Kids in Battle: 10 American Child Soldiers of the Civil War

Orion P. Howe

One of the youngest recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, Orion Perseus Howe was born in Ohio in 1848, then moved with his family to Illinois shortly before the start of the Civil War.

At the age of 12, Orion and his younger brother Lyston enlisted as musicians in the 55th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, in which their father served as the regimental band leader. During his service, young Orion was present at 14 separate battles in which his regiment fought.

His moment of fame came during the Vicksburg Campaign, on May 19th, 1863. In an assault on Vicksburg that day, the 55th Illinois Infantry charged and ended up pressed close to the Confederate lines. Engaged in a vicious firefight that quickly exhausted nearly every man’s cartridge box, it became critical to secure a resupply of ammunition from the stocks in the rear. However, the regiment was situated such that anybody leaving its relatively covered position for the rear would be forced to traverse hundreds of yards of relatively open ground that was swept by enemy fire. When the regimental commander sought volunteers to make the dangerous dash, Orion was one of the soldiers who stepped up.

Sprinting to the rear up a rise swept by Confederate canister and rifle fire, the volunteers were killed one by one, until only Orion remained, scrambling onwards to complete his mission. His comrades held their breath as the boy made his way through a storm of enemy fire, as bullets, shot, and shell kicked up puffs of dust all around him. Stumbling, falling, but always rising again and moving on, Howe was severely wounded in the leg, but gamely limped on until the crested the summit’s rise and disappeared from sight.

Bleeding heavily and groggy from loss of blood, Orion managed to locate general William Tecumseh Sherman, and informed him of his unit’s dire need of ammunition. Impressed by the boy’s demeanor and determination, Sherman ordered him to seek medical care, promising to see to it that his regiment would get the necessary resupply. Indeed, Sherman was so impressed by Orion that he wrote Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, stating “I’ll warrant the boy has the elements of a man, and I commend him to the government as one worthy of the fostering care of one of its national institutions“.

It took Orion several months to recover from his severe injury and rejoin his regiment. He reenlisted, and was finally discharged in late 1864 as a corporal.

After the war, he went to New York University, where he graduated from its dental school, before settling in Springfield, Missouri. Due to snafus at the War Department, he was not awarded his Congressional Medal of Honor until 1896, more than three decades after his exploits before Vicksburg. He lived to the age of 81, and died in 1930.

Alexander H. Johnson

Born in Massachusetts, Alexander H. Johnson enlisted in the Union Army at age 14, and joined the 54th Massachusetts (of the movie Glory fame) as a drummer boy when that regiment was formed. The 54th Massachusetts being one of the Union’s first colored regiments, young Alexander was likely the first African American musician to enlist in the Civil War.

He saw significant service during the war, taking part in the battles of Honey Hill, Boykins Mill, James Island, Olustee, the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, was present at the murderous assault on Fort Wagner, and participated in Sherman’s march through the Carolinas. His drum was struck by enemy fire six times, and he was wounded in the leg during his Civil War career. Alexander stayed with the 54th Massachusetts until the war’s end and his discharge in 1865, when he returned home with the drum he had carried at Fort Wagner.

After the war, Alexander settled in Worcester, Massachusetts, taught drumming, and founded that town’s first drum corps. Nicknamed “Major”, in reference to his being the drum major of the town’s drum corps, Alexander married, raised a family, and had 17 children. He was a lifelong active member in the Grand Army of the Republic, as well as a member of the Sons of Union Veterans.

In 1897, a memorial sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens was unveiled in Boston, honoring the 54th Massachusetts and its colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, who died fighting at the regiment’s head during the assault on Fort Wagner. The memorial, erected in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston, where it can be seen to this day, depicts Colonel Shaw and his regiment leaving Boston for the South. In that bronze bas relief, Alexander is depicted with his drum, tapping the beat at the head of a column of his comrades. Alexander H. Johnson lived to the age of 83, and died in 1930.

