"...being just 14 years and eight days old..."

In March of 1885, Private Rawlings of Co. H, 53rd O.V.I. wrote to the editor of the National Tribune to defend his alleged position as the youngest soldier in the Union Army (or more likely, of the Army of the Tennessee). Of course this claim is very difficult to legitimize, but his words alone are interesting enough.

 

THE OHIO BOY.

To the Editor: I notice in your issue of Feb. 19 a dozen or more comrades claiming to have been the youngest “soldier,” and as I was younger than any of them I write you the following: I was born Oct. 16, 1847, and on Oct. 24, 1861 I enlisted at Middleport, O., being just 14 years and eight days old at the time. I carried a musket from the start, and was in all of the following battles: Shiloh, Corinth, Black River, Vicksburg, Jackson, Missionary Ridge, Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain, Little Kenesaw, Nickajack Creek, Atlanta, Ezra Chapel, Jonesboro, Fort McAllister, Savannah, North Edisto, Columbia, Bentonville, and Raleigh. I was never wounded, was never in the hospital except two weeks, never missed a march that the regiment made except one of 20 miles, never was absent from the company for any cause, walked all the way from Memphis, Tenn., to Washington, D.C. I received my discharge Aug. 25, 1865, having served 46 months and one day; and I have never made application for a pension.

– R.H. Rawlings, Co. H, 53d Ohio, Fifteenth Corps, Rutland, O.

Source: The national tribune, 12 March 1885