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The Tragic History of the U.S. Child Warriors

Khalid Elhassan June 9, 2020 34 min

6. Drummed Into the Great Beyond

Union drummer boys during the Civil War. Vimeo

After mustering out in August of 1865, Frank Pettis returned home to Wisconsin. There, he worked in his father’s tailor shop, before changing careers at age 20 to become a miller. He grew into a prominent member of his community, remained a lifelong active member in the Grand Army of the Republic, the Civil War’s premier veteran’s association, as well as an active member in the Reedsburg Drum Corps.

He raised a family, and died in 1918, aged 68, leaving behind five grown children. Reedsburg’s Drum Corps headed the funeral procession. They tapped muffled drums, until his coffin was lowered to his final resting place, buried near his former teacher and captain.

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.