
On July 3, 2018, the annual Cedar Creek Battlefield reenactment was cancelled due to security concerns. In addition, the president of the CCBF resigned due to tensions caused by Drake’s threats.
Drake has been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for making threats, planting the pipe bomb, and stalking. He had first come under suspicion in 2020. The 63 year-old Virginian had served time in jail for sex offenses, but had been allowed into his reenactment unit in spite of that. He was expelled for allowing another reenactor to sneak into an event without paying, according to media reports.
After his expulsion from the reenacting group, Drake stayed involved with the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation as a volunteer. Those he threatened included people affiliated with the group.
I and many others involved in Civil War historical research followed this story when it broke in 2017. I remember telling another student of the Civil War that I thought it was a hoax for four reasons:
- “Antifa” is very well-known in politically right-wing areas where at the time it was depicted as a major terrorist operation operating out of New York and San Francisco. In those cities almost no one had ever even heard the name “Antifa” before it became part of Fox News’s menagerie of threats to America.
- Why would a supposed terrorist group focus on an obscure Civil War reenactment at a battlefield virtually unknown to anyone outside of the reenactment community? I was guessing that if Antifa was real, its militants might have heard of Gettysburg, but Cedar Creek?!
- What was the likelihood that an “Antifa cell” existed anywhere close enough to Cedar Creek to drop off an Improvised Explosive Device on Day 2 of the reenactment there? Was Culpeper a matrix of agitprop?
- The fact that the threat at Gettysburg got a threat AFTER Cedar Creek seemed weird. Unless someone is true Civil War buff, what American thinks of Cedar Creek first?
Note on Feature Photo: The photo shows Gerald Drake in Nuremberg, Germany at the site of the Nazi Party rally in the area.
Here are substantial excerpts from a statement from the prosecution:
A federal grand jury in Charlottesville has indicted Gerald Leonard Drake, 63, from Winchester, Va., for mailing threatening letters, stalking, and planting a pipe bomb at the Cedar Creek Battlefield in Middletown, Virginia during a Civil War reenactment event in 2017. In the mailings sent to victims and two newspapers, Drake purported to be a member of Antifa and threatened harm, including referencing the Unite the Right riots in Charlottesville.
The indictment, which was unsealed following Drake’s arrest today, charges him with fifteen criminal offenses including: mailing threatening communications, malicious use of explosives, possession of an unregistered destructive device, unlawful manufacture of a destructive device, use of explosives to commit a federal felony, and stalking.
“This indictment and arrest mark the culmination of a nearly five-year investigation into the perpetrator of the attempted bombing,” United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said today. “Over that time, career federal prosecutors and federal agents steadfastly investigated and uncovered the identity of the individual who sought to terrorize innocent civilians in the Western District of Virginia. In the aftermath of the riots in Charlottesville, and at a time when people sought to heal, this defendant instead sought to sow political discontent and mayhem. From the local police who secured the scene, to the state police that diffused the bomb, and through to the federal agents who investigated the true identity of the perpetrator, this was truly a quintessential example of law enforcement partnership.”
“The FBI is grateful no one was injured by this explosive device, and no physical harm came to the individuals being threatened. In our mission to protect the American people, law enforcement will continue to take threats to individuals and public places seriously and will hold those responsible accountable for their actions. If you suspect a similar crime is about to occur or have information about one that has, please contact the FBI immediately at 804-261-1044 or via tips.FBI.gov,” said Stanley M. Meador, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Richmond Division.
As detailed in the indictment, Drake belonged to a reenactment unit that participated in the annual reenactment at Cedar Creek Battlefield until he was removed from his unit in 2014. In later years, Drake volunteered with the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation (CCBF), which is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of history related to the Cedar Creek Battlefield and which hosts an annual reenactment attended by merchants, reenactors, and visitors.
On September 23, 2017, a letter was received at the CCBF visitor center addressed to “Cedar Creek Battlefield people.” The envelope and its letter both bore a printed Antifa symbol depicting a black flag overlayed atop a red flag inside of a circle. The letter claimed the reenactment event “clearly celebrates the war to keep African-Americans in chains,” and warned the reenactment organizers that if the event was not cancelled, the trouble they would inflict on Cedar Creek Battlefield would make the riots that took place in Charlottesville in August look like “a Sunday picnic.”
On November 6, 2017, a letter was received by The Gettysburg Times at its offices in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Once again, the letter and envelope both bore Antifa motifs and warned that if the Gettysburg Remembrance Day Parade allowed confederate flags or confederate men and women to be in the parade, “we will disrupt the whole weekend.” The letter also stated that “we have a new person to make our bombs for us since the Cedar Creek one was a dud,” and “[w]e will also run over people with a couple of trucks and might have a shooter on the rooftop [or elsewhere] along the parade route.” However, the Gettysburg Remembrance Day Parade of 2017 occurred without incident despite these threats.
In 2018, one year after Drake planted the pipe bomb at Cedar Creek Battlefield, he sent another letter to the then-President of the CCBF as well as The Winchester Star, a local newspaper in Winchester, Virginia. In this letter, Drake warned organizers to “cancel this event or you will regret it!” and discussed the various ways in which a “suspicious package” could be smuggled into the event.
On July 3, 2018, the annual Cedar Creek Battlefield reenactment was cancelled due to security concerns. In addition, the president of the CCBF resigned due to tensions caused by Drake’s threats.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Virginia State Police, Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, and the Middletown Police Department participated in the investigation.
United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh for the Western District of Virginia and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katie Burroughs Medearis, Melanie Smith, and Cagle Juhan are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
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