Boy soldiers

[W.G.Ewald]

Civil War era photograph collection displays the dignity of young men who were about to join the battle | Mail Online

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Lyrics

Yes we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
We will rally from the hillside, we'll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

(Chorus)
The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor, up with the star;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
And we'll fill our vacant ranks with a million freemen more,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus

We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
And although they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Lyrics :

Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times there are not forgotten.
Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land!

In Dixie Land, where I was born in,
early on one frosty mornin'.
Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land!

I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand,
to live and die in Dixie.
Away, away, away down south in Dixie!
Away, away, away down south in Dixie!

There's buckwheat cakes and Injun batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land

Then hoe it down and scratch your gravel,
To Dixie's Land I'm bound to travel.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land

I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand,
to live and die in Dixie.
Away, away, away down south in Dixie!
Away, away, away down south in Dixie!

 

[pmaitra]

Boy soldiers is just war crime; but then, in the opinion of a Gulf War Veteran acquaintance of mine, "war is crime."

Interesting film on historical event w.r.t. juvenile soldiers: Blood_Diamond_(film); and yet another religious conflict: Children's Crusade.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Boy soldiers is just war crime; but then, in the opinion of a Gulf War Veteran acquaintance of mine, "war is crime."

Interesting film on historical event w.r.t. juvenile soldiers: Blood_Diamond_(film); and yet another religious conflict: Children's Crusade.

Boys were not drafted into the Union or Confederate army below age 18, AFAIK. Volunteers could be extremely young. Young boys served as drummers.

More than 2,000,000 Federal soldiers were twenty-one or under (of a total of some 2,700,000)-
More than 1,000,000 were eighteen or under.
About 800,000 were seventeen or under.
About 200,000 were sixteen or under.
About 100,000 were fifteen or under.
Three hundred were thirteen or under-most of these fifers or drummers, but regularly enrolled, and sometimes fighters.
Twenty-five were ten or under.

No one knows the identity of the war's youngest soldier, but on the Confederate side, in particular, there was a rush of claimants. Some of their tales belong with the war's epic literature:
George S. Lamkin of Winona, Mississippi, joined Stanford's Mississippi Battery when he was eleven, and before his twelfth birthday was severely wounded at Shiloh.
T.D. Claiborne, who left Virginia Military Institute at thirteen, in 1861 reportedly became captain of the 18th Virginia that year, and was killed in 1864, at seventeen. (This likely belongs with the war's apochrypha.)
E.G. Baxter, of Clark County, Kentucky, is recorded as enlisting in Company A, 7th Kentucky Cavalry in June, 1862,when he was not quite thirteen (birth date: September 10, 1849), and a year later was a second lieutenant.
John Bailey Tyler, of D Troop, 1st Maryland Cavalry, born in Frederick, Maryland, in 1849, was twelve when war came. He fought with his regiment until the end, without a wound.
T.G. Bean, of Pickensville, Alabama, was probably the wars most youthful recruiter. He organized two companies at the University of Alabama in 1861, when he was thirteen, though he did not get into service until two years later, when he served as adjutant of the cadet corps taken into the Confederate armies.
M.W. Jewett, of Ivanhoe, Virginia, is said to have been a private in the 59th Virginia at thirteen, serving at Charleston, South Carolina, in Florida, and at the siege of Petersburg.
W.D. Peak, of Oliver Springs, Tennessee, was fourteen when he joined Company A, 26th Tennessee, and Matthew J. McDonald, of Company I, 1st Georgia Cavalry, began service at the same age.
John T. Mason of Fairfax County, Virginia, went through the first battle of Manassas as a "marker" for the files of the 17th Virginia at age fourteen, was soon trained as a midshipman in the tiny Confederate Navy, and was aboard the famed cruiser Shenandoah.
One of Francis Scott Key's grandsons, Billings Steele, who lived near Annapolis, Maryland, crossed the Potomac to join the rangers of Colonel John S. Mosby, at the age of sixteen.

Boys In The Civil War

 

[W.G.Ewald]

The Battle of New Market was a battle fought on May 15, 1864, in Virginia during Valley Campaigns of 1864 in the American Civil War. Cadets from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) fought alongside the Confederate Army and forced Union General Franz Sigel and his army out of the Shenandoah Valley..The battle was not without its cost to the VMI Cadet Corps. Forty-eight cadets were wounded...ten cadets were killed outright or died later of wounds:.

Battle of New Market - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The VMI Corps of Cadets fought as a unit at the Battle of New Market, Virginia, on May 15, 1864. Two hundred fifty seven cadets were on the field, organized into a battalion of four companies of Infantry and one section of Artillery. Ten cadets were killed in battle or died later from the effects of their wounds; 45 were wounded. The youngest participating cadet was fifteen; the oldest twenty-five.

Battle of New Market, Virginia. May 15, 1864. Online Resources from the VMI Archives.