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Weird Foods and Methods People Used to Survive During the Civil War

Khalid Elhassan July 21, 2021 36 min

Willie Johnston held on to his during the arduous retreat from Richmond. Harper’s Weekly

16. The Drummer Boy Who Held On to His Drum

Union forces greatly outnumbered their Confederate opponents in the Peninsula Campaign, and under competent leadership, they might have seized Richmond and perhaps ended the Civil War in the summer of 1862. However, they were cursed with the leadership of General George B. McClellan. Mistakenly convinced that he was greatly outnumbered by Rebel forces, McClellan lost his nerve, and rather than advance and fight aggressively to seize victory, pulled back, convinced that he was about to get swamped by hordes of Confederates at any moment. So in the midst of the unaccustomed heat of a Virginia summer, the Union forces fell back under relentless enemy pressure

As they retreated from Richmond, many weary federal troops grew demoralized and discarded all of their equipment, in order to march unencumbered. Willie Johnston dutifully hung on to his drum throughout the ordeal, and brought it with him to safety at retreat’s end in Harrison’s Landing. There, as the 3^rd Vermont and other regiments of the division were assembled for a July 4^th parade, it was discovered that young Willie was the only drummer in the entire division who had held on to his drum throughout the retreat. As such, he had the honor of drumming for the whole division that day.

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.