THE CENTRE DEMOCRAT, BELLEFONTE, PA, Thursday, May 20th, 1913, — a . —~ — ~. a — —— AL, ee Ur BCs Bi NE , “ Photo @ by Review of Reviews company { Youthful Musicians Heroic Lads of the Civil War By Captain GEORGE L. KILMER, Late U.S. V. be O When battle round each warlike band And carnage loud her trumpet blew Young Edwin left his native land A drummer boy for Waterloo. OTWITHSTANDING the crude ness of the writer's art, the verses from which the above lines were taken imme became a fireside classic given to the public while Waterloo was fresh in mind as the of modern times. All world was then interested in Waterl Just as the tactics and military pra tice of the French English were copied by the regular soldiers of the United States. so the ideas and tradi tions clustering Bame, as of a Napoleon or Welling! or a battle like Austerlitz or Waterloo, warmed the imagination of the / CAD MASSES, A dreaming boy of 1861 dreamed of Waterloo. If his age permitted he be came a soldier to imitate the OW) @Quard of Napoleon or the Royal Scots of Wellington, His tender years could aot hold him back from the recruiting camps, for, If not old enough to take @p arms as a Were greatest battle the civilized and around some (amous mer soldier, he could be drummer perhaps had drummer boys at Waterloo: why should not the drummers in the Amer ican camps also be boys? If the recruiting sergeant did think so and refused to enroll the lad There not clans enlisted for each company of in fantry. Usually one was a fifer and one a drummer If a boy could show himself very skillful at the rub-a-dub-dub or tootle te-toot he would be taken, even if he | lacked a couple of years, a couple of inches and a score of pounds to bring him up to the regulation size, age and | weight This Willie wis accounts for Johnson, aged thirteen, who awarded a medal of honor for some gallant act performed the second yeur of the war while he was a drummer in | the Third Vermont; for the boy Mun son of Twenty-third Massachu setts, who was mortally wounded ut the battle of Roanoke while only thir teen; of Gardner, the drummer of the Eighth Michigan, brought home to his Anxious, waiting mother, dead from a wound received In battle when he was but little over thirteen Blue or gray There were A the , It made no differen K. ( a drummer the Fifth Georgia regiment, who went through the ninety-five pounds, and lark, campaign weighing but Hitie Gillen of Tennessee, the sro of a classic war lyric, who back to fe from an awful wound only to t again to batt from The fantry regi self The ! more far ie enlisted and headquarters, attache the same as the guard Under a chief they occupis separate quarters and were subject t the directions of the colonel’s staff of ficers. In battle the fifers and dru mers, especially during the early of the war, assisted the surgeo: the care of the wounded Often were with strangers, administering the fallen, and errands of mer: ¥ Cf them to distant parts of the fleld In 1863 the Federal ambulance cory was organized, and the work of givi first ald and removing the wounds was done thereafter by ambulance ; tendants This arrangement relieve the musicians of the duty of removi wounded in stret« y eft the free to roar searcl suffering victims hers and field in Unlike the regimental band, the imental fife and drum lncludes the regiment practical duty tine of is a ETess and legislated of existence corps, al bugler, hs to perform in the and march The and an ornament that early in | hundreds of bands o camp luxury discovered The 700 17,000 men 000.000 In then in service employs and had already cost addition to the pay of tl men, their food and the expense transporting them It was plain that date that the war was to be » long and costly one The musicians were regularly enlist ed soldiers, who could not be forced | to take up arms and fight unless the: | chose | service. LRADING THE CHAROR of ten or twelve, the boy could still follow the army to the front as a vol- | unteer and trost to luck. The sergeant might relent when the boy showed the stuff that was in him by facing the bat tle as bravely as his senlors This Is the way it happened that In the romance and poetry of the war may be found the sobriquets “The drummer boy of Shiloh” and “The drummer boy of Chickamauga.” They were the same | boy, little Johnny Clem, who couldn't be a soldier because he was only eleven years of age. Bot he could drum, and the kind hearted soldiers humored his | ambition and took him to the front. where he “made good,” first at Shiloh and then at Chlckamaugn. When the war broke out In 1861 the rule concerning musicians in the Unit od States army was about the same as in the British army, after which it was modeled, After the Crimean war England adopted the rule of enlisting the mu sicians as soldiers and then forming them Into musical corps or bands This becatse the practice of the regu lar army of the United States, and the volunteer army, of course, followed the same custom. The regulations Were that there might be two mush The only way to abolish the Was to muster them out of But music was not total banished from the army camps. Hr gade bands were formed, and regiments or their officers or patro: bands ax home pald the expenses and retaln | ed the music The bugle and the fife and drum are | | essential In an army to sound the va | lous calls, which swiftly, as well ne | orders of the | | commander to the troops. musically, signal the These It clude the familiar ones em up In the mornin’” and “go to | sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep,” revelll | and taps In eamp certain ealls are sounded periodically day in and day out, but on a campaign many of them are signals to sudden change of ac tion. With the army strung out for miles the bugle or drum at headquarters starts the signal rolling. The nearest drums or bugles repeat It, the notes often mingling. In emergencies the first signal may be overtaken before It reaches the end of the line by another sent out to supersede It. The “long roll” beaten on the drum or the bugle calls “To arms!” and “To horse!” an nounce the sudden appearance of the enemy. The armies of fifty years ago had no telephone or megaphone and only an imperfectly developed telegraph and flag signal system. Practically then the bugle or drum, even in the hand: of a schoolboy, was an official mouth plece which might order men “Into the Jaws of death” also recall them in nick o' time “back from the mouth of hell.” some | of getting 0Y SCOUT- JAMES ARTHUR COPYRIGHT. 118 BY AMERICAN by OAL, lad, you have your uniform. hen 1 put on the blue My heart was young, my hopes were high. IL was & boy Mw you. I thought that ft wae great to don Che bright and brave array, But Uncle Bam's regalia then Meant something more than play. It meant long years from Bull Run's Meld Where raw troops felt the breath Of leaden storms, whose lightniogs flashed And thunders spohs of death, Co Hppomatton, where beneath Per famous apple tree Che sun went down upon the hopes Of those who fought with Lee. It meant long marches and a bed Upon the frozen ground, The open shy our only tents, Che clemente around. It meant scant clothing, slimmer fare Pofyee oizf o > - = ae \~ Ya i. When you feel dis- couraged and all the world seems to be against you—that's “Blue” Feeling of telegraphing you that something Is WRONG and needs . It may be that your liver is tired and refuses to work, or digestive organs have had too much to do and need care. Per ps you have been eating the wrong kind of food, and your blood is too rich or impoverished. What you need is a tonic, Dr. Pierce's (olden Medical Discovery will give the required aid, Tones the entire system. The weak stomach is made strong. The liver vibrates with new life, The blood is cleansed of all impurities and carries renewed health to every vein and nerve and muscle and organ of the body, No more attacks of the “blues.” Life becomes worth while again, and hope takes place of despair, Insist on getting Dr. Picree’s Golden Medical Discovery. 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