Historic Outing Recap

Post date: Feb 12, 2012 8:18:21 PM

The Historic Outing started with a visit to the National Marine Corps Museum in Quantico. This museum houses era galleries from WWII, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Future galleries will include exhibits of the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and WWI as well as more recent wars.

Scouts then visited Fort McHenry where they heard the story of how during the war of 1812, the brick fort defended Baltimore Harbor and stopped a British advance into the city. Afterwards, Lawyer and Poet, Francis Scott Key was inspired by the 1,000 valiant soldiers to pen "Star Spangled Banner", originally entitled "Defense of Fort McHenry".

Next was the tour of the USS Constellation, the last all-sail, Civil War warship built by the Navy in 1854. The educators told scouts what it was like to live and work on a ship with 300 men, allowing them to "haul the lines", "round the ship's capstan", sleep in hammocks, and eat as the sailors of that time ate. There was also a scavenger hunt to learn about shipboard locations in a race against time.

Before returning to Richmond, scouts toured the Lightship Chesapeake, a WWII submarine called USS Torsk, and the USS Taney which was the last surviving ship from Pearl Harbor.