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The Tragic History of the U.S. Child Warriors

Khalid Elhassan June 9, 2020 34 min

29. Joining the Mozart Regiment

The Mozart Regiment initially rejected Gustav Schurmann, because of his tender years and small size. So his father asked the regiment’s colonel to at least hear the boy’s drumming. Gustav was a musical prodigy who took after his father, and the demonstration convinced the regiment’s commander to change his mind and accept the child. The regiment served in the Peninsula Campaign, during which Gustav was loaned out to General Kearney for a day as an orderly during a grand review. Impressed by Gustav, 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, 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 was promoted to Corps bugler. After the Battle of Fredericksburg, Gustav was assigned to General Daniel Sickles’ staff, and he promoted the then-fourteen-year-old to sergeant to reward his gallantry during combat.

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.