The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy

by Henry Martyn Kieffer

Although not pertaining to the writer's own personal recollections, there yet may be appropriately introduced here some brief mention of another pet, who, from being "the pride of his regiment," gradually arose to the dignity of national fame. I mean Old Abe, the war eagle of the Eighth Wisconsin Volunteers.

Whoever it may have been that first conceived the idea, it was certainly a happy thought to make a pet of an eagle. For the eagle is our national bird, and to carry an eagle along with the colors of a regiment on the march, and in battle, and all through the whole war, was surely very appropriate indeed.

Old Abe's perch was on a shield, which was carried by a soldier, to whom, and to whom alone, he looked as to a master. He would not allow any one to carry or even to handle him except this soldier, nor would he ever receive his food from any other person's hands. He seemed to have sense enough to know that he was sometimes a burden to his master on the march, however, and as if to relieve him, would occasionally spread his wings and soar aloft to a great height, the men of all regiments along the line of march cheering him as he went up. He regularly received his rations from the commissary, the same as any enlisted man. Whenever fresh meat was scarce and none could be found for him by foraging parties, he would take things into his own claws, as it were, and go out on a foraging expedition himself. On some such occasions he would be gone two or three days at a time, during which nothing whatever was seen of him; but he would invariably return, and seldom came back without a young lamb or a chicken in his talons. His long absences occasioned his regiment not the slightest concern, for the men knew that though he might fly many miles away in quest of food, he would be quite sure to find them again.

In what way he distinguished the two hostile armies so accurately that he was never once known to mistake the gray for the blue, no one can tell. But so it was that he was never known to alight save in his own camp and amongst his own men.

At Jackson, Mississippi, during the hottest part of the battle before that city, Old Abe soared up into the air and remained there from early morning till the fight closed at night, having, no doubt, greatly enjoyed his bird's-eye view of the battle. He did the same at Mission Ridge. He was, I believe, struck by the enemy's bullets two or three times; but his feathers were so thick, that his body was not much hurt. The shield on which he was carried, however, showed so many marks of the enemy's balls, that it looked on top as if a groove-plane had been run over it.

At the Centennial celebration held in Philadelphia in 1876, Old Abe occupied a prominent place on his perch on the west side of the nave in the Agricultural building. He was still alive, though evidently growing old, and was the observed of all observers. Thousands of visitors from all sections of the country paid their respects to the grand old bird, who, apparently conscious of the honors conferred upon him, overlooked the sale of his biography and photographs going on beneath his perch with entire satisfaction.

As was but just and right, the soldier who had carried him during the war continued to have charge of him after the war was over, until the day of his death, which occurred at the Capitol of Michigan some two or three years ago.

Proud as the Wisconsin boys justly were of Old Abe, the Twelfth Indiana Regiment possessed a pet of whom it may be truly said that he enjoyed a renown scarcely second to that of the wide-famed war eagle. This was "Little Tommy," as he was familiarly called in those days,—the youngest drummer-boy, and so far as the writer's knowledge goes, the youngest enlisted man, in the Union Army. The writer well remembers having seen him on several occasions. His diminutive size and childlike appearance, as well as his remarkable skill and grace in handling the drum-sticks, never failed to make an impression on the beholder. Some brief and honorable mention of Little Tommy, the pride of the Twelfth Indiana Regiment, may with propriety find a place in these "Recollections of a Drummer-Boy."

Thomas Hubler was born in Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana, October 9th, 1851. When two years of age, the family removed to Warsaw, Indiana. On the outbreak of the war, his father, who had been a German soldier of the truest type, raised a company of men, in response to President Lincoln's first call for seventy-five thousand troops. Little Tommy was among the first to enlist in his father's company, the date of enrolment being April 19th, 1861. He was then nine years and six months old.

The regiment to which the company was assigned was with the Army of the Potomac throughout all its campaigns in Maryland and Virginia. At the expiration of its term of service in August, 1862, Little Tommy re-enlisted, and served to the end of the war, having been present in some twenty-six battles in all. He was greatly beloved by all the men of his regiment, and was a constant favorite amongst them. It is thought that he beat the first "long roll" of the great Civil War. He is still living in Warsaw, Indiana, and bids fair to be the latest survivor of the great and grand army of which he was the youngest member. With the swift advancing years the ranks of the soldiers of the late war are being rapidly thinned out, and those who yet remain are showing signs of age. The "Boys in Blue" are thus, as the years go by, almost imperceptibly turning into the "Boys in Gray;" and as Little Tommy, the youngest of them all, sounded their first reveille, so may he yet live to beat their last tattoo.