“He is dead.”
“Yes,” they answered with a sob.
“He is dead, and this is all we can do. We will report the case, and have the grave marked.” And we turned away and left him there. An hour afterwards I returned that way. It was a most impressive sight to see a dead man sitting there so calmly and peacefully, with eyes closed, dead and cold. When I passed that way again, they had taken him away.
The country can never pay those who went out and heroically defended the flag. Such scenes as these bring gray hairs before their time to those who looked on. What must it have been to those in the midst of the fight?
JOHNNIE CLEM.
The Drummer Boy of Shiloh and the Boy Hero of Chickamauga, Chattanooga.
JOHNNIE CLEM, who lived at Newark, Ohio, was perhaps the youngest and smallest recruit in the Union Army. The army historian, Lossing, says that he was probably the youngest person who ever bore arms in battle.
He was born at Newark, Ohio, Aug. 13, 1851, and his full name was John Winton Clem. He was of German-French descent, and the family spell the name Klem, and not Clem. His sister Lizzie, who is now Mrs. Adams, and lives on the Granville road near Newark, gives the following statement to a visitor:—
It being Sunday, May 24, 1861, and the rebellion in progress, Johnnie said at dinner table,—