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Gr 4-8 Despite orders from both sides banning the enlistment of those under the age of 18, thousands of them fought during the Civil War. Wisler has gathered the stories of a few dozen such boys who entered military service as drummers, hospital orderlies, drivers, musicians, and often full-fledged fighting men. The introduction describes the various ruses that they employed to enlist and explains how the heavy casualties of the first few years of the war prompted officers to ignore the age limits and recruit male children as young as 1...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

At thirteen, Willie Johnston of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, was barely five feet tall and too young to shave when he received the Medal of Honor in 1863. Drawing on copious primary and secondary sources, G. Clifton Wisler tells the personal stories of the youngest soldiers to fight in the Civil War. Though it was illegal in both the Union and the Confederacy for those under eighteen to enlist for military service, boys as young as ten or eleven became members of the crucial fife and drum corps. Most could ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More