30. The Young Prussian Immigrant
Gustav Albert Schurmann was born in 1849 in Westphalia, Prussia. The following year, his father, a talented musician, took his family and fled revolutionary Europe to America, settling in New York City. As Gustav grew up, his father taught him how to play a variety of musical instruments.
After the Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter in 1861, war fever engulfed the country. That spring, eleven-year-old Gustav was working the streets of New York City as a shoeshine boy. Like thousands who swarmed the recruiting stations eager to enlist, the young boy was swept up in the excitement. So he sought to join any regiment that would accept a musically-talented child as a drummer boy. His father had volunteered as a musician in the 40th New York Volunteer Infantry, later known as “The Mozart Regiment” because of the high percentage of musicians in its ranks, so Gustav sought to join.