DATE: Monday, May 12, 1997                  TAG: 9705090877

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COLUMN 

SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER

                                            LENGTH:   70 lines

UNDERAGE DRUMMER BOY CARVED OUT ONG ARMY CAREER

Tuesday will mark the 60th anniversary of the death of John Lincoln (``Johnny'') Clem, the only Civil War drummer boy to rise to the rank of major general in the U.S. Army.

Born in Newark, Ohio, on Aug. 13, 1851, Johnny became such an ardent admirer as a child of Abraham Lincoln that he adopted the surname of the Great Emancipator as his second given name.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Johnny ran away from home and tried to enlist in the 3rd Ohio Regiment. When its commanding officer learned he was only 9, he curtly informed him he ``wasn't enlisting infants.'' Undeterred, Johnny then tried to enlist in the 22nd Michigan Regiment but was given the same brush-off.

Determined to be a soldier, Johnny tagged along after the regiment, acting ``just the same as a drummer boy,'' and eventually wore down the commanding officer's resistance. Soon young Johnny became so popular that not only was he issued a drum, he also performed other camp duties. For these efforts he received a soldier's pay, $12 a month, the sum being donated by the regimental officers.

Then his luck took an upward turn.

Johnny was present with the 22nd Michigan at the Battle of Shiloh, Tenn., April 6 and 7, 1862, which ended with the withdrawal of the Confederate forces. During that engagement, Johnny's drum was smashed by a rebel artillery round. Even so, his pluck during the battle was mentioned in the official reports, after which he became a minor news item in the Northern press, which hailed him as ``Johnny Shiloh.''

More important in the long run, Johnny's derring-do attracted the attention of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the Federal commander at Shiloh - and his notice, casual as it was at the time, served Johnny in good stead nine years later.

Meanwhile, on May 1, 1863, Johnny was finally mustered into the Federal Army as a musician attached to the 22nd Michigan Regiment. Shortly thereafter, Sept. 13 and 14, Johnny covered himself with glory at the Battle of Chickamauga, Tenn., at one point of which he rode an artillery caisson to the front and wielded a musket trimmed down to his size.

During one of the Union retreats, a Confederate colonel ran after the caisson on which pint-sized Johnny was perched and yelled, ``Surrender, you damned little Yankee!'' Drawing a bead on the officer, Johnny fired, wounded him and took him prisoner. This feat won Johnny additional national attention as well as the nickname ``The Drummer Boy of Chickamauga.''

A month later Johnny was captured while serving as an escort for a supply team, and during his imprisonment he was gleefully exhibited by his rebel captors. Released after two months, Johnny served as a courier for Gen. George H. Thomas and was later wounded twice during the Atlanta Campaign.

After the war, Johnny tried to gain an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but was turned down because of his lack of formal education.

But that didn't stop him.

When he personally appealed to Gen. Grant, who by then had been elected president, his old commander at Shiloh had him appointed as a second lieutenant in the regular Army.

Johnny's subsequent history can be briefly told. In 1903, he was made a colonel and assistant quartermaster general. Finally, in 1916, he retired as a major general, at which time he was the last Civil War veteran on the Army's payroll. Interestingly, Johnny was only one of more than 10,000 soldiers younger than 18 who had served in the Union armies.

Johnny died at 85 on May 13, 1937, in San Antonio, Texas. He was buried with full military honors in tree-embowered Arlington National Cemetery overlooking Washington, the capital of the embattled nation he had risked his life to defend when he ran away from home to participate in the national bloodbath of 1861 to 1865. ILLUSTRATION: Johnny Clem

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