Charles Edwin King (April 3, 1849 – September 20, 1862), was a Union drummer boy during the American Civil War.

[2] On April 14, 1861 news reached West Chester about the surrender of Fort Sumter, and within a day the city began efforts to raise a company of troops.

They fought at Crampton's Gap during the Battle of South Mountain, and on September 17, were in a supporting role near the infamous cornfield at Antietam.

[3] While waiting to go into action on the edge of the cornfield, Confederate artillery and skirmishers opened fire, wounding and killing some men of the 49th Pennsylvania.

The Jeffersonian, a West Chester newspaper, reported in October 1862 that: "The ball, we understand, passed through his lungs, and he survived but a day or two.