Dr. Dabbs – Child Soldiers: The Tale of Johnny Clem

Child soldiers are a blight in low-rent hotspots around the globe. Kids lack judgment, and all little boys are stupid. That’s why, in most civilized locales, you have to be a certain age to purchase alcohol or a gun. However, the world has no shortage of heartless monsters more than willing to kit out children to go forth and kill on an industrial scale. The world rightfully reviles those leaders and those nations that practice such ghastly stuff. However, there was a time when the use of child soldiers was fairly widespread in the United States. One of the most compelling examples was that of Johnny Clem.

The Backstory of Johnny Clem

Johnny Clem was born on August 13, 1851. In short order, war clouds were building on the horizon, but Clem had little to fear. He was just a kid.

Johnny’s parents were Roman and Magdalene Klem. Magdalene was killed in a horrible train accident when young Johnny was only 9. Soon thereafter, in 1861, the little man ran away from home and tried to join the Union Army to fight against the South. He attempted to enlist in both the 3rd Ohio Infantry and the 22nd Michigan, but these two organizations rightfully turned him down due to his young age. However, Clem crept in among the supply trains for the 22nd Michigan and found his war anyway.

Johnny Clem’s Career Begins

Once the troops realized the young man was there to stay the unit officers took up a monthly collection to cover his Army wages of $13 per month. Two years later at age 11, Johnny Clem was allowed to formally enlist in the Union Army. At a loss as to exactly what to do with an 11-year-old in an active war zone, the 22d Michigan commanders made him the drummer boy.

Serving as drummer boy back during the American Civil War was actually quite a hazardous experience. The drumbeat helped organize, control, and reassure period infantry formations. However, by definition, the drummer needed to be close to the front line for these communications to be effective. This put these young kids at immense risk.

Don’t Believe Everything You Read

Whether it be here or any popular news source, take everything you read with a grain of salt. I do the best I can to adequately research my projects in this venue. However, as the comments will attest, I do not infrequently fumble the details. Having my prose nitpicked in retrospect is honestly half the fun of writing this stuff for me. I do so love the GunsAmerica comments section.

During the American Civil War, like all wars, propaganda played an outsized role. If you judged the war in Ukraine by YouTube videos the mighty Russian Army would have run out of tanks months ago. Everybody has an agenda.

History has come to refer to John Clem as “Johnny Shiloh.” The story goes that little Johnny served as a drummer boy for the 22nd Michigan during the Battle of Shiloh in Mississippi in 1862. The tale was that a piece of shrapnel punched through the little man’s drum, rendering him unconscious and alone on the battlefield. His mates purportedly later found him and rescued him from the carnage.

That’s a compelling tale, to be sure. It’s just likely not true. Clem’s regiment wasn’t mustered until four months after the guns fell silent at Shiloh. It appears the whole story was probably fabricated based upon a popular song of the day written by William S. Hays titled, “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh.” As I said, don’t believe everything you read.

The Little Drummer Boy Really Does Go to War

Though Johnny Clem likely did not serve at Shiloh, he definitely saw more than his share of war. At the bloody Battle for Chickamauga, Clem rode to the battlefield atop an artillery caisson and wielded a miniaturized musket that, though fully operational, was hand-crafted and affectionately presented by his fellow troops. That’s all honestly pretty dark considering the kid was only 11. However, by all accounts, Johnny Clem acquitted himself well in battle.

In one particularly extraordinary feat that was actually fairly well documented, the young man supposedly personally shot a Confederate Colonel with his miniaturized smoke pole when the Southern officer demanded his surrender. His exploits earned him the nom de guerre the “Drummer Boy of Chickamauga,” along with a little notoriety on the home front. As a result, he was actually promoted to Sergeant. This made Johnny Clem the youngest NCO in the history of the United States military.

