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Confederate Boy Soldiers

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Salah ad-Din View Drop Down
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  Quote Salah ad-Din Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Confederate Boy Soldiers
    Posted: 01-Jun-2013 at 15:29
Men as young as nine and as old as eighty-three are known to have enlisted in one side or the other during the American Civil War. But with the War placing greater strain on the white manhood of the South, teenaged and even boy soldiers seem to have been a Confederate trend in particular - some of the camp guards at Andersonsville and other prison camps, for instance, were children.

Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute provided many officers for the fledgling Confederate Army at the start of the War. Some Rebel soldiers expressed resentment in their letters and diaries, at being bossed around by boys young enough to be their sons.

The 1864 Battle of New Market, in which John Breckinridge defeated the Union's Franz Sigel, was perhaps the finest hour of the VMI cadets during the War. The boys lost ten of their number, but were able to save the day for the Southern army. One of these young soldiers, a Jewish-American named Moses Ezekiel, later became a sculptor and dedicated a statue at the Institute, Virginia Mourning Her Dead.

A good work on the subject:

Young Lions: Confederate Cadets at War: James Lee Conrad: 9781570035753: Amazon.com: Books
Young Lions: Confederate Cadets at War: James Lee Conrad: 9781570035753: Amazon.com: Books

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Nick1986 View Drop Down
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jun-2013 at 15:16

Drummers were usually children because grown men were needed to fire the muskets. The last US veteran was only 14 when he enlisted in 1865

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Cryptic View Drop Down
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Jun-2013 at 11:43

The use of boy soldiers in the U.S. civil war also had a darker side:  Irregular fighters on both sides used youths as executioners.  For example, the executioner of Bloody Bill Anderson's group was said to be an underaged fighter.  I have read other accounts of youths being ordered to kill rival prisoners in Kentucky and TN both as a means to "blood them". 

Likewise, some, or many, children do not have the fully formed consciences of adults so there is less of a chance that a youth will refuse the group leader's orders regarding the killing of defenseless people.  As a result, some irregular group leaders began to rely on children to carry out executions rather than risk refusals and the following loss of face.   
 
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Nick1986 View Drop Down
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 20:48
Interesting. In the British army, it was the drummer boys who carried out the floggings (presumably for the same reason)
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