Photo of the sheet music cover for the American Historical song, “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh,” retrieved from https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/sheetmusic/conf/conf01/conf0166/conf0166-1-150dpi.html
By Alexander Bergeret
“Oh Shiloh’s dark and bloody ground. The dead and wounded lay; amongst them was a drummer boy, who beat the drum that day. A wounded soldier held him up ー His drum was by his side; He clasp’d his hand, then rais’d his eyes, And prayed before he died… ‘Oh, mother.’ said the dying boy, ‘Look down from heaven on me, receive me to thy fond embrace… I’ve loved my country as my God; to serve them both I’ve tried.’”[1]
The drummer boy was a myth perpetuated in stories, both true and fictional, and songs, such as the “Drummer Boy of Shiloh.” Tales of young drummer boys’ exploits captured the imagination of the Union during the American Civil War. For those who were not on the front lines of the conflict, the archetypal drummer boy symbolized the bravery, patriotism, and religious fervor of the Union army. In reality, the drummer boys were a group of workers. The drummer boys performed critical tasks whose ranks were composed of a more diverse group of people than the archetype of a drummer boy would suggest. Drummer boys were typically part of a military unit known as field musicians, which included fifers and buglers in addition to drummers. Field musicians varied in terms of their training, age, and reasons for joining the war effort. Drummer boys served a vital role in enforcing soldiers’ schedules and relaying battlefield orders by means of their iconic drums. However, the myth of the drummer boy fighting on the battlefield was not entirely fiction either, since many field musicians did in fact see combat during the Civil War. The more typical duties typically performed by field musicians are overshadowed by the heroic deeds of drummer boys leaping into the fray of combat. Despite the mundanity of the musicians’ work, field musicians were crucial members of the regiment they served.
The common depiction of drummer boys in Union literature and newspapers demonstrated the cultural significance of the drummer boy. The heroic framework of an idealized drummer boy was composed of several core aspects. He was a hero, who took up arms despite his young age and poor upbringing while demonstrating great bravery, patriotism, and piousness in his actions. In The Children’s Civil War, Professor James Marten explains that the courageous drummer boy was portrayed as a “stock character,” in fiction stories made for children during the Civil War. The plots of drummer boy stories typically revolved around these young field musicians, frequently around the age of twelve or thirteen, participating in battles or being imprisoned.[2] In newspapers at the time, drummer boys were often portrayed as having humble origins, coming from families with little money or a missing parental figure. In one such account titled “Little Eddie,” the drummer boy’s mother wanted to place her proud son into the army for a time since she could not support him following the death of her husband. After the boy displayed his skill with the drum, he was accepted into the regiment as the drummer boy to replace the regiment’s previous drummer who was gravely sick.[3] Common tropes of these drummer boy stories detailed the drummer boy leaping into action following the loss of their drum or courageously disobeying the orders of their commanding officer. For example, the “Drummer Boy of Michigan” acted against his officer’s orders to retreat and picked up a rifle left on the ground. The boy went on to capture a rebel soldier with an injured hand and marched the rebel soldier back to his regiment’s camp. Similar stories depicted drummer boys who shot and killed Confederate soldiers after their drums were destroyed in an artillery blast.[4] Drummer boys were said to have performed many incredible feats, but the commonality between them is that the drummer boy greatly inspired the soldiers of his regiment. The final significant theme in drummer boy tales was that most drummer boys met tragic ends. Depending on the story or newspaper article, the drummer boy lived through several battles and was honorably discharged from the military following his heroic actions, or he met a tragic end and died from his wounds while showing composure and piety in the face of mortality. Billy W. was a fifteen-year-old drummer boy who was injured in the battle of Shiloh. The boy was told by his surgeon that he would likely die. Billy, rather than being distraught with the prognosis, remained composed and asked the surgeon to pray with him as he passed.[5] Similarly, the lyrics of the song “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh” portrayed a drummer boy having been fatally wounded on the battlefield. As he lay dying, he says that “‘I’ve loved my country as my God; to serve them both I’ve tried.’”[6] Drummer boys were depicted as being extraordinarily brave and religiously faithful in the face of their own mortality.