Charles Edwin King

Charles Edwin King was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1849. After the fall of Fort Sumter in April of 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 3-month enlistment, local volunteers were again sought, this time for 3-year terms in the newly formed 49th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The town’s grocer, Benjamin Sweeney, was elected as captain of Company F of that unit. Captain Sweeney assured Charlie’s parents that he would look after and protect their son if they allowed him to enlist.

Swayed by Sweeney’s promises and by their son’s pleas, and perhaps fearing that the lad might otherwise simply run away and enlist on his own as other boys were doing at the time and so it might be better to entrust him to the care of somebody they knew, Charlie’s parents relented. On September 12, 1861, aged 12, the lad was duly enrolled as a drummer boy in the 49th Pennsylvania.

Within a short time, Charlie was promoted from drummer boy of his company to drum major of the entire regiment. In the following months, the 49th Pennsylvania took part in the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days Battles, during which Charlie saw more death and mayhem than he might have imagined in his boyish fantasies.

In September, 1862, the 49th Pennsylvania participated in the Maryland Campaign, which culminated in the Battle of Antietam on September 17th, 1862. Charlie’s regiment was deployed near Miller’s Field and the East Woods during the course of that battle, when it came under Confederate artillery fire. The 49th Pennsylvania’s casualties were relatively light, but Charlie was one of the regiment’s unlucky few, and was struck down and grievously injured by an exploding shell.

Taken to a field hospital, Charles Edwin King died 3 days later of his wounds. He holds the unfortunate distinction of being the youngest military combat fatality of the Civil War.

Gustav Schurmann

Gustav Albert Schurmann was born in 1849 in Westphalia, Prussia. The following year his father, a talented musician, took his family and fled revolutionary Europe, emigrating to the United States and settling in New York City. As Gustav grew up, his father taught him how to play a variety of musical instruments.

After the Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter in 1861, war fever engulfed the country. That spring, 11-year-old Gustav was working the streets of New York City as a shoeshine boy, and like thousands who swarmed the recruiting stations eager to enlist, the young boy was swept up in the excitement and sought to join any regiment that would take him as a drummer boy. His father had volunteered as a musician in the 40th New York Volunteer Infantry, later known as “The Mozart Regiment” because of the high percentage of musicians in its ranks, so young Gustav sought to join that regiment as well.

Rejected at first because of his age and small size, Gustav’s father asked the 40th New York’s colonel to at least hear the boy’s drumming. The lad being a musical prodigy who took after his father, the demonstration convinced the regiment’s commander to change his mind and add Gustav to the unit’s muster.

Gustav’s regiment served in the Peninsula Campaign, during which the boy was loaned out to General Kearney for a day as an orderly during a grand review. Impressed by the lad, the general ordered him to gather his gear from his regiment, and assigned him to his headquarters staff as orderly and principal bugler.

General Kearney was killed in August of 1862, and his replacement, General Birney, retained Gustav as orderly and bugler. After the Battle of Antietam, the boy was assigned to General Stoneman’s III Corps staff, and promoted to Corps bugler.

After the Battle of Fredericksburg, Gustav was appointed to the staff of General Sickles, who promoted the then 14-year-old to sergeant as a reward for gallantry displayed in combat.

During a grand review of the Army of the Potomac in April of 1863, Gustav caught president Lincoln’s eye, as well as the eye of the president’s youngest son, Tad. The two became fast friends, and Gustav was invited to the White House. Granted an extended furlough, young Gustav spent a happy period with Tad Lincoln and the rest of the president’s family.

During the Battle of Chancellorsville, Gustav again displayed conspicuous courage, for which he was awarded a medal. Soon thereafter, at the Battle of Gettysburg, the lad again exhibit his bravery and coolness under fire when General Sickles’ leg was shattered by a cannonball. Applying a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding, young Gustav helped save the general’s life, and went back with him to the hospital, and thence to Washington. There, president Lincoln figured the boy had already used up to too many of his lives, and ended his Civil War service, ordering him back home to attend school in preparation for West Point in a few years.

