Schoolboy Soldiers of Rippey: Iowa Students Preserve a Civil War Legacy

[Student Voices] My soldier is Hardin Hall, and he is part of the 39th Company E. He died in active service, and he was the first one that passed away in active service. He was actually shot in the chest and killed in war in Georgia. After the war, he didn't have any occupation. He lived a peaceful life after. He got discharged for disability, and then he died when he was 75.

[Charity Nebbe] These Greene County high School students are telling the stories of 32 students and two teachers who left Rippey, Iowa, to join the Union Army in 1861. Because so many enlisted, the school closed behind them. 11 never came home. Their story wasn't widely known even in Greene County. That changed, though, when history teacher Dena Boyd invited local historian Chuck Offenburger to speak to her class.

[Chuck Offenburger] She said, if you know of a local story that would be impactful to high school students today, this would be a good time to tell it. And so I told them about the Schoolboy, Soldiers of Rippey, which is that's what I've always thought of these soldiers as. And that really got the attention. And so you can imagine the war breaking out. And if you're a pioneer building a new farm in outside of Rippey, Iowa, how does this impact you? I mean, what do you you know, this is stuff happening in a whole other part of the country.

[Aden Bardole] A lot of them probably weren't 18 yet, and they still went off to fight.

[Oliver Harris] That was one of the first things I imagined was like the conversation they had where they told each other like, hey, you know, this is this is what's going on. You know, we should join.

[Roman Sebourn] We weren't even a big town. And then half the men go off to go fight. No farming or or anything like that until they got back.

[Adysen Gries] They sacrificed their lives for what is right and for America.

[Charity]To learn more, students turn to their community and to the Greene County Historical Society. Their research led them through newspapers, obituaries, memoirs and cemetery records.

[Dena Boyd] Right now, they are working on researching each soldier.

[Adysen] We took a tour around the museum, and then eventually we had to ask questions about our soldiers and what had happened.

[Roman] I spent my entirety of Iowa history and trying to focus on who this person was and what they would wear, and I even helped on participating in reenactments.

[Charity] Along the way, the students began doing more than reading about history. They started wearing it, carrying it, and imagining what life might have felt like in 1861. This is an 1863 Springfield musket.

[Dena] They really rise to the occasion when we leave the classroom, when we can get outside and actually march and step in the actual uniforms. That's the goal of history, is to is to try to put yourself in the shoes of of somebody who lived then.

[David Burkett] Now you have to have it like that. Just stick by your foot, hold it just like that, and tell your story.

[Adysen] I mean, what school and what class you know, gets to reenact something like this?

[David] The commanding officer has arrived. Everybody, please meet Lieutenant Boyd. Well, today we're just kind of working on what the basics of how to handle a weapon, how to march in line and march as a unit. But we're trying to also get them to learn what it was like back in 1861 and what they're going through and stuff.

[OJ Fargo] The drum was to keep cadence. You heard me. And and a couple other people go left. I want these guys to be sharp. I want them to be proud.

[Charity] Marching in uniform and retracing the soldiers lives made some students wonder how a story like this could have gone largely unrecognized for so long.

[voice] Company - Halt!

[Oliver] It really was an amazing story so I figured there should be something to remember them by. I, originally asked him, like, is there a monument or anything that, you know, commemorates the soldiers? He said there wasn't.

[Charity] The students, their teacher and members of the Greene County Historical Society formed a committee dedicated to honoring the Schoolboy Soldiers of Rippey.

[Dena] And the students desire was to build a monument. And so the committee said, absolutely, let's do it.

[Aden] So it's going to be a seven foot monolith and they'll be etching, soldier on one side. And then kind of the history.

[Adysen] I had helped with the sizing of the monument and where to place the words and where we should put the picture on it.

[Lila Osterson] I kind of volunteered almost to do the drawing on the monument, and it was kind of cool to me. Like I was like, this is kind of insane. Like, I never get to do this ever again, and my work will be on something for a really long time. And that's just kind of like beyond what I can picture.

[Dena] This is going to be the location of where we put our second monument.

[Roman] I just think it would be really important to learn about this, especially on this type of day and especially this year, because it's, we're 250 years old, and we don't want to forget the past.

[Dena] My hope is that they have a first a better knowledge of the Civil War and of local history and an appreciation for the people who walked on these very streets, because we wouldn't be where we are without those who have gone before us. Sleep on, sweet one, and take thy rest. God called thee home. He thought it best.