The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1905-05-22
THE CIVIL WAR WAS FOUGHT By bo10

One often hears old Grand Army veterans say tha'
1.-The war was fought by Another form of express
sion is that the ranks filled with young men the
majority of whom vote George Langdon
in the June Century shows that the last IS close "
literal truth and that the extravagant claim
There is ample prove that the average age OF
Union soldiers enlistment was not beyond the
period commonly called boyhood Of course this term IS
relative young man of twenty twenty-five doing
a work-and soldering is mans works by cour-
tesy spoken The compliment tends to ennobe
Trustworthy tables of show that the
age soldiers of the Union army upon enlist
Twenty-Five This figure may be too high
In fixing the average twenty-five the ages of those
eighteen enlistment were
evident that tens OF thou
during the whole 100000 recruits
gave ages eighteen when they were not seven
teen many sixteen The legal age was eighteen
and whenever an applicant paper giving that
as legal age questions asked rule,
by mastering officer provided the stature and general
appearance of the youth color to the statement
Statistics relating of Union soldiers were
prepared during the under the auspices of the SAM
tary Commission, and the results were published in a
memoir by A. Gould the tables in DR.. Goulds
Kimers taken The matter of false
by under eighteen to have escaped
satistician although he noticed and
explained the unusual proportion of ages set down at
Boys of twenty and Swapping lads of nineteen
were DESTROYS being cassed men, and in all
aggregations ages various
put greatly outnumber those
and This is significant when the tables
of from eighteen upward to twenty-five and thirty
considered. The numbers at twenty and twenty-five are
about equal; those twenyone stand third higher
than either. Sometimes much under twenty-one
three years-sated his age twenty-one
belief otherwise parent guard
ian would be exacted If the applicant appeared be
less than eighteen the recruiting officer would record
the given Probably recruits overstated
their ages year years
should deducted grand aggregate ages in
O reach correct average.
Dr. Goulds statistics resulted from the examination
of the records little million soldiers seec
ton made of the rolls; they taken by
until the war department refused the examiners further
files The records examined covered every
of recruiting and included those regiments from
every state and in all of the service. They We're
fairly representative of the 2SOOOOO enstmens recorded
during the They show 100000 soldiers of little
over million enlisted twenty-one 143,SSS al
eighteen. That percentage applied the army
would give 100000 recruits who eighteen
years of age-boys in the limited of the
There were no boy regiments strictly speaking to swell
the total of youth the rolls Nor there
boy companies approach to in the Twenty
seventh New York Colonel H. W. Socum's grst command
1t raised in 1861 responding call
Principal Adams of Lyons Academy raised company
posed largely of his pupils. Out of hundred
rolled. twenty six about twenty per
down as eighteen Those at nineteen numbered
those at twenty but five. The Twenty
the field two Company one the il
the regiment The Eighth Vermont also organized
had three companies which twenty iv
cent boys eighteen under on the first enrolment
Inc fact that the Union army composed so large
of boys explains why there many survivors tn
war The pension office estimate O number
vivors of the Union armies in
$4,000 about nehaf of the total surviving 1865 TIL
average of veterans July 1904 Us and Their
were $4,000 then living under that unde
The age of CO. Further estimates promulgated
Commissioner Ware, give the number vii
be living July !, 1905, $4,000
$4,000 survivors.
Looking forward to 1915. fifty years
at Appomatox there will remain 10000