9. While the US Army Employed Child Soldiers, the US Navy Made Do With Child Sailors
Since its earliest days, the US Navy employed children on warships, literally and officially labeled “Boy Sailors”. They had official rankings that began with powder monkeys at the bottom of the heap, who comprised the youngest and smallest crewmembers. Next came Boys 3rd Class, who typically served as stewards or in clerical capacity, often in port. As he grew up and gained experience, a child sailor could rise to Boy 2nd Class, then Boy 1st Class. At age eighteen, child sailors automatically became rated as ordinary seamen, received the same pay and came under the same discipline as adult sailors.
During the Civil War, a remarkable photograph was taken in 1865 of a child sailor, Boy 1st Class Aspinwall Fuller, above. It shows the lad, fourteen years old, 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 had issued a directive that prohibited 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.
