17. Thousands of Child Soldiers and Sailors Served During the Civil War
The Civil War was the last time that significant numbers of American children served as soldiers and sailors. About a fifth of all military personnel in the conflict were under eighteen, and more than 100,000 soldiers in the Union Army alone were fifteen-years-old or less. There were even cases in which children as young as eight were put in uniform. Most child soldiers in the US Army were utilized as drummers, buglers, cooks’ assistants, nurses, orderlies, general gophers, or put to work in other non-combatant positions. However, during the storm of shots and shells as battles raged, child soldiers were frequently just as exposed to bullets and artillery as were the grown men on the firing line.
In the US Navy, children frequently served as “powder monkeys” in warships. Tasked during combat with rushing gunpowder from magazines to canons, they were just as exposed to danger during action as were all other sailors aboard ship, regardless of age. They scurried about carrying sacks of gunpowder liable to go off if it came into contact with any spark or shard of flaming timber or scorching shell fragment. That put the little powder monkeys at even greater risk than the rest of the crew.
