page_title: Robert Henry Hendershot
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Henry Hendershot / Biography
context_page_description: Robert Henry Hendershot, known as the Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock, was an American Civil War drummer boy known for his reputed heroics at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862.
context_section_description: Hendershot was born somewhere between 1847 and 1851 in either New York or Michigan. In 1861 he was living with his widowed mother in Jackson, Michigan.  That fall he began drilling with the Jackson County Rifles, a local volunteer unit. He accompanied them to Fort Wayne, outside Detroit, where the unit became Company C of the Ninth Michigan Infantry. Hendershot did not enlist at this time, but accompanied the regiment to its first encampment at West Point, Kentucky, either as a stowaway or as a servant to Captain Charles V. DeLand, the company commander and erstwhile publisher of the Jackson American Citizen. Hendershot remained with Company C until March 1862, when he enlisted as a musician in Company B.
  He was with Company B at the Murfreesboro, Tennessee courthouse when it was attacked by a Confederate cavalry brigade under command of Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest on July 13, 1862, at the  First Battle of Murfreesboro. Hendershot was captured with the rest of his regiment and paroled with the enlisted men. Shortly thereafter he was discharged for disability; he suffered frequent and severe epileptic seizures, an affliction he had endured since early childhood. Although this alone should have precluded any further military service, "an oath of honor" also obliged Hendershot "not to take up arms against the Confederacy until regularly exchanged." In spite of this, in early September, Hendershot appeared at a Detroit recruiting office and enlisted in the Eighth Michigan Infantry. Because of his parole, he signed on with an alias, "Robert Henry Henderson." His critics later called this despicable, while others said it had been a common practice. Hendershot claimed he had done so at the urging of the recruiter, Lieutenant Michael Hogan, retained him as his personal servant and aide for the next two months. When Chaplain George Taylor arrived from Ann Arbor, he developed a fondness for Hendershot and gained permission to have him placed under his "special care."
  The two traveled south to Taylor's assigned unit, the Eighth Michigan Infantry. At the Washington depot Taylor rescued Hendershot when he suffered a seizure and fell in front of a locomotive. He suffered another seizure a few days later, while standing at dress parade. Hendershot then confessed to Taylor of his discharge from the Ninth Infantry and his use of an alias. Hendershot began to have such frequent seizures that the acting regimental commander, Major Ralph Ely, ordered him off-duty and applied for his discharge. 
  Hendershot awaited discharge through the closing months of 1862. Freed of his military duties, he explored the Union encampment that contained the Army of the Potomac. The Army was waiting on the banks of the Rappahannock River, opposite the lightly defended city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, while bridges were built across the river. The delay enabled General Robert E. Lee to move his army into position. When the engineers arrived, they came under attack from rebel sharpshooters, so on 11 December 1862 the Seventh Michigan Infantry volunteered to cross the river under enemy fire and drive the rebel sharpshooters from their nests.
  Hendershot's wanderings had taken him to the riverbank that morning. He later claimed he helped push off the first boat and slipped when he tried to climb aboard, and made the voyage across clinging to the gunwale. A dispatch from the scene describes "a drummer boy, only 13 years old, who volunteered and went over in the first boat, and returned laden with curiosities picked up while there." A correspondent for the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune wrote that the boy belonged to the Eighth Michigan Infantry. 
  Reports of the episode appeared in the press. The young hero remained nameless until late December, when Hendershot visited the offices of the Detroit Free Press and Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, claiming to be the "Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock." Hendershot's story was repeated in national papers, including the New-York Tribune. Its publisher, Horace Greeley, presented Hendershot with a silver drum. For t
caption: The USS Fort Jackson
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