Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant. Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. xiv + 434 pages. Hardcover, $34.95.

• Author: Long, Creston

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era examines the important topic of underage soldiers in the Union and Confederate armies. Historians Francis M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant both bring considerable expertise to this study each having published earlier works related to the Civil War era. In this current piece, the authors explain the history of the nation's changing view of the appropriate age for military service and illuminate the underlying debate about authority over the labor and lives of young men that developed during the Civil War. The authors make it clear that widespread underage service affected tens of thousands of young men and families. They convincingly argue that the practice of underage recruitment brought growing Federal power into direct conflict with the traditional authority and sanctity of the home, a potent symbol of the transformative nature of the Civil War.

The authors begin their study with a solid, concise examination of policies and practices regarding minor enlistment in the early nineteenth century, a time when broad suspicion of standing armies and the threats they might pose to liberty lingered from the revolutionary period. Enlistment was mostly restricted to men who were at least 21 years old. There were widespread public assumptions about the limitations of younger teenagers serving as soldiers. Even medical research, some produced by Army doctors, argued against minor recruitment pointing to the frailty of still-developing skeletal, muscular and digestive systems. The pressing need for soldiers during the Civil War began to change these perceptions.

The authors argue that once President Lincoln called for volunteers after the attack on Fort Sumter, several factors eroded opposition to recruiting younger men for service. A particularly interesting chapter titled "Pride of the Nation" examines children's literature and magazine illustrations depicting heroic minors in uniform. The image of the Union drummer boy was a particularly poignant and enduring icon of the righteousness of the cause. While it is impossible to estimate how many teens were influenced by these images, it is clear that they made northern readers more accustomed to the notion of underage service, at least in the abstract.

The authors find that some teens enlisted because they wanted to follow older brothers or friends who were already in the Army. In the South in particular, boys who remained behind to attend...