During Gustav’s Civil War career, he served as a bugler for five different generals, saw plenty of action, was recognized for his courage and awarded medals, befriended the president’s youngest son and was guested at the White House. All in all, a generous dollop of the adventure and excitement the lad had sought when he enlisted.

Following his discharge, Gustav returned to New York City. Lincoln’s assassination ended his West Point prospects, so he went on with his life. He settled in NYC, worked for the city in various departments, married, and raised a family. He died in 1905, at the age of 56.

John Cook

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, 13-year-old John Cook enlisted as a bugler in the 4th United States Artillery Regiment at the outbreak of the Civil War. On September 17, 1862, at the Battle of Antietam, by then aged 15, he earned his place in history. Cook’s battery section had been ordered to support the attack of general John Gibbon’s division up the Hagerstown Pike. As the battery reached its assigned position and began to unlimber, a column of Rebels unexpectedly emerged from the nearby West Woods and poured a devastating volley that immediately felled most of the section and pinned down the survivors with withering rifle fire.

When Cook’s captain was shot off his horse and seriously injured, the lad sprang into action. Dragging his wounded commander to safety, Cook returned to the battery section and discovered that all the cannoneers had been struck down. Spotting a dead comrade lying with a full pouch of ammunition, he unstrapped it from the corpse and rushed to the guns, which were in danger of being captured by advancing Confederate infantry.

Displaying remarkable valor and heroism as he serviced the guns, Cook proved instrumental in beating back three separate enemy attempts to charge and capture the exposed guns, the last charge coming within 5 yards of the cannons before recoiling. As Cook was engaged in his heroics, the division’s commander, general Gibbon, saw what was happening and rushed to the endangered battery. Ignoring rank during the emergency, the general pitched in as a common artilleryman and personally took part in the fighting, servicing one of the guns as a cannoneer until the threat receded.

In recognition of his conspicuous courage that day, Cook was (eventually and belatedly) awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1894. A year after his heroism at Antietam, Cook again displayed exceptional valor, this time at the Battle of Gettysburg. Serving as a messenger, he frequently ran to and fro across a half-mile stretch of open ground that was swept by enemy fire in order to deliver his messages. In addition, he also helped destroy an artillery caisson in order to prevent its capture by advancing Rebels.

After the war, Cook settled in Washington, DC, and joined the federal civil service as an employee of the Government Printing Office. He died in 1915, a week shy of his 68th birthday, and was interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

Willie Johnston

William “Willie” H. Johnston was born in New York in 1850, and his family moved to Vermont shortly before the Civil War. When hostilities began, Willie’s father enlisted in the 3rd Vermont Infantry Regiment in July of 1861, accompanied by his son, who sought to join as well. Young Willie was rejected due to his age, but he accompanied the regiment anyhow, and served without pay. In December of 1861, officials finally relented and allowed him to formally enlist, placing him on the muster rolls as a drummer boy.

The 3rd Vermont took part in the Peninsula Campaign, and Willie’s first taste of combat came at Lee’s Mill, Virginia, on April 16, 1862 – a battle in which his father was wounded. A few months later, between June 25th and July 1st, 1862, Willie’s regiment saw heavy fighting during the Seven Days Battles, as the Union forces retreated from the outskirts of Richmond under a series of heavy attacks from the Confederates.

Willie Johnston’s conduct during the course of that retreat won him national fame. Falling back under relentless enemy pressure, and suffering from the unaccustomed heat of a Virginia summer, many weary federal troops grew demoralized and discarded all of their equipment during the retreat from Richmond in order to march unencumbered. Willie Johnston dutifully hung on to his drum throughout the tiring ordeal, and brought it with him to safety at retreat’s end in Harrison’s Landing. There, as the 3rd Vermont and other regiments of the division were assembled for a July 4th parade, it was discovered that young Willie was the only drummer in the entire division who had held on to his drum during the retreat. As such, he had the honor of drumming for the whole division that day.

A few days later, President Lincoln attended a parade for the entire Army of the Potomac, where he heard the tale of the conscientious young drummer. It is reported that the president wrote Secretary of War Stanton, recommending Willie for a medal. As a result, the youth was decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor on September 16, 1863.

