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

Khalid Elhassan July 21, 2021 36 min

Alexander H. Johnson with his drums, years after the Civil War. Worcester Historical Museum

4. After the Civil War, Alexander H. Johnson Led His Town’s Drum Corps

After the Civil War, Alexander H. Johnson returned home with the drum he had carried at Fort Wagner. The former child soldier settled in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he taught drumming and founded that town’s first drum corps. Nicknamed “Major”, in reference to his being the drum major of the town’s drum corps, Alexander married, raised a family, and had 17 children. He was a lifelong active member in the Grand Army of the Republic, as well as a member of the Sons of Union Veterans.

In 1897, a memorial sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens was unveiled in Boston, to honor the 54^th Massachusetts and its colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, who had died fighting at the regiment’s head during the assault on Fort Wagner. The memorial, erected in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston, where it can be seen to this day, depicts Colonel Shaw and his regiment as they depart the city for the South. In that bronze bas relief, Alexander is depicted with his drum, tapping the beat at the head of a column of his comrades. He lived to the age of 83 and died in 1930.

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.