Grant’s Drummer Boy, known as “Johnny Shiloh.” The youngest soldier in the Union Army, the youngest soldier ever to serve as sergeant in the US Army, and the last Civil War veteran to remain on the army’s active list. Original 2.25 x 4 Matthew Brady full-length carte-de-visite portrait of very young Clem in his uniform, signed and inscribed in ink on the reverse (post-war) “Bvt. Major General Abner Doubleday, compliments of Jno. L. Clem.” In fine condition.
John Lincoln Clem was perhaps the most famous pre-teen in the Civil War, known for his youth and his heroism in the face of enemy fire. Born in 1851, he joined the Union Army in 1863, and gained notoriety a short time later after he killed a Confederate colonel who had tried to capture him at the Battle of Chickamauga. Later in that same battle, he was captured with others in his unit but escaped in the confusion of the battle. Eventually taken by the Confederate Cavalry, he was later released in a prisoner exchange. Doubleday, to whom this image is inscibed, was a hero at the Battle of Gettysburg. It was there that he led 9,500 men against more than 16,000 Confederate troops in what historians view as his finest showing of the war. Uniquely remarkable association! RRAuction COA.
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