At age 13, Willie Johnston became the second recipient ever to have received the Medal of Honor, and the youngest person ever awarded the nation’s most prestigious decoration – for exploits he had performed when was only 11 years old. At the end of his term of service, Willie reenlisted in February of 1864, and remained in uniform until his unit was mustered out in December, 1865. After the war, he worked as a machinist, married, and raised a family of five children. Willie Johnston lived to the ripe old age of 91, dying on September 16, 1941 – on the 78th anniversary of his September 16, 1863, Medal of Honor award.

Elisha Stockwell

In 1862, at the age of 15, Elisha Stockwell, Jr., attempted to enlist when a Union Army recruiter stopped at his hometown of Alma, Wisconsin, set up shop in the town’s schoolhouse, and made his pitch to the gathered crowd. However, Elisha’s father caught wind of what his son was trying to do, marched to the gathering, confronted the recruiter, and informed him that his son was underage and that he did not consent to the boy’s enlistment. Since, technically, recruits younger than 18 needed their guardians’ permission (a requirement frequently ignored), the recruiter was forced to cross the crestfallen Elisha’s name off the list.

He did not remain crestfallen for long, however, and soon ran away to enlist, assisted by a friend who put him in touch with another recruiter. The duo walked Elisha through the steps/ lies necessary in order for a minor to enlist without his guardian’s consent. With the requisite winks and nods, and a cooperating captain falsely vouching for his age, the boy was duly enrolled in the 14th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment.

Elisha’s first taste of combat came on the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, when he saw his first dead body, and took part in a bloody bayonet charge on Confederate lines that resulted in the death or injury of nearly half the men of his regiment. As Elisha described that come-to-Jesus moment, when he realized the difference between his fantasies and the reality of what war actually entailed: “I want to say, as we lay there and the shells were flying over us, my thoughts went back to my home. I thought what a foolish boy I was to run away to get into such a mess as I was in. I would have been glad to have seen my father coming after me“.

Elisha was wounded at Shiloh, taking canister in the arm, and a bullet in the shoulder. Recovering, he participated alongside the 14th Wisconsin in the battles of Iuka, Corinth, Champions Hill, and in the siege of Vicksburg, before marching to Georgia with Sherman and participating in the battles of Kennesaw Mountain, Atlanta, and Jonesboro.

After the war, Elisha returned to Wisconsin, eventually settled down as a farmer, married, and raised a family. Following the death of his wife in 1927, a grieving Elisha was cajoled by family and friends to write a memoir of his Civil War experiences, mostly to help take his mind off his grief. Despite his advancing years and failing eyesight, he managed to complete a manuscript, which was eventually published as the interesting and highly readable Elisha Stockwell, Jr., Sees the Civil War. Elisha Stockwell, Jr., lived to the age of 89, and died in North Dakota in 1935.

Edward Black

Born in 1853, Edward (William) Black was the youngest known child soldier to have served during the Civil War. Joining the 21st Indiana Infantry in 1861, aged 8, Edward served as a drummer in that regiment. Sent home after a few months, Edward returned, this time with his father, and was reenlisted in the regiment as a drummer boy.

Edward traveled the continent as the 21st Indiana’s drummer. He served in the regiment as it garrisoned Baltimore, accompanied it on an expedition to the Eastern Shore, thence to Newport News, Virginia, before getting shipped to serve in the Department of the Gulf, where the young lad’s unit fought in Louisiana as part of the campaign that resulted in the Union’s seizure of New Orleans from the South.

In 1862, young Edward was captured by Confederates during the Battle of Baton Rouge and imprisoned in Ship Island, but regained his liberty when federal troops overtook his captors and freed the Union prisoners.

Discharged in September of 1862, Edward reenlisted in February of 1863 with his old unit, which in the interval between his discharge and reenlistment had been converted from infantry to artillery, and reconstituted as the 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery Regiment. He would serve with the 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery as that regiment was kept busy until war’s end, seeing active duty in Berwick Bay, conducting operations in Western Louisiana, participating in the advance on and the subsequent siege of Port Hudson, joining the Sabine Pass Expedition, before finally settling in for garrison duty, first at New Orleans, and then at Baton Rouge.

