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The Tragic History of the U.S. Child Warriors

Khalid Elhassan June 9, 2020 34 min

34. The Photogenic Powder Monkey

Boy 1st Class Aspinwall Fuller, aboard the USS New Hampshire during the Civil War. Imgur

One of the most remarkable photographs depicting child combatants in the US Civil War is that of Boy 1^st Class Aspinwall Fuller, above. Taken in 1865, it shows the lad, fourteen years old, standing beside a 100-pound Parrot gun aboard the USS New Hampshire, a 74 gun ship of the line. His very presence aboard ship was against regulations, but as happens often in war, regulations were ignored.

In 1861, President Lincoln issued a directive prohibiting the enlistment of underage recruits without their parents’ consent. However, heavy casualties and the war’s insatiable demand for fresh bodies led many recruiters to look the other way if a child tried to enlist. Which explains how Fuller joined the US Navy at age thirteen, without parental consent.

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.