Although I would like to stick to the theme of the key role of children in the Civil War I am thinking about narrowing it down to one side. I see several pros and cons for taking the Union side and taking the Confederate side. I feel like it would be easier to prove that children played a more pivotal role in the Confederate army though due to the conscription acts the Confederacy had, the second conscription act lowered the age to 17. This was towards the end of the war when the Confederacy was in desperate need of soldiers due to death and the Union's decision to no longer exchange prisoners. Although ultimately the children soldiers of the Confederacy did not win the war, it is because of the them that some key battles were won and the war prolonged.
The Union had more child soldiers that would be deemed as "heroes" and Johnny Clem would be used by Confederates as propaganda to show how immoral the North was by using boys (Wisler, 5). Both sides employed children as drummer boys but the majority of drummer boys that took up arms or had a big impact on a battle seem to be from the Union.
Both sides have colorful sources that could be very useful in proving an argument while making a paper more interesting. For the Confederacy there is the image of Andrew Chandler and his slave Silas both fully armed. For the Union their is Johnny Clem. As of the moment I tend to be leaning towards Confederate children soldiers.
Wisler, G. Clifton. When Johnny Went Marching: Young Americans Fight the Civil War. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001.
Very cool to learn you spent the day at Wilson's Creek. Hope it was helpful for your project.
ReplyDeleteIf I were you I would focus more on children in the Confederacy, since you claim they played a bigger role. If they were more important to the rebels, then I don't think it matters that the United States had more child soldiers. The U.S. Army had more soldiers in general, did they not? I think that the United States' industrialization and economic power played a major role in their victory. If I were writing about the U.S. victory I might look at that, but since you claim that the children were more important to the South I would focus primarily on the South.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it would be too broad to do a comparison between the Union and the Confederacy? I have no idea, but I think it's incredibly interesting that there was such a difference (and feud) between the two sides.
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