By CHUCK OFFENBURGER

JEFFERSON, Iowa, October 11, 2025 — Some of you might recall that on last spring’s Memorial Day weekend, I published a column about “the most under-told and under-appreciated story in Greene County history.” You can read it by clicking on this link.

It told about how in 1862, there were 32 students and two teachers who closed up the first school that had been built in newly-formed Greene County, and marched off to service in the bloody Civil War. Ten died. Many more were wounded.

Most of them were farm kids — actually pioneer kids — who’d only been in the area a year or two.

David Burkett, of Scranton, who for 30 years has been a Civil War re-enactor and researcher, says most enlisted soldiers back then “thought it was going to be a 3-month war.” Their pay? “About $13 per month, if they could get it,” he said. “It was pretty hard back then getting their pay to them on battlefields all over the South.”

Old soldier David Burkett, of Scranton.

In a 1907 history of Greene County authored by E.B. Stillman, who was editor & publisher of The Jefferson Bee, wrote, “It is a remarkable historical fact that Greene County, with a scant population, not yet 1,400 (at time of the war’s outbreak in 1861,) should have furnished 150 men who willingly enlisted in the war for the Union.”

He went on to say that the story of “the Schoolboy Soldiers of Old Rippey, Iowa,” as I think of them, is one of almost unimaginable patriotism, courage and heroism.

“Washington Township (where the school was located) stands proudly by its record along patriotic lines, and it is is said of it, that in the matter of population it sent more enlisted men into service during the war of the Rebellion than any other section of the country,” Stillman wrote in the history. “…the record will ever stand as a credit and an honor to Washington Township and to Greene County, as representing a type of patriotism unsurpassed, so far as known, in the annals of war anywhere…”

And he continued:

“No matter how far down the vista of time a new record of valor is made up and forms a part of the history of Greene County, it will not outrank in devotion to country and in the sacrifices made upon the altar of liberty, the deeds of these pioneer young men who came to these western prairies to find homes and the enjoyment of life in the pursuit of happiness and a competency. They, and those who enlisted in like spirit, should be accounted the bravest and the best of all, no matter who were their contemporaries or who may come after them.”

Last spring, when I told that story to the students in the Iowa history class taught by Dena Boyd at Greene County High School, six boys in the class decided to spend a month doing research into the story. Then they asked me to help them find ways to make people of today more aware of it.

A 12-member committee — of adults and students — has been working through the summer and this fall to try to make that happen in the coming year and beyond. We’ve had significant support from the Greene County Historical Society.

We have now put together an estimated budget of $95,000. We shared that with the Greene County Board of Supervisors two weeks ago to begin informing the public. And we are now starting a public fundraising campaign — and I am donating the first $1,000.

We plan to offer this project as a big part of what Greene County does in 2026 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of U.S. nationhood.

Old Rippey Cemetery.

Here’s what we propose:

—We will spend up to $60,000 for two large monuments that tell the Schoolboy Soldiers’ story. Per the request of today’s high school students, we ask that one of those can be permanently installed in the county seat of Jefferson, either on the courthouse grounds or inside the courthouse. The other we want to place in the Old Rippey Cemetery, which is the actual site of the school the Schoolboy Soldiers attended, and the trustees of that pioneer cemetery have already approved our idea.

—We will spend $20,000 or more for a set of 40 replica uniforms of what Union Army soldiers wore in the Civil War, and we will organize a 34-member military unit, made up of local high school students of today, who will portray the Schoolboy Soldiers in programs and parades in Greene County and beyond.

—We expect to spend $10,000 or more hiring a professional playwright in Iowa who specializes in historical programming. We will commission him to write a play, telling the story of the Schoolboy Soldiers, that we’ve asked Greene County High School drama teacher Darren Jackson and his students to present in the fall of 2026. The playwright has tentatively agreed to our offer.

—We expect to spend $5,000 or more to have a large outdoor mural done about this story.

Our first public event will be a free feature program on Sunday, Nov. 23 at 2 p.m. at the Greene County Historical Museum in Jefferson. GCHS students and our committee members will be telling the stories of individual Schoolboy Soldiers. There will be a display of local historical artifacts from the Civil War era, some original poetry about the soldiers’ service, and, of course, free refreshments.

We will be happy to receive donations for our project during the Nov. 23 program, or even before. Contributions are eligible for 501.c3 tax benefits. Checks can be made out to “Honoring Old Rippey’s Schoolboy Soldiers,” in care of the Greene County Historical Society, 219 E. Lincoln Way, Jefferson IA 50129.

Our 12-member committee members are GCHS students Yaakov Gehling, Aden Bardole, and Oliver Harris (he’s now a freshman at Iowa State U), plus teacher Dena Boyd, and local history buffs Dianne Piepel, Margaret Hamilton, David Burkett, Jed Magee, Mike Bierl, Mary Weaver, Jeff Christensen and me.

David Burkett, speaking to the historical society.

Burkett, 78, is the longtime Civil War re-enactor quoted at the start of this column. He knows the horrors of war, having served with the Army’s 1st Cavalry in Vietnam from 1967 to ’69. In a recent program on the Civil War for the historical society, he talked about the difference in war and soldiers from the 1860s to the 1960s.

“I was 19 years old when I did my thing (in the military),” he said. “But I had traveled around a little and had seen some of the world. You think of those younger students from Old Rippey, what had they seen but pioneer life on the farm? Then they’re leaving for war, and they’re riding steamboats and trains for the first time. They probably had to be thinking it was a big adventure.

“Most towns back then had some kind of militia, and so maybe they did a little military training,” Burkett coninued. “But a lot of that before the war was dinner parties and dancing. They all found out it’s completely different when there’s somebody shooting at you.”

That our young Schoolboy Soldiers stepped right up for that, enlisted and fulfilled their service, “that’s a special kind of patriotism,” he said. “Really something.”

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