Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
When I was doing research for my series on Wild Bill Hickok, Cole Younger and Belle Starr concerning the Civil War period in which they were involved I kept running into this story of a little kid in the war so I went back and checked it out.
Turns out it's another crazy story that could never happen in modern times. There was a little kid named Johnny Clem who lived in Newark, Ohio. When President Lincoln asked for volunteers to join the Union army in 1861 this little squirt ran away from home to join the Ohio 3rd Regiment.
The commander told him that "he wasn't enlisting infants." Yeah I would think not. Why they didn't have someone escort the kid home I don't know. But still determined, Johnny traveled to the headquarters of the 22nd Michigan Regiment and was basically told the same thing, in other words..get lost kid! Go back home to mommie.
But the kid DIDN'T leave, he tagged along behind the drummer boy, marching with him. He hung around and worked, doing all sorts of camp duties and pitching in wherever he could.
Pretty soon the men began to take him under their wings and officers pitched in to pay him a monthly salary which at that time for a regular soldier was $13 a month. They also got him a uniform which had to have been specially tailored.
Then they cut down a regular issue rifle to a shorter one that more closely matched his size. I'm not sure if the rifle in this photo is the one that was cut down or not, still looks pretty tall don't it?
Johnny gained national fame when in the Battle of Chickamauga he was with a section of the line that was retreating from the Confederates.
A Confederate officer ran after the wagon Johnny was in and shouted. "Surrender you damned little Yankee devil!" Johnny used his own pint-sized rifle to shoot the officer dead.
By this time he was 12 years old and promoted to Sargeant, the youngest officer in the history of the army. Here is he with his new stripes:
Johnny started receiving his own pay and performed different duties including that of a courier. He was discharged after he served his 3 year service of duty and had been wounded twice. Six years later he applied to West Point but couldn't pass the entrance exams.
Apparently he didn't go back and catch up with his schooling but it didn't matter because on appeal to the President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, whom he served under during the war, he was given a 2nd Lieutenant's appointment in the regular army in 1871.
I belief this is close to his age at that time:
He went on to serve an amazing 55 years and retired as a Major General in 1916. He also got smart and moved to Texas where he died at the age of 85 in San Antonio in 1937.
Isn't it incredible how differently they saw things back then? Allowing a child on a battlefield would be child endangerment if not child abuse these days!
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
PS- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:
Your dad says, "Let's hit the road for dinner," and then grabs a
shovel!