The drummer boy myth printed across many newspapers was very much of interest to those children who remained away from the fighting. Stories of particular drummer boys, like “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh” and “The Drummer Boy of Michigan,” proliferated among northern newspapers. Drummer boy stories were typically featured as front-page stories, which indicates newspaper editors considered them a draw to sell copies of their newspapers. These stories were so prolific, some papers even went so far as to fabricate their own drummer boys. Newspapers like the Salem Register questioned the legitimacy of stories such as the “Drummer Boy of Marblehead” due to the lack of official documentation regarding the event. The Salem Register noted that multiple fabricated articles were put into newspapers and were spread among religious groups and children’s schools.[7] The fabrication of drummer boy stories lends credence to the idea that these stories’ themes were culturally relevant and found a ready audience during the Civil War.
Looking beyond the “stock character” which captured the imaginations of those in the North, drummers in general were a segment of the army with great historical precedent. Field musicians played either the drum, fife, or bugle. The existence of field musicians in the United States dates back to the Revolutionary War, where field musicians served the same purpose within both the Continental and the British armies as they did in the nineteenth century.[8] During the Civil War, drummers, fifers, and buglers were all responsible for regulating camp life. Moreover, field musicians ordered an army during a march or battle, using a variety of particular songs. The only difference between those who played the different instruments was bugles were primarily utilized by mounted units during the Civil War, who were required to know how to ride a horse.[9]
The typical drummer boy was younger than other field musicians. While the legal age for a drummer boy was twelve with parental consent, a decent number of young boys were placed with field musicians after attempting to join the army as a soldier. It was not technically legal for boys below the age of eighteen to join the military at this time. This restriction resulted in many lying about their age, and subsequently, many underaged youths were recruited regardless of whether they were believed.[10] Children who joined the military as field musicians ranged from just below eighteen to even as young as eight.[11] Younger soldiers who were caught in their deception to join an armed unit of soldiers were sometimes placed into the drum corps of the regiment they joined. The drum corps itself was composed of musicians who played the drum and fife. While becoming a field musician was not what some boys had intended when they attempted to join the Union Army, it still paid the same as a newly recruited soldier. This practice was so commonplace that boys who ended up enlisting as field musicians under the legal age of eighteen made up the majority of field musicians during the Civil War.[12] Many boys also enlisted as field musicians on purpose, on account of the regular payment and relative safety when compared to being a soldier. Those factors were the motivation of youths who desired to help in the war effort, but who didn’t wish to be traditional soldiers.
Becoming a soldier in general appealed to boys of the lower classes and to those who experienced financial hardship. One of the biggest benefits of enlisting was the consistent monthly wage. Those that enlisted were essentially guaranteed “$12 a month plus enlistment bounties of around $50.”[13] The consistent pay was very appealing to young boys with few resources such as orphans, children from poor families, and boys that worked a job with inconsistent pay such as a paperboy.[14] Many young boys attempted to follow their fathers and brothers to the army, with mixed results regarding whether or not they would be allowed to enter as drummer boys or some other position.[15]
The training drummer boys received varied greatly. The kind of training depended on previous musical literacy and the way in which they became a field musician. By 1840, roughly 91 to 97 percent of boys from the North were literate, but not all would have necessarily been literate or specifically trained to read music.[16] Boys who were part of volunteer regiments received little to no official training and were expected to learn their given instrument on their own.[17] The volunteer regiments were state-organized groups of soldiers who were expected to personally obtain their own supplies and weapons, recruit their own soldiers, and assign people to different positions required in a typical regiment, including field musicians.[18] Field musicians who joined the “Regular Army” were instead given more formal training in playing and reading music. Fort Columbus, Governors Island, was one of the most well-known training facilities for field musicians, which trained musicians throughout the war.[19]
