Johnny Clem

At the outbreak of the Civil War, 9-year-old John Lincoln Clem of Newark, Ohio, tried to enlist in the Union army as a drummer boy. After the first regiment he approached refused to take him, he tried the 22nd Michigan Infantry, which also turned him down. Undeterred, Clem tagged along with the men of the 22nd, who eventually adopted him as a mascot and drummer boy. The 22nd’s officers chipped in to pay the boy the soldier’s wage of $13 a month and, two years later, allowed him to enlist in the regiment. In September 1863, Clem earned promotion to sergeant (making him the youngest person ever to be a noncommissioned officer in the U.S. Army) and the nickname “Drummer Boy of Chickamauga” for an incident at that battle: When his regiment found itself surrounded during its defense of Horseshoe Ridge, Clem used the sawed-down musket he carried to shoot a Confederate colonel who demanded his surrender. The story of the boy’s bravery quickly circulated in the press, and Clem catapulted to national fame.

Clem served another year in the army (during which he was briefly captured and twice wounded), receiving his discharge at 13 in September 1864. Clem continued his military career after the war. Though he tried and failed several times to pass the entrance exam for West Point (to which he had been nominated by President Ulysses S. Grant), Clem received an appointment to second lieutenant of the 24th U.S. Infantry in 1871 at Grant’s request. Promotions to colonel and assistant quartermaster general followed over the subsequent decades; in 1916, he secured the rank of major general on the retired list. Clem, who married twice and had three children, died in 1937 at 85 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The following photographs show him as he appeared throughout the years.

This postwar illustration depicts a young Johnny Clem aiming his rifle at an approaching Confederate colonel at the Battle of Chickamauga. The incident was relayed by Harper’s Weekly in February 1864: “He [Clem] had gone through the battle of Chickamauga, where he had three bullets through his hat. Here he killed a rebel Colonel. The officer, mounted on horseback, encountered the young hero, and called out, ‘Stop, you little Yankee devil!’ By way of answer the boy halted, brought his piece to ‘order,’ thus throwing the Colonel off his guard. In another moment the piece was cocked, brought to aim, fired, and the officer fell dead from his horse. For this achievement Clem was promoted to the rank of Sergeant….”

As word of his exploits at Chickamauga spread, Clem found his popularity soar. He sat for a number of photos in the following year, including this one made in 1863.