By Ed Simmons, Jr.
cpreporter@lcs.net
It was a scavenger hunt traversing the county, and astronomically successful. All through the Jamboree, Boy Scouts and their families, by the hundreds and hundreds, fanned out across Caroline in pursuit of Civil War General Patches. A sensation, it was a boon for Caroline businesses.
There were 12 patches, and 12 locations where you could get them, but the catch was each location had only one type of patch. For instance, the Caroline Visitor Center had the General A.P. Hill patch, Country Angel Antiques had General James Longstreet and Bowling Green Visitors Center had General Ulysses Grant. Other locations were Family Diner on Route 2, Jack's Cafe in Bowling Green, Grapes of Taste in Ladysmith, Pizza Hut in Bowling Green, Kilwinning Cross Masonic Lodge in Bowling Green, and just outside the county at the Spotsylvania Visitors Center and Civil War Life Museum in Fredericksburg.
Caroline businesses initially ordered 400 patches, but these were gone almost before the Jamboree began. By the time the Scouts went home, upwards of 1,000 patches at each location were sold. Credit for the scavenger scheme goes to Caroline Tourism Director Kathy Beard, Wayne Brooks and Peter Bielak, designer of the patches and curator at the Boy Scout Museum in Washington, D.C.
As the sale of General Patches continues throughout this year, Kathy Beard said she's now putting on her thinking cap for prospering the county with another commemoration during the Civil War Sesquicentennial of 2011.