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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

15. An Eleven-Year-Old Trying to Fight in the Civil War

Children - Gustav Albert Schurmann — Gustav Albert Schurmann, The Civil War Parlor

Gustav Albert Schurmann was born in 1849 in Westphalia, Prussia. The following year his father, a talented musician, fled with his family from revolutionary Europe, emigrated to America, and settled in New York City. As Gustav grew up, his father taught him how to play various musical instruments. After the Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter in 1861, war fever engulfed the country. That spring, eleven-year-old Gustav was working the streets of New York City as a shoeshine boy. Like thousands who swarmed recruiting stations eager to enlist, the young boy was swept up in the excitement and tried to join any regiment that would take him as a drummer boy. His father had volunteered as a musician in the 40^th New York Volunteer Infantry, nicknamed “The Mozart Regiment” because of the high percentage of musicians in its ranks. So young Gustav sought to join that regiment as well.

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.