7. Child Soldiers Were Everywhere You Looked During the Civil War
Roughly a fifth of American Civil War military personnel were under 18. The Union Army had over 100,000 soldiers under 15. There were even children as young as eight in uniform. On land, they were usually used in non-combatant positions, but were often just as exposed to fire as adults on the front line. At sea, children in the US Navy served as “powder monkeys”. Tasked during combat with rushing gunpowder from magazines to canons, they were just as exposed to danger as everybody else aboard ship.
There were age restrictions – in the Union, enlistees had to be over 16 – but they were frequently ignored. Many under-aged Northern boys, for example, had little trouble finding recruiters willing to sign them up, provided they swore that they were “over 16”. Some reconciled their consciences with the lie by writing the number “16” on a piece of paper and sticking it to the bottom of a shoe, so they could honestly swear that they were “over 16”.