Civil war biographies
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Children of the Civil War: Selected Biographies
The American Battlefield Trust's biographies of notable children during the Civil War including Johnny Clem, Edwin Jemison, John Cook, Charlie King, Orion P Howe, Joseph Evan Davis, and Susie King Taylor.
Johnny Clem
John Clem tried to enlist in the Union army in 1861, but was refused on account of being not yet even 10 years old. Undeterred, Clem joined the 22nd Michigan, who let him follow the regiment, adopting him as a mascot and unofficial drummer boy before he officially enlisted in 1863. He became a national celebrity for his actions at Chickamauga. Armed with his drum and a sawed down musket, he fought with the 22nd Michigan at Horseshoe Ridge on September 20th, 1863. When cornered by a Confederate colonel who demanded his surrender, Clem shot the officer and returned to his unit. The “Drummer Boy of Chickamauga” was promoted to sergeant for his actions, the youngest soldier ever to become a noncommissioned officer in the
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CALHOUN, ALFRED ROCHEFORT(or A.R.) (1844-1912). Major, unknown Kentucky Union regiment. Calhoun, who was born in Kentucky, joined a Kentucky Union regiment at the onset of the Civil War and served until he end of the hostilities, despite sustaining two serious wounds, capture and imprisonment at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. While imprisoned, he took part in the efforts to dig an escape tunnel; he escaped through it. On an unknown date, he delivered a lecture, “Prison Life in the nation of Chivalry,” to a Ladies’ Aid Society for the benefit of wounded soldiers in Weldon, Pennsylvania.
Returning to civilian life, Calhoun’s career was quite extensive. He worked as a railway survey artist, photographer, writer and special artist for Harper’s Weekly and the Philadelphia Press. A member of the Union Pacific survey party led by General Wright and Dr. William Bell through Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado in the 1860s, he befriended Kit Carson an
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Throughout our history, Green-Wood has never wavered in our commitment to preserve the stories of the thousands of individuals interred here. Nowhere is this more evident than in our effort to honor the brave Americans—military and civilian—who served our country in time of war.
In September 2002, Green-Wood’s historian, Jeff Richman, and The Green-Wood Historic Fund launched the Civil War Project to identify veterans of that war. When we began, we naively thought that our research would identify about 500 Civil War veterans interred here. Were we wrong!
With the help of hundreds of dedicated volunteers, we scoured news sources, New York State Military Museum records, pension records at the National Archives, regimental histories, Green-Wood’s Burial Registry and monuments, online databases, and other resources too numerous to mention. The results were stunning.
To date, we have identified more than 5,200 individuals—Civil War generals and privates (both Union and Confederate),&n