Drummer Boy: Seven Years a Soldier (Annotated)

Quoted several times in Don Rickey's classic history of the post-Civil War frontier army, "Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay," James Lockwood's memoir of his service is a work that stands on its own.Through the sweep of the American Civil War and beyond, Lockwood was a U.S. Army soldier. The 13-year-old orphan began his career as drummer boy in the Union Army. He shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln in the White House and the Great Emancipator asked what such a young boy was doing in uniform.Drummers were not entertainers. Their primary function was to produce various drum rolls to signal commands from officers to troops. They were also often part of the crews that removed the wounded from the battlefield and buried the dead.With the 4th New York Heavy Artillery, Lockwood was part of the defense of Washington, D.C. But the 4th also saw action in the field in the Battle of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and elsewhere.After the war, Lockwood joined the frontier army and went out west for more adventure, which he details in this humorous and rare look at the life of a mere boy in the army.

• | Author: James D. Lockwood
• | Publisher: Independently published
• | Publication Date: Dec 22, 2017
• | Number of Pages: 102 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1976714702
• | ISBN-13: 9781976714702