Eagle Scout: Civil War

Eagle Project: Civil War Grave Stones

As I mentioned a few weeks back my son, Superstar, has made Life Rank.

Life Rank is one step below Eagle Scout. My son has 5 merit badges and 1 Eagle project to do to make Eagle Rank.

He is still not sure what to do for his Eagle project. We have been looking at the ideas at My Project Finder to try to get the ideas flowing.

He is unsure about his Eagle project at this point, but he does have a clear goal that he wants to be done with everything by his 17th Birthday so he has a shot at earning some Eagle Palms

Even though my son does not have an Eagle project, at this point, the Eagle project process does mean he has had the opportunity to help the older scouts on their Eagle projects.  One of the more recent Eagle scouts in my son's troop Eagle project was researching, finding, and requesting new grave stones for Civil War Vets in our local cemetery.

My son helped on a couple of the days needed to find the graves. The scout ended up submitting over 40 names to to have new grave markers -- markers that were never there to begin with or damage over the years -- and to date 9 of the graves markers have been approved and replaced.

Over the weekend there was a ceremony to mark the occasion.  It was after the ceremony and talking to the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War, that were present, that we learned that during the Civil War they estimate that nearly 700 young women  served the military as soldiers.  This in today's time might not seem shocking, but remember in this era of American history women were not allowed to serve in the military and were not allowed to vote. If they were serving it was because they were disguise as men.  If they were voting it was because again they were living as a man and even their closet friends didn't know the truth of their gender.

I knew women did these things but I had no idea the number was as high as the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War shared with us. They also told us the story of some women that even POST war kept on living a man and that how no one knew... for one local woman it really wasn't until she seriously injured in an automobile accident in 1910 that her secret came out.

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Do you have an Eagle Scout? Or almost Eagle Scout? What did you do for an Eagle project? What will you do for an Eagle project? What projects have the scouts in your troop recently do?