Johnny Clem.... Child Soldier...

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Philadelphia artist James Fuller Queen created a variety of images during the American Civil War that include sentimental lithographs with scenes from the front, portraits of famous generals, fund-raising images featuring local institutions for soldiers, and images of wounded soldiers recovering in local hospitals. His lithograph of folk-hero John Clem was reproduced widely. John Clem was nine years old when he was allowed to tag along with the 22nd Michigan regiment in 1861. The boy was first identified in news accounts as “Johnny Shiloh” after that 1862 battle before his fame grew as “the drummer boy of Chickamauga” in 1863. Clem became a career army man and retired as a general in 1915.

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Born on August 13, 1851, in Newark, Ohio, John Clem’s original surname was spelled “Klem,” but that’s not what makes him an unsung Civil War hero. John is considered by most historians to be the youngest decorated Civil War hero of them all, on either side of the war.

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He aimed to join the United States Military Academy, but he failed the entrance exam twice. However, US President Ulysses Grant appointed him as a Second Lieutenant in the Twenty-Fourth United States Infantry shortly after his second failed entrance exam. John was promoted to First Lieutenant in 1874. He went on to Artillery School, which he graduated from the next year, and was promoted to Captain seven years after that. When he was promoted to Captain, he transferred to the Quartermaster Department, where he stayed for the rest of his military career. As it turned out, the military was his career. John was promoted to Major in 1895.

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He was promoted again in 1901, this time to Lieutenant Colonel, and achieved a promotion to Colonel in 1903. He was the chief quartermaster at Fort Sam Houston in Texas for five years, from 1906 to 1911. On August 13, 1915, he reached the mandatory retirement age from the army at age sixty-four and was promoted to Brigadier General upon his retirement. At the time of John’s retirement, he was the last Civil War soldier still serving in the US Army. John received one more promotion, to Major General, on the retired list in 1916
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