HISTORY LESSON FOR TODAY

OK before we get to todays history lesson I have a question. WHO TOOK MY ROSARY? I have been looking for it everywhere. I know someone has seen it. It has beads on it and the beads are black, maybe brown. The last time I saw it was a couple days after my first communion. I haven't seen it since. Come'on ...... who has it?

JOHNNY SHILOH

Born at Newark, Ohio, in 1851 as John Joseph Klem, he ran away from home at age nine to become a Union Army drummer boy. He attempted to enlist in May 1861 in the 3rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, but was rejected on account of his age and small size. He then tried to join the 22nd Michigan, which also refused him. He tagged along anyway, and the 22nd eventually adopted him as mascot and drummer boy. Officers chipped in to pay him the regular soldier’s wage of $13 a month, and finally allowed him to enlist two years later.
In the Battle of Shiloh, in April 1862, Clem's drum was smashed by an artillery round and he became a minor news item as "Johnny Shiloh", the smallest drummer. In September 1863, at the Battle of Chickamauga, he rode an artillery caisson to the front and wielded a musket trimmed to his size. In the course of a Union retreat, he shot a Confederate colonel who demanded his surrender. After the battle, the "Drummer Boy of Chickamauga" was promoted to sergeant, the youngest soldier ever to be a noncommissioned officer in the United States Army. In October 1863, Clem was captured in Georgia by Confederate calvary while detailed as a train guard. The Confederate soldiers took his uniform away from him which reportedly upset him terribly--especially his cap which had three bullet holes in it. He was exchanged a short time later, but the Confederate newspapers used his age and celebrity status to show "what sore straits the Yankees are driven, when they have to send their babies out to fight us." After participating with the Army of the Cumberland in many other battles, serving as a mounted orderly, he was discharged in 1864. Clem was wounded in combat twice during the war.

LATER LIFE

Clem graduated from high school in 1870. After he attempted unsuccessfully to enter the United States Military Academy, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him second lieutenant in the Twenty-fourth United States Infantry. Clem graduated from artillery school at Fort Monroe in 1875, transferred to the quartermaster department in 1882, and rose to the rank of major general by the time he retired in 1916. Clem spent a number of his Army years in Texas. From 1906 to 1911 he was Chief Quartermaster at Fort Sam Houston; after retirement he lived in Washington, D.C. for a few years, then returned to San Antonio, Texas. He married Anita Rosetta French in 1875. She died in 1899, and he married Bessie Sullivan of San Antonio in 1903. Clem was the father of two children. He died in San Antonio on May 13, 1937, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

So now when you visit SIX FLAGS OVER JOHNNY SHILOH or his newest theme park CHICKAMAUNGA COASTERS, PUTT PUTT and RV PARK. You will know why that 70 years after his death people are still bloggin' him.

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