Drummer (military)

[3] The image of a small child in the midst of battle was seen as deeply poignant by 19th-century artists, and idealized boy drummers were frequently depicted in paintings, sculpture and poetry.

[4] Nathan Futrell (1773–1829) was said to have been the youngest drummer boy in the American War of Independence; he joined the North Carolina Continental Militia at the age of 7.

In 1793, Joseph Bara, a 14-year-old French Republican drummer at the time of the War in the Vendée, was killed by royalist counter-revolutionaries, supposedly while he was shouting "Long live the Republic!".

[5] André Estienne was a drummer with Napoleon Bonaparte's army at the Battle of the Bridge of Arcole in 1796, where he led his battalion across a river while holding his drum over his head, and on reaching the far bank, beat the "charge".

Despite being 19 years old, he became famous as Le Petit Tambour d'Arcole (French: The Little Drummer of Arcole), and is depicted in the Panthéon in Paris and on the Arc de Triomphe, also in paintings by Charles Thévenin and Horace Vernet.

An 11-year-old drummer in the Confederate Orphan Brigade, known only as "Little Oirish", was credited with rallying troops at the Battle of Shiloh by taking up the regimental colors at a critical moment.

[10] The use of drums beyond the parade ground declined rapidly as the 19th century progressed, being replaced by the bugle in the signalling role, although it was often the drummers who were required to play them.

A widely reported incident at the Battle of Isandlwana during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, spelled the end of boys being sent on active service by the British Army.