Boy soldiers of the American Revolution
By: Caroline Cox ; with a foreword by Robert Middlekauff
Contributors: Middlekauff, Robert, writer of foreword
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 211
ISBN-13: 9781469627533
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Child soldiers; Social life and customs; Juvenile Participation; American Revolution (1775-1783) fast (OCoLC)fst01351668; Children; History
Description: "Between 1819 and 1845, as veterans of the Revolutionary War were filing applications to receive pensions for their service, the government was surprised to learn that many of the soldiers were not men, but boys, many of whom were under the age of sixteen, and some even as young as nine. In Boy Soldiers of the American Revolution, Caroline Cox reconstructs the lives and stories of this young subset of early American soldiers, focusing on how these boys came to join the army and what they actually did in service. Giving us a rich and unique glimpse into colonial childhood, Cox traces the evolution of youth in American culture in the late eighteenth century, as the accepted age for children to participate meaningfully in society--not only in the military--was rising dramatically"--

Contains primary source material.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-202) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: As well as I can recollect; title: Answer the purpose; title: A strong desire to enlist; title: My father caused me to enlist; title: He took his father's place; title: Fellow citizens.