The work done by drummer boys consisted, in part, of playing many of the calls or songs that were used to regulate camp life. Drummer boys participated in playing numerous songs alongside fifers and buglers, but they were not responsible for every call made throughout the average day. Drummer boys and other field musicians would be among the first to be roused from sleep so that they could begin playing the first calls. During each of these calls, drummer boys were typically led by a drummer major and played a song to its completion. The drummer major was the most experienced out of the pool of drummers, and was capable of teaching others how to perform with their instruments.[20] One of the most important songs played, in part, by drummer boys was the “Reveille.” The “Reveille” was used to both wake the soldiers of the camp and order them to line up for roll call.[21] After lining up in front of the commanding officer, absent soldiers would be noted, and the next song would be played.[22] Various other camp calls were also performed by drummer boys and other field musicians. These camp calls included the “Fatigue Call,” “Breakfast Call,” “Adjutant’s Call,” “Dinner Call,” “The Tattoo,” and “The Tapp.” The “Fatigue Call” was made twice a day, once after the “Reveille” and again after the “Dinner Call,” to command the soldiers to clean up the camp. The “Breakfast Call” and “Dinner Call” signaled the times when soldiers had to “fall in line” for breakfast or dinner. The “Adjutant’s Call” instructed the field musicians and military band musicians to take their position to the right of the army during a march. “The Tattoo” was played to indicate the time for the soldiers to stay in their tents for the night. Finally, “The Tapp” indicated the time when soldiers were expected to extinguish all fires and lights for the night.[23]
Drummer boys’ duties expanded to assisting their fellow field musicians on the battlefield, following the introduction of the Ambulance Corps. The Ambulance Corps was established by Congress in 1862 and founded by Jonathan Letterman.[24] The bill resulted in soldiers, in addition to field musicians, being trained to provide first aid to fallen soldiers and haul them back to surgeons.[25] The work of field musicians within the Ambulance Corps did not start and end with simply transporting soldiers from the battlefield. Each field musician could be assigned to different roles, those being physical laborers, medical staff, and their traditional charge of playing music. Musicians assigned to physical labor would set up field hospitals, collect wood, and dig trenches. Field musicians assigned to the medical staff help the doctors by treating the wounded, bringing soldiers back from the battlefield on stretchers, working as an orderly to transport patients throughout the field hospital, and cleaning the workplace. Especially talented field musicians, considering not all field musicians were necessarily good at playing their instrument, played music for the wounded in the absence of the military bands. After helping surgeons and learning how to apply first aid, some field musicians used the skills they learned to become a physician or surgeons in their own right.[26]
Though drummer boys were often placed far from the battlefield, they still assisted field musicians in transmitting orders from afar. The drummer boy who was usually kept away from the battle was not excluded from participation during them, nor did it mean that he was completely safe.[27] A number of calls made by field musicians playing the fife or drum issued instructions to infantry soldiers, and orders given to cavalry soldiers were played by buglers.[28] The types of commands issued included “Charge,” “Cease Firing,” “To Arms or Quarters,” and “Retreat.”[29] To issue these commands, field musicians had to be somewhat close to the fighting to remain in earshot of the troops. As a result of the field musicians’ proximity to the battles, if an enemy regiment caught another regiment by surprise, field musicians could be caught in the crossfire.
