Drummer Boy

Albert Woolson was only 17 when he joined the Army. It was October 1864, the war was almost over--and Albert felt he had to hurry for his share of glory. His father, a New York man, had lost a leg at Shiloh, and afterward had taken his family west to New Janesville, Minn. Albert learned the "rifle art" from a Winnebago Indian named Winneshake, and thus prepared, enlisted in the First Minnesota Regiment of Heavy Artillery.

He served as head drummer boy, after "knocking the block" off another drummer boy. Albert was fitted with a blue uniform and shipped to Tennessee in time to play his drum in battle; he went along when General George H. Thomas beat Hood's Confederates in the Battle of Nashville. He was mustered out the next year, one of nearly 2,000,000 Union veterans. He became a wood turner, worked quietly at his trade for 65 years, and retired at 83.

Gradually, by outliving other Union veterans, Albert became a celebrated man in Duluth, where he had settled down. Harry Truman sent him a telegram on his 100th birthday in 1947. Duluth schoolchildren collected 27,652 pennies, and had his portrait painted in the uniform of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Last week, at 106, he achieved a more moving distinction--an old man named James A. Hard died at Rochester, N.Y., at 111, and old Al Woolson became the only survivor of the Union Armies of the Civil War.*

"I am proud to be the rearguard of such a gallant group of men," he said. But he did not dwell on the drama of the occasion, or say much about that vast host, once so young, so fierce, so frightened, so deadly, and now gone except for him. The drummer boy was so old that none of it really seemed important. He said happily that he had shoveled the walk six times during the winter, and still smoked eight cigars a day.

*Four Confederate veterans are still alive: W. W. Williams of Franklin, Texas, 110; William A. Lundy of Laurel Hill, Fla., 104; Thomas E. Riddle of Austin, Texas, 106; and John Salling of Slant, Va., 106.

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