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

Khalid Elhassan July 21, 2021 36 min

Civil War drummer Willie Johnston. Camp Willard

15. The Youngest Recipient of America’s Highest Award

A few days later, President Abraham 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 Lincoln wrote Secretary of War Stanton, and recommended that Willie Johnston be awarded a medal. As a result, the young Vermonter was decorated with the Medal of Honor on September 16^th, 1863. Thus, at age thirteen, Willie became the second recipient to receive what became the nation’s highest award for valor.

Willie also holds the distinction of being the youngest person ever awarded the nation’s most prestigious decoration – for exploits he had performed when was only eleven 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. He lived to the ripe old age of 91, before he passed away on September 16, 1941 – the 78th anniversary of his September 16, 1863, Medal of Honor award.

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.