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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

11. A Child’s Relentless Quest to Enlist

Children - Sergeant John Lincoln Clem — Sergeant John Lincoln Clem. Wikimedia

In 1851, John Klem was born in Ohio. Young Johnny, who changed his last name’s spelling to Clem and adopted Lincoln as a middle name in homage to the president, is the Civil War’s best known child soldier. John Lincoln Clem, as he came to be known, ran away when he was nine-years-old after his mother’s death, to enlist in the Union Army. He was rejected by regiment after regiment, because of his age and small size. However, little Johnny was persistent. He latched on to the 22^nd Michigan Infantry Regiment when it mustered in 1862, and followed them around. Eventually, the regiment’s members relented, and allowed him to tag along as a mascot and drummer boy. The soldiers even voluntarily raised money to pay him the $13 per month monthly wage of a Union private. In 1863, Johnny was finally allowed to officially enlist.

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.