The two traveled south to Taylor’s assigned Army of the Potomac unit, the 8th Michigan Infantry. At the Washington depot Taylor rescued Hendershot after he suffered a seizure and fell in front of a locomotive. He had another a few days later while standing at dress parade. It was then that Hendershot told Taylor of his discharge from the 9th Infantry and his use of an alias. Although Taylor kept Hendershot’s confession secret, the boy began to suffer from his affliction so frequently that the acting regimental commander, Captain Ralph Ely, ordered him off duty and applied for his discharge.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in America's Civil War magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

It was then December, and while Hendershot awaited his discharge, the Army of the Potomac stood on the banks of the Rappahannock River opposite lightly defended Fredericksburg. There they had waited for more than three weeks for the engineers and material necessary to build pontoon bridges. The delay enabled General Robert E. Lee to move his Army of Northern Virginia into position. Thus, when the engineers arrived, Rebel sharpshooters thwarted their efforts. On December 11, the 7th Michigan Infantry volunteered to cross and drive the sharpshooters from their nests.

Hendershot had wandered to the riverbank that morning, and he tried to tag along with the regiment by climbing aboard a boat, but slipped and made the voyage across clinging to the gunwale. Newspaper accounts related stories of ‘a drummer boy, only 13 years old, who volunteered and went over in the first boat’ and who battled the Confederates and had his drum smashed by a shell. A correspondent for the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune wrote that the nameless boy belonged to the 8th Michigan Infantry.

Two weeks after Hendershot allegedly crossed the river, he was again discharged, for epilepsy. He was away from the regiment for more than 10 days. Right after the battle he traveled first to New York, then to Baltimore and Detroit, staking his claim to the title ‘Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock.’

His first stops in Detroit were at the offices of the Advertiser and Tribune and the Free Press. Both published his’strange and romantic’ story. For several days he appeared at a local theater, where the crowds enthusiastically applauded the young hero’s drum solos. Then he returned to Jackson. The editors of Jackson’s newspapers, perhaps already familiar with the young man’s propensity for self-promotion and exaggeration, chose not to repeat his tales.

In other parts of the country, though, many did believe his story. Among them was Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, who summoned Hendershot to the city and presented him with a silver drum. Winfield Scott, the retired general-in-chief of the U.S. Army, was on hand for the event, as was P. T. Barnum. For the next eight weeks Hendershot performed at the showman’s museum, and the youth was also rewarded with a scholarship to the Poughkeepsie Business College.

Hendershot did not remain long at the college, but did learn to write and signed his own name when he enlisted as a first-class boy aboard USS Fort Jackson, at Hampton Roads, Va., on April 1, 1864. From his naval service arose more tales of heroism with a shore party that destroyed a salt works near Fort Fisher. More likely was another story, that he fell overboard while in a seizure and a watchful shipmate saved him from drowning. And while Hendershot claimed to be discharged from the Navy on June 26, 1864, the ship’s log listed him as a deserter.

The next few months were hectic, if Hendershot’s tales are to be believed: He went on a grand tour of England, served as a Treasury Department page and undertook dangerous missions as a Union spy. Whatever the case, by war’s end Hendershot had collected an impressive portfolio of letters from Maj. Gens. Ambrose Burnside, George Meade and others recommending him for an appointment to West Point. One notable endorsement came from President Abraham Lincoln, who wrote, ‘I know of this boy, and believe he is very brave, manly and worthy.’

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to