Drummer boys and field musicians were also called upon to put down their instruments and fight in dire situations. Due to the growing scarcity of soldiers as the war progressed, regiments with few actual soldiers “often counted on the boys as much as the men.”[30] The fact that field musicians actually fought in some cases likely fueled the large number of stories and articles about drummer boys performing these heroic feats. In addition, the number of underage soldiers fighting has led some to refer to the Civil War as “the drummer boy’s war.”[31]
The reality of the drummer boy’s life off the battlefield was often less daring than it was commonly depicted in media of the time. Working as a field musician was a way to receive regular pay and support one’s country, but the nature of field musicians’ work also made field musicians somewhat removed from actual fighting. Henry Lawson Bert, a sixteen-year-old drummer boy, was never directly involved in combat. His letters to his sister recounted significant events, the results of any battles he was a part of, and the pay he sent back to his family illustrate the more typical experience of being a drummer boy. Henry recounts battles referring to “the men” of his regiment fighting with the Confederate rebels or seizing particular regions, suggesting that Henry was far removed from the actual fighting for the most part.[32] However, Henry was not completely safe from danger as a cannonball had struck the ground close to his regiment while he was lined up to receive his pay.[33] Some drummer boys had no opportunities to fight during battles at all.
Some drummer boys truthfully did fight heroically during battles, but not always in the ways generally depicted in stories. For instance, Robinson Murphy and Alonzo P. Webber were both awarded the Medal of Honor for their valor during the Civil War. Murphy was fifteen years old when he served his regiment by volunteering to lead a group of soldiers to the front lines to counter a Confederate counterattack. Murphy survived the battle, only having his horse shot out from under him during the charge. On the other hand, Webber served in a substantially different way. Rather than charging headlong into the enemy, he volunteered as a sharpshooter for his regiment. He positioned himself next to a tree nearby to his targets and proceeded to shoot from that position for nine hours straight.[34] Particularly young drummer boys were also awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions. Orion Howe, aged thirteen, collected ammunition from the battlefield, along with other field musicians, and proceeded to run to his regiment’s general to ask for more ammunition. He performed both of these feats while wounded in the leg from a gunshot sustained while running into the battlefield to collect ammunition. For these actions he was granted the title “Drummer Boy of Vicksburg,” and the poem “Caliber 24” was written to detail his exploits.[35] While many stories regarding drummer boys emphasize the bravery of the young boy, the reality was that these stories did have a grain of truth.
Drummer boys were also not the only young boys to perform heroic deeds in combat, other field musicians performed in similar ways. John Cook, a fifteen-year-old bugler, earned the Medal of Honor for defending a wounded officer during the Battle of Antietam, and he went on to serve as a cannoneer nearly overrun by enemies. Nathaniel Gwynne served in an unofficial capacity as a bugler and was granted the Medal of Honor at age fifteen. Gwynne earned his medal by running back onto the battlefield following a retreat to recover his regiment’s colors or the banner that contained the flag of the Union and of the regiment itself. Because Gwynne had not officially served in the regiment, he was retroactively enlisted in order to be eligible for the Medal of Honor.[36]
The job performed by field musicians would be considered task-oriented work. Task-oriented work is defined as work with the “least demarcation between work and life,” and serving to satisfy a perceived necessity.[37] The calls made by drummer boys and field musicians were task-oriented in the sense that they organized both their own lives and the lives of the soldiers in their camp. Calls served a necessary service that enabled the large scale organization of soldiers both on the battlefield and off of it. Field musicians’ work in the medical sector was similarly task-oriented due to the many patients that required transport from the battlefields and treatment in make-shift hospitals. Even fighting on the battlefield served as task-oriented work. By taking up arms in dire situations, some drummer boys and field musicians helped to secure the survival of their regiment or simply to raise the soldiers’ morale. The work done by these musicians was essential for the well-being of the entire regiment.
In viewing their heroic acts and mundane labor, drummer boys and other field musicians can be seen as a distinct group of workers. The young boys working as field musicians were really child-workers, many of whom worked mostly because of the stable pay rather than any aspirations for heroism. Some exceptional children among the field musicians managed to perform in ways that rivaled the stories of the drummer boys told to many Union children. But for all the inspiring depictions of the drummer boy, most young boys were simply trying to survive both the war and poverty. Heroic drummer boys were often the exception to the average drummer boy, who would much rather work from afar than fight in battles themselves. Considering how closely drummer boys and other underage field musicians reflected the growth of underage laborers in occupations outside of the military, the creation of child labor laws likely played a part in eliminating children from the military entirely.
