Although Brown may have legitimately challenged Hendershot’s claim to the ‘youngest soldier’ title (he was said to have been only 9 years old when he entered the Army), his hold on the other title was seriously weakened by the fact that he had not stepped east of the Alleghenies during the war. Among the other nominees who had been present at Fredericksburg, Spillaine had the stronger case, since of them all only he was still living, and he won the title. The residents of Detroit awarded Spillaine a gold medal upon which was an embossed figure of a drummer boy and the inscription ‘Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock.’ Spillaine proudly wore the medal for the rest of his life.

Subscribe Today

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

Hendershot mounted his first appeal in the local media with a narrative of his heroic actions at Fredericksburg. His heroism had been widely reported in the press of the day, he said. He claimed that either Harper’s or Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly had printed his image. He quoted letters and cited historian Benson Lossing’s The Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War, which included an account of Hendershot’s heroics. To those who said he had deserted, he claimed that he had been wounded and sent to a hospital in Washington and then to Providence, R.I., where he continued his recovery in General Burnside’s home.

Drum major Dickerson and others soon sent in rebuttals to the newspapers. Dickerson repeated his claim that Hendershot had not crossed the river, but had been ‘found in a creek near camp, feigning a fit,’ and that he later deserted and began ‘traveling with a 10 show, telling great stories of his heroism.’ A nameless correspondent wrote that Hendershot had not served in the Federal Army at all, but had spent the war as a member of band in Poughkeepsie. His fame was the result of a ‘reportorial accident,’ another said, ‘perpetuated by well-intended but hasty acts of kindness…and by Hendershot’s shrewdness at working the opportunity for all it was worth.’

Many reports of a drummer boy crossing the Rappahannock had appeared in the press immediately after the Battle of Fredericksburg, writers asserted, but Hendershot’s name had not been connected with the incident until many days later. As for Lossing, one column stated that he ‘was a weak judge of evidence’ who had written his history 20 years after the war. Its many errors included assigning Hendershot to the 7th Michigan Infantry.

Throughout the encampment, the Reverend George Taylor had resisted those who wanted him to make a statement, lest it ‘disturb the harmony of the occasion,’ he claimed. Now that it was over, in a letter published in the Detroit Tribune on August 13, Taylor recounted the events of that day, and stated his ‘firm conviction’ that Hendershot was the Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock. That only added fuel to the fire and launched the controversy into the National Tribune.

The first volley came from Major Charles W. Bennett, historian of the 9th Michigan Infantry, Hendershot’s first regiment. An examination of the evidence had convinced Bennett of the truth in Hendershot’s claims, and in the Tribune he laid out his case. Captain Henry A. Ford, Grand Army editor for the Detroit Evening Journal, responded that his ‘thorough inquiry into the facts of the case’ had convinced him Hendershot was a fraud. Dickerson also continued his attack, while William Brewster, a drummer who had served with Hendershot, joined in and called him a camp follower, a scoundrel and a thief. Others soon joined the fray and kept the storm raging for months.

It was still raging at the GAR’s 1892 meeting in Washington, D.C. There, the membership reaffirmed Spillaine’s right to the title. Hendershot did not attend the encampment, the National Tribune stated, ‘as it was clearly shown at the Detroit encampment that he was not entitled to this honor.’

But Hendershot was not going to let what he considered to be a ‘black-hearted attack’ pass without fighting back, and he called on the comrades in the first of his old regiments, the 9th Michigan Infantry, which passed a resolution supporting Hendershot’s claims. He then attended the annual reunion of the 8th Michigan Infantry, the organization that had so recently drummed him out. Before he left, the regiment completely reversed its stance and passed unanimous resolutions that restored Hendershot into the 8th Michigan and supported his claim to his title.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to