The Drummer Boy of Shiloh

   In 1932, a dottering old man dressed in an old army uniform asked for quiet.
   A crowd of well-wishers had gathered to celebrate his eightieth birthday. Everybody present, including the press, referred to him as Major John L. Clem, but wanted to be remembered as "the Drummer Boy of Shiloh."
   Johnny Clem was one of the youngest soldiers of the Civil War. He was just ten years old when he served as a drummer boy for the Twenty-second Michigan Infantry.
   The soldiers of Johnny's unit saw a little action in 1861, but it wasn't until the battle of Shiloh in early April of 1862 that they received their baptism by fire, and it just so happened that the young drummer boy got caught in the middle.
   On April 6, Johnny's unit was caught off guard and was almost pushed into the Tennessee River. During the fighting a Union soldier dropped right at his feet, nailed by a sharpshooter. Ten-year-old Johnny picked up the dead man's rifle and drew a bead on a Rebel colonel who had failed to see the small lad with the big gun. In the next instant, the Confederate officer was on the ground. Johnny Clem had killed him with one shot.
   The battle of Shiloh lasted two days and up to that time was the bloodiest conflagration that had ever been fought on the American continent. The North lost 13,000 men, while the South counted 10,700 casualties.
   An account of the battle of Shiloh of course made the newspapers, and in every piece, the story of Johnny Clem's bravery was told. Soon the entire nation knew about him.
   Johnny ended the war as a teen-age sergeant and sported a medal given to him by the secretary of the treasury. He remained in the army and retired at the age of sixty-five with the rank of major. When Clem died at the age of eighty-two, his military tombstone was inscribed with the usual information: name, regiment, company, and state, but in Johnny's case it also carried an epitaph: "Here lies the Drummer Boy of Shiloh." Now no one would forget.