Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-22
THE BOYS OF THE WAR.
General Howard Tells Anecdotes Of
Several He Knew Very Well.
MANY In THE CONFEDERATE ARMY
How Charlie Weise Lost His Left Arm While
Holding Horses.
STORY OF THE DRUMMER OF SHILOH
WRITTEN FOR THE p1spArcH.,


You ask me if I cannot write something
about boys in the army during the War OF
the Rebellion. Oh yesl There were many
boys in the army in one capacity or an
other Every drum corps had several boys
from II to IS years of age. There were boys
who accompanied their fathers and were
with them, like General Sherman's son,
whose interesting story appears in his men,
oirs; they were usually in the camps or
bivouacs during the intervals which obtain
in every army between battles.
Some boys, like Charley Weise, who lost
his arm at Gettysburg, came out as mes
sengers, being taken care of and paid by
some officer of sufficient rank to afford such
tender lu1uries. And again, there were
very many who entered the army as young
as IA, Is and 16 years of age, as did the
present Secretary of War, the Hon. Stephen
B. Elkins. think he had commission at
16. Certainly the story of his first en-
counter with the enemy beyond the Missis-
sippi, commanding Kansas men, where the
greater, proportion of his detachment was
killed or wounded, is full of romantic in
terest Probably no boy in the service had
at the close of the war a larger field of e1-
perience than he
Plenty of Boys on Both Sides.
I think there was hardly a company in
the field that did not have some boys under
q years of age, so that the aggregate of
ct ual ''boys" would reach thousands. On
the Confederate side the proportion of
youths from IA to 20 was larger than with
us. 1t was declared that General g. W.
Smiths last command in Georgia, reported
from 5000 to 10, 900 strong, was made up
altogether Of cold men and boys;" that they
marched to the field and all showed an ardor
and devotion to their cause which cannot be
underrated.
OF course, I do not believe that the
Confederate cause was q good one, and
never shall be able to think that way,
and the boys of our side, to their
credit, were as ardent to save the
Union and prevent the breaking up of the
country as were the Confederate boys in the
work of its destruction. Furthermore, I
am not a very great hand to do Justice to
Confederate ways of thinking. Still, I can
say with sincerity that believe that the
boys, as well as the old men, did the best
they could do to defeat us; certainly they
gave me and mine good deal of trouble.
I once knew Colonel Alpheus s. Hardee,
the author of "Hardee's Tactics" I was
stationed with him three years at West
Point, N. Y, where he commanded the
corps of cadets. I became intimately asso-
ciated with him and his family. He had
little boy who was about 10 or II years of
age when the family left West Point
Willie Hardee.
The Death Of Willie Hardee.
Willie entered the Confederate service
the last year of the war, and certainly was
not more than 16 years Of age. He was a
fine, manly lad, and great sorrow smote my
heart when 1 heard Of his death slain in the
last battle of our column, the battle of Ben
tonville N. G. General Joseph E. John
ston, you remember, was there in chief COM
mand, and Willie's father had a wing of
General Johnston's army. I once met his
father in Alabama after the war. He spoke
to me cheerfully, but the sadness of his face
was too evident not to be noticed, and he
hardly smiled as he spoke to me and mem
toned his remaining family. The breaks
between us of the North and South occa-
stoned by the great war were the most at
fictive of all
Probably your readers have all heard the
story of little Willie, the Drummer Boy
of Shiloh" His mother in Tennessee was
left with a large family, Willie being the
eldest, by the guerillas having taken the
life of the husband and father. With her
family she drifted to st. Louis. Willie
being about 10 years of age, was too small