Marching with History

by Donna Swagerty Shreve

During the years 1982 to 1988, I got involved in an environmental living program that gave fifth grade students the experience of being a Civil War soldier.  My goal was to teach the history of the United States chronically from the arrival of the first people to about the first World War. I could only dedicate six weeks to the study of the Civil War and I needed our trip to be the second week in February to keep our history journey on target.

To qualify, I attended an overnight workshop for teachers just before the start of the school year. I never had any competition for the second week of February. It was cold and weather can be a factor. With my date set, I now needed to organize my class into a very small battalion of 30 soldiers. I had six squads containing one sergeant, one corporal and three privates. One squad was short a soldier as I also had one first lieutenant. I gave any orders to the first lieutenant and then the orders were given to the squad leaders. 

Discipline was fierce. One example was, I would order a surprise desk inspection and tell the first sergeant that the class had five minutes before inspection. After five minutes, inspection began. The first sergeant did the initial inspection. If a desk was found that needed improvement, the sergeant of that squad had to do the first set of push-ups as that sergeant had a problem in his/her squad. Then the offending soldier did the five push-ups. After the push-ups were done, the soldier remained in position and asked for permission to recover. The soldier then thanked whoever gave the order as a courtesy for the discipline. 

After the first sergeant inspected, it was Captain Shreve’s turn. If I found something that had been missed, the first sergeant did push-ups for me. We marched every day at the beginning of the school day and ceremoniously raised the flag with full military style honors. I always found a drummer or two for our marching or a drum roll as the flag was raised. A few students started their musical career because of Civil War training. I gave the soldiers two minutes to fall in. They each had a place to stand and knew how to stand at attention and how to stand at ease. We were at Henderson in Lodi district and it was located out in the country. I unnerved a few neighbors and I had to do a bit of PR.

We made up cadences to help with the marching drills. Each year the park ranger was impressed with our discipline and marching skills. We were quite impressive and very well disciplined.  The first couple of years, I had my father help with the marching. He had been outstanding midshipman during officer training at Great Lakes Midshipmen Training Center and had trained incoming midshipmen for two years during World War II. He knew a thing or two and got the soldiers shaped up quite quickly. We called him Gen. Swagerty even though he had been a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. I was Captain Shreve.

I had the uniform to back up my rank. I shared materials with two other teachers who were involved with the same program. Among us, we had enough blue jackets in various sizes to outfit the group of our soldiers. Parents had volunteered the sewing duties and we had dyed painter hats deep blue to complete the uniform. Each soldier was required to sew on their own stripes that designated their rank. The captain jacket had authentic buttons as the teaching partners had gone to several Civil War enactments and swap meets. We made it easier for ourselves and all of us wore blue jeans for our uniform pants. I had one student who had to purchase his first pair of jeans. My captain uniform even included a sword hanging on my left side.  We had found an appropriate officer’s hat to complete the look. The idea behind such trouble was the more authentic the look, the more intense the experience.

Each squad in our battalion had to learn a specific skill that they were in charge of teaching every one else. The various tasks were:

The medical squad learned the various procedures for certain injuries soldiers could incur during battle. We were equipped with many long strips of bandages, a stretcher and a crutch. 

The mess squad researched and prepared the food for all of the meals. They also made a schedule so all soldiers could be involved in serving a meal. This squad made beef jerky and hard tact for snacks after guard duty. Non-caffeine tea was used so the soldiers were not hyped up with caffeine. A separate small pot of coffee was made available for the adults. Dinner was a beef vegetable stew and breakfast was pancakes. There were complaints later but I replied any Civil War soldier would have considered their meals a luxury.

The canon squad had to make small model of a twelve-pound Napoleon canon and teach the several steps needed to fire such a canon. One year I did not check carefully enough with the sergeant of this squad. He became ill the morning of the trip and did not come to school and missed the trip. When the group was to present, I realized the reason for his illness. He had not learned how to fire the canon and had not asked for help. A few days after the trip, his father and I helped him to discuss better ways to solve such a problem in the future.

Guard duty squad taught each soldier how to fire a Civil War Musket. There are several steps and speed was necessary. We had wooden replicas of the guns that were used during guard duty. A secret password was established and proper guard duties were gone over. They also made a log book so all observances could be recorded. I am drawing a blank on the fifth squad but one gets the idea of what activities we engaged in besides marching.

I took the five sergeants and first sergeant to Fort Point before the actual overnight so they could see everything and be better prepared. They were going to be in charge.

The ever-looming threat for all was possible latrine duty. I needed three victims each year to clean up the porta-potty that was wheeled into the fort for our overnight. One year a squad leader forgot to write down a report in the logbook after guard duty. Another soldier got the honor when he woke me up when he got off guard duty. He kept talking in the sleeping quarters. The last year a sergeant slipped up on a small infraction. He was so incensed that he was chosen. I was tough and did not want to clean up the latrine myself.

A group picture was always taken. I then blew up the photo to poster size and displayed it in the classroom. I was always amazed that every year, the students begged me to continue the military set up to the end of the school year. I always refused. I thought they would be so relieved to stop.

The environmental field trip was a privilege. Each student had to sign a contract, along with their parents. The contract included getting their school wok done and no fighting or behavior issues.  Only a few students were left behind. Ironically the hearing to put one such student in a special lock up program at the Children’s Home, was held the early morning of the day we were leaving on our trip. I walked into the conference room in my uniform. The first question to me was did I have good discipline in my classroom. We all laughed and moved on.

I needed parent chaperones and drivers. Surprisingly, I never had to beg. The volunteers were usually fathers as we slept on the floor in sleeping bags in the cold San Francisco winter. No one escaped guard duty so everyone had to spend one hour in the middle of the night roaming around checking for intruders.

One year one squad did find two intruders in the early morning hours. Our park ranger that year snuck in his girl friend for the night. He had waited until we  were in our bed rolls. When the ranger let her out in the predawn, he hadn’t secured the front gate. A young soldier and his girl friend had found the front gate ajar and had come in to explore. The on-duty squad found them and demanded the secret password. Being unable to pass that test, the intruders were brought down the stairs with theirs hands held high. They were being ordered around by uniformed ten year olds, carrying wooden muskets.

It took a lot of strength on my part to not laugh when the prisoners were brought to me. I praised my soldiers’ diligence and suggested the tourists leave for now and come back when the fort was officially open for the public. Our ranger was a bit embarrassed as it was easy for us to piece the events together.

My third year of this program, I no longer had my father to help us. I had watched enough to carry on the marching training but a father of one of the girls came to me that year and offered his help. His daughter was an only child and he finally found something he could do with her that did not involve ballet or piano lessons. He was a former drill sergeant and he was willing to arrange his work schedule to do the training first thing Monday mornings before he headed to the bay area. He was magic. I promoted him to Captain Sipe and he took his job so seriously. After his daughter went on to the next grade, he asked if he could still be the drill sergeant for the next year. Wow, I was so lucky. He had the cars drop off the soldiers at the top of the hill by the fort. The soldiers loaded up their bed-rolls and marched down the hill to the fort to get a more authentic experience. 

Each of us in the classroom became full of Civil War facts. The television quiz show Jeopardy had nothing on us. I used to be able to clear the Civil War category when it came up. I am sure there were many students who could have done the same. The Fort Point program was cancelled a few years after I had moved on in my teaching career. I find it very sad that there were not enough rangers willing to promote the program and spend one night in the fort with a bunch of students. The whole experience became such a wonderful educational experience at so many levels.

1828 words

3/13/17 

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