The details of Clem’s exchange with the Confederate officer were rightfully debated after the dust settled. After all, the story just feels fabricated. However, historians now suspect that the Confederate officer in question was actually Colonel Calvin Walker of the 3rd Tennessee who was indeed wounded toward the end of the fight.

In October of 1863 at the age of twelve, SGT Johnny Clem was captured by Confederate forces while pulling duty guarding a train. The rebels took the kid’s uniform, including his cap that sported three bullet holes, something that supposedly upset the young man mightily. At the next reasonable opportunity, Clem was sent back north as part of a prisoner exchange. However, the Rebs did jump on the opportunity to weaponize the event. One Confederate newspaper featured the quote, “What sore straits the Yankees are driven when they have to send their babies out to fight us.”

Clem went on to serve with the Army of the Cumberland throughout multiple campaigns. Most of his later service was spent as a mounted orderly. He was ultimately wounded twice in combat–once in the ear and again in the hip. Johnny Clem, the Drummer Boy of Chickamauga, was formally discharged from Federal service in September of 1864. At the time he weighed 63 pounds.

The Gun

I have no idea what sort of weapon Clem’s mates cut down for him before Chickamauga. However, it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to put that together. Little Johnny’s rifle was almost assuredly some variation on the Springfield musket theme.

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There is a splendid little antique mall in my hometown that is awash to its gunwales with ancient china, high mileage furniture, and assorted tedious knick-knacks. Were that all there was to it, a visit to the place with my wife would be unmitigated agony. However, one full corner of the place is devoted to serious man stuff.

I have no idea where they get their stock, but there is always an ample supply of vintage swords and antique weapons hanging along the wall. I have actually bought a gun or two there. The neat thing about it, however, is the remarkable variation.

There are vintage blunderbusses, beater side-by-side shotguns, and muzzleloading martial arms that date back to the famed British meddling with their colonies. On several occasions, I have seen vintage military weapons that had been cut down or customized with varying degrees of professionalism. Some of them were likely homebuilt pruning jobs, while others might have been undertaken to rectify some sort of distal barrel damage. Regardless, I can certainly imagine what young Clem’s rifle might have looked like. 

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The muzzleloading percussion Springfield was the most common Union shoulder weapon of the war. Sporting a .58-caliber bore designed to fire Minie balls, the gun featured a whopping 40-inch rifled barrel and was effective out to 500 yards or more in the hands of a competent marksman. They cost the government $14.93 apiece, and more than a million were built by a variety of contractors. According to the Internet, that’s around $3,365 today, though I suspect that figure lost something in translation.

The Rest of the Story

John Clem finally finished high school in 1870. Though he failed the entrance exam to the US Military Academy, President Grant nonetheless granted him an officer’s commission in the 24^th Infantry Regiment. Clem spent his years as a junior officer in the artillery before transferring to the Quartermaster Corps.

Clem served from Portland to Puerto Rico with many stops in between. As is almost always the case, his level of responsibility increased alongside his rank. When he reached the mandatory retirement age of 64, he served as the chief quartermaster for Fort Sam Houston in Texas.

As was typically the custom for Civil War veterans, Colonel Clem was promoted upon his retirement to Brigadier General. In 1916 he was again promoted, while still on the retired list, to Major General. John Clem was the last Civil War veteran on active duty at the time of his retirement. Another Union vet, Peter Conover Hains, returned to active duty in 1917, but he had been retired for a time prior to that.

Clem was married for 24 years to Anna French, the daughter of a Federal Major General. After her death, he married Bessie Sullivan of San Antonio, Texas. Bessie was herself the daughter of a Confederate veteran. Ever the good-natured soul, in his later years MG Clem described himself as, “the most united American alive.”

Clem fathered three children and eventually died in San Antonio in 1937 at the age of 85. His exploits inspired a 1963 Disney film titled Johnny Shiloh as well as several period songs. From 9-year-old drummer boy to retired Major General, the life and career of little Johnny Clem were unique in the annals of American military lore.

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