During that extensive service, the young boy was wounded more than once. In one instance, when he was 12 years old, he was grievously injured when an exploding shell shattered his left hand and arm. Edward’s injuries earned him the unfortunate distinction of being the youngest Civil War soldier injured on active duty.

At war’s end, Edward and his unit remained in the vicinity of Baton Rouge as garrison troops, until January of 1866, when the 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery was finally mustered out, and its personnel were discharged.

Edward Black never fully recovered from injuries he received during the war, nor from the mental trauma of what he had been exposed to at such a tender age. He died in 1872, aged 17, and was buried in Indianapolis. His drum was passed on down his family over the generations, before it was finally gifted to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. There, it remains on display to this day as one of the museum’s most prized and popular exhibits.

John Lincoln Clem

Born John Klem in Ohio in 1851, young Johnny, who would change the spelling of his last name to Clem and adopt Lincoln as a middle name in homage to the president, was perhaps the best known of the Civil War’s child soldiers. He ran away when he was 9 years old, following the death of his mother, to enlist in the Union Army in 1861. Rejected by various units due to his age and small size, little Johnny latched on to the 22nd Michigan Infantry regiment when it mustered in 1862, and followed them around. The regiment’s members eventually relented, allowed him to tag along as a mascot and drummer boy, and even voluntarily raised money to pay him the $13 per month monthly wage of a Union private. In 1863, he was finally allowed to officially enlist.

It was during the Battle of Chickamauga, September 19 to 20, 1863, that John Clem earned his place in Civil War lore and legend. During the two-day battle, the 12-year-old displayed conspicuous courage, after riding to the front atop an artillery caisson. There, fighting on the firing lines with his signature weapon, a sawed-off rifle that had been trimmed to fit his diminutive size, Clem impressed his comrades with his bravery and steadiness under fire, and in hand to hand combat as Rebels and Yankees charged and counter charged each other and came to close-quarter grips during the ferocious fighting that marked that battle. In the course of the fighting, Clem’s Army cap was shot through three times by bullets.

Clem’s courage was not enough to ward off Union defeat, however, and the federals came to grief. At the close of the battle the following day, during the afternoon of September 20, 1863, as Union forces hurriedly retreated, Clem found himself one of the thousands of defeated soldiers separated from their units during the chaotic flight. Wearily lugging his sawed-off rifle, Clem heard a horse approaching from behind, and looking back, was confronted by a Confederate colonel on horseback, riding ahead of and urging along his pursuing Rebel soldiers. Seeing a little boy in Union blue toting a rifle, the enemy colonel shouted at Clem to “Drop that gun!” and surrender forthwith.

Young Johnny turned around, coolly raised his rifle, took aim, and shot the Confederate colonel off his horse, then hauled off at a mad sprint through brambles and brush until he reached the safety of Union lines. After the battle, Clem, aged 12 years old, was officially promoted to the rank of sergeant, thus becoming the youngest noncommissioned officer in the history of the United States Army. A distinction he holds to this day.

Clem’s conduct was widely reported in newspapers at the time, turning him into a nationally-known figure, and he was eventually decorated for his courage by Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury and future Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. A popular Civil War song, “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh“, written by William S. Hays and published in Harper’s Weekly soon after the Battle of Chickamauga, was reported to have been inspired by the exploits of Clem.

A month later, Clem was captured and made prisoner by the Confederates. Released in a prisoner exchange, he returned to ranks and fought in the Army of the Cumberland. Twice wounded during the war, he was finally discharged in September of 1864.

Following the war, Clem graduated high school in 1870, then rejoined the US Army in 1871, when he was commissioned a second lieutenant by President Grant. He married twice, raised a family, and served until 1915, before retiring as a general and as the last Civil War veteran still serving in the United States Army. John Lincoln Clem died in 1937, aged 85, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.