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America’s Youngest Warriors – Children Who Fought for the US

Khalid Elhassan April 4, 2025 17 min

Children - US Army Sergeant John Lincoln Clem — US Army Sergeant John Lincoln Clem. Metropolitan Museum of Art

18. A Kid in the Peninsula Campaign

Union forces retreat in the aftermath of the Battle of Gaines’ Mill, third day of the Seven Days Battles. Library of Congress

As Union forces pulled back from the outskirts of Richmond under a series of heavy Confederate attacks, Willie Johnston’s conduct during the retreat won him national fame. Union forces greatly outnumbered their Confederate opponents in the Peninsula Campaign. Under competent leadership, they might have seized Richmond and perhaps ended the Civil War in the summer of 1862. However, they were cursed with the leadership of General George B. McClellan, who was mistakenly convinced that he was greatly outnumbered by Rebel forces. McClellan lost his nerve, and rather than advance and fight aggressively to seize victory, pulled back, convinced that he was about to get swamped by hordes of Confederates at any moment. So in the midst of the unaccustomed heat of a Virginia summer, the Union forces fell back under relentless enemy pressure.

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.