Endnotes
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[1] Will S. Hays, “Drummer Boy of Shiloh,” D.P Faulos, 1864.
[2] James Allen Marten, Children and Youth During the Civil War Era (New York, New York University Press, 2012), 35-36.
[3] “Little Eddie, The Drummer, A reminiscence of Wilson’s Creek,” The Tribune, December 30, 1861, 2.
[4] “The Michigan Drummer Boy,” Salem Register, December 29, 1862, 1.
[5] “A Doctor’s Youthful Patient,” The Independent, July 19, 1863, 1.
[6] Hays, “Drummer Boy of Shiloh.”
[7] “The Michigan Drummer Boy,” Salem Register, December 29, 1862, 1.
[8] Bruce P. Gleason, “Military Music in the United States: A Historical Examination and Training,” Music Educators Journal 101, no. 3 (March 2015): 38.
[9] Maureen Manjerovic, “More than a Drummer Boy’s War, A Historical View of Musicians in the American Civil War,” (October 2002), 122.
[10] Richard Leppert, “Civil War Imagery, Song, and Poetics,” 19th-Century Music 40, no. 1 (Summer 2016): 27.
[11] James A. Davis, “Union Musicians and the Medal of Honor During the American Civil War,” College Music Symposium 54 (2014): 3.
[12] Manjerovic, “More than a Drummer Boy’s War,” 122.
[13] Digirolamo, Crying the News, 121.
[14] Digirolamo, Crying the News, 121.
[15] Davis, “Union Musicians and the Medal,” 4.
[16] Foundation for Economic Education, “The Spread of Education Before Compulsion: Britain and America in the Nineteenth Century,” accessed December 1, 2020, https://fee.org/articles/the-spread-of-education-before-compulsion-britain-and-america-in-the-nineteenth-century./
[17] Gleason, “Military Music in the United States,” 39.
[18] “Regiments of the Civil War,” accessed December 1, 2020, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/regiments-civil-war.
[19] Gleason, “Military Music in the United States,” 39.
[20] Gleason, “Military Music in the United States,” 38.
[21] Manjerovic. “More than a Drummer Boy’s War,” 122.
[22] John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: or the Unwritten Story of Army Life (John D. Billings, 1887), 81-82.
[23] John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee, 81-95; William Nevins, Army Regulations Drum, Fife, and Bugle: Being a Complete Manual for these Instruments, Giving All the Calls for Camp and Field Duty, to which is Added Suitable Music for Each Instrument (Chicago, Root & Cady, 1861), 3-4.
[24] “Jonathan Letterman,” accessed November 27, 2020. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/jonathan-letterman.
[25] Davis, “Union Musicians and the Medal,” 6.
[26] Manjerovic. “More than a Drummer Boy’s War,” 124.
[27] Davis, “Union Musicians and the Medal,” 4.
[28] Bruce P. Gleason, “U.S. Mounted Bands and Cavalry Field Musicians in the Union Army During the Civil War,” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 27, no. 2 (April 2006): 107.
[29] Nevins, Army Regulations Drum, Fife, and Bugle, 18-21.
[30] Manjerovic. “More than a Drummer Boy’s War,” 122.
[31] Frederick Fennell, “The Civil War: Its Music and Sounds,” Journal of Band Research vol. 1 (1968), 47.
[32] Don Russell, “Letters of a Drummer-Boy,” Indiana Magazine of History 34, no. 3 (September 1938): 326.
[33] Don Russell, “Letters of a Drummer-Boy,” 328.
[34] Davis, “Union Musicians and the Medal,” 7.
[35] Davis, “Union Musicians and the Medal,” 9.
[36] Davis, “Union Musicians and the Medal,” 4.
[37] E.P Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” Past and Present, no. 30 (December 1967), 60.