Figure 1.--One question that comes to mind when we read about Civil War drummer boys is--why did they enlist. In reading accounts written by the boys, excitement was a very strong motivation. The chance to get away from school or the drugery of farm chores must have appealed to many boys. We believe that the drummer boy boy here may be named Stengel and that he was from northern Ohio.

One question that comes to mind when we read about Civil War drummer boys is--why did they enlist. Of course an even larger and equally fascinating question is why did the men who fought the War enlist. But here we are focusing on the Civil War boys asnd youths who served as musicians. In reading accounts written by the boys, excitement was a very strong motivation. The chance to get away from school or the drugery of farm chores must have appealed to many boys. Of course these boys and even boys much older had no real idea of what war was like. The television images that are now common place to to modern boys were of course unavailable. Most of these boys had idealistic images of gallantry and bravery in their minds. Actually so did many adult men, especially in the first year of the War. Certainly patriotism would have been another factor. One thing we know was not an important factor was slavery. The exception here were the black boys that enlisted in the Federal Army to become musicians after the Emancipation Proclamation. A HBC reader has provided us some insights as to what might have been on the mind of children during the Civil War.