Col. Joshua Andersen

Colonel Joshua Andersen was born & raised in and around the Nebraska Territory! He grew up in the Lincoln area coming from a small town named Palmyra. Josh graduated with a history degree from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and for the first couple of years was able to work several museums across the country from Boston to San Francisco.
In March 2013, Joshua came across a recruiting station for a Civil War Reenactment group and he ended up joining the 1st Nebraska Co. A, and became a Civil War Reenactor. He started to learn to be a 19th Century soldier. It became a fascination & quickly a passion for history and trying to at least relive it as much as possible. Josh was an active member in the unit & over the years worked his way up through the ranks & eventually became Company Commander of the 1st Nebraska. The last 4 years he has been pushing the unit forward and has helped give it a new spark. He has been supportive of the Battalion and trying to help grow both organizations anyway possible
In the last seven years as a reenactor I have been to just about every reenactment the 1st was on the field for in that time. From the Gettysburg 150th, which as my first National it opened my eyes to just how big this hobby can be. To several Prairie Groves which will always be at the top of my list for fantastic events.

Josh has also has branched out into 1870s Indian War impressions but the Civil War impression will always be my home.
Colonel Anderson lives and works in Lincoln, NE with his husband Mike of 6 years. Balancing work, social, reenacting and personal life has been and always will be a challenge. But he makes a promise to Muddy River, in the coming year will be a time for growth and learning not just for myself but for the rest of the 

Battalion. We have many struggles ahead but we must work together as a team and form a battalion that always has and always will surpass any other on the battlefield. We owe it not just to ourselves but to the men that came before us nothing less.
I want to end of this paragraph:


                                                                                              “Creed of Living History”
We are people to whom the past is forever speaking. We listen to it because we cannot help ourselves, for the past speaks to us with many voices. Far out of that dark nowhere which is the time before we were born, men who were flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone went through fire and storm to break a path to the future. We are part of the future they died for; they are part of the past that brought the future. What they did—the lives they lived, the sacrifices they made, the stories they told and the songs they sang, and finally the deaths they died—make up a part of our own experience. We cannot cut ourselves off from it. It is as real to us as something that happened last week. It is a basic part of our heritage as Americans.