Apr 07, 2022 - Sale 2600

Sale 2600 - Lot 155

Price Realized: $ 406
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(MILITARY.) John Clem. Letter from the famed "Drummer Boy of Chickamauga." Autograph Letter Signed as "Jno. L. Clem" to Mrs. W.A. [Mary] Menger of San Antonio, TX. 2 pages, 7 3/4 x 5 inches, on one folding sheet, plus docketing on final blank page; moderate wear including several small holes not affecting legibility. Fort McKavett, TX, 25 March 1872
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John Lincoln Clem (1851-1937) ran away from home and joined the 22nd Michigan Infantry as a drummer boy. He not only wielded a rifle at the Battle of Chickamauga, he was said to have shot a Confederate colonel who demanded his surrender. He was then promoted to sergeant at the age of 12, the youngest non-commissioned officer in American history. Cartes-de-visite of the diminutive sergeant were popular during the war. After returning home and graduating from high school, he failed to gain admission to West Point, but President Grant appointed him as a second lieutenant in 1871. By 1915, he was the last Civil War veteran on active duty, and was brevetted as a brigadier general upon his retirement.

Clem wrote this letter in reaction to a mix-up at his hotel during a visit to San Antonio, which he blamed on "the carelessness of your servants, who put my name on Dr. Beers' mattress, & his on mine." Thus Clem lost his blankets and quilt, and was sent away with the other guest's expensive field glasses: "I was very much surprised to get your bill with note, saying Dr. Beers did not owe me any money, but that he would pay me if I returned his field glass--just as though I had stolen it. . . . I am placed in a bad--very bad--light and I wish to have it cleared up. It makes me a thief in the light which you put it." Clem was eager to defend his reputation and get the matter sorted out; an accusation of theft could have potentially stalled his military career.