24. Despite Regulations Against the Use of Underage Sailors, Civil War Navy Recruiters Often Signed up Children
As they grew up and gained experience, US Navy child sailors could rise to Boy 2nd Class, then Boy 1st Class. When they turned eighteen, they automatically became rated as ordinary seamen, began to receive the same pay, and became subject to the same discipline as regular adult sailors. One of the most remarkable photographs of child combatants in the US Civil War is that of Boy 1st Class Aspinwall Fuller. Taken in 1865, it shows the lad, fourteen years old, beside a 100-pound Parrot gun.
It was taken aboard the USS New Hampshire, a 74-gun ship of the line. Fuller’s very presence aboard ship was against regulations, but as happens often in war, regulations were ignored. In 1861, President Lincoln had issued a directive that prohibited the enlistment of underage recruits without their parents’ consent. However, heavy casualties and the war’s insatiable demand for fresh bodies led many recruiters to sidestep regulations when children tried to enlist. Which explains how Fuller joined the US Navy at age thirteen, without parental consent.