Willie Johnston of the 3rd Vermont Infantry
Ronald S. Coddington
On July 4, 1862, Willie Johnston of the 3rd Vermont Infantry played his drum in a division parade at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia. About a week shy of his 12th birthday, he had carried the drum during the last days of the Peninsula Campaign, George B. McClellan’s failed attempt to take Richmond and subsequent withdrawal. The boy carried his drum even as the Union army soldiers around him cast aside much of their equipment in hasty retreat from the Confederates.
Little could Willie have known, on that Fourth of July, that he was the only musician in his division who hadn’t discarded his drum or left it behind.
For this act, he became the youngest American soldier to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Willie, by now 13, received the medal on September 16, 1863, from—so the story goes— Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
Willie is pictured here with the medal and his drum, and wearing the uniform of the Veteran Reserve Corps, which he joined because of his health. According to Marius B. Peladeau, author of When Willie Went to War, this portrait might have been made during his visit to Washington, D.C., to receive his honor. Peladeau notes that the drumsticks appear expensive, perhaps topped by German silver or ivory.
Nothing is documented about Willie Johnston’s life after the war, though one source claims he lived until 1941.
Ronald S. Coddington is publisher of Military Images, a magazine dedicated to showcasing and preserving photos of Civil War soldiers and sailors.
