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America Accidentally Attacked the Soviet Union and Other Lesser Known History Moments

Khalid Elhassan February 27, 2020 34 min

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star - Aircraft — American F-80s in action during the Korean War. Squdron

3. The Youngest Union Soldier Killed in the Civil War

Charles Edwin King. Downtown West Chester

Charles Edwin King was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1849. After the fall of Fort Sumter in 1861, many locals answered President Lincoln’s call for 90 day volunteers to help defend the Union. Departing with their militia units for what was expected to be a short war, they set off for the training camps at Harrisburg, accompanied by young Charlie as their drummer boy.

However, when the militia were ordered to the front, Charlie’s parents ordered their son back home to the safety of West Chester. That did not sit well with the boy, who moped and pined for the excitement of the military camp. When the militia returned upon the expiry of their three-month enlistment, local volunteers were again sought, this time for three-year terms in the newly formed 49th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Charlie managed to join, but it ended with him earning the tragic distinction of becoming the youngest Union combat casualty of the Civil War.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.