Abraham Lincoln and the Drummer-Boy

This tale comes from a book by Francis Carpenter, who spent months at the White House in 1864 to work on a painting of Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. A 'delicate-looking boy about thirteen years old' told Lincoln his colonel had fired him, he was too sick and weak too work, and his father had died in the army. The boy wept, I have no mother, and . . . no friends "nobody cares for me". Lincoln also cried and made arrangements to care for this poor boy. Nast sentimentalized the story even more by depicting the drummer boy as younger than he actually was.