Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 168, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1912 — AROUND THE CAMP FIRE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AROUND THE CAMP FIRE

YOUNG DRUMMED BOY A HERO .Jgyy-T.-VVMN -y,-pt& First Medal of Honor Awarded t*<juiiq/i Scott, Fifteen ¥&ns Old, of Vermont. • The first soldier to win the coveted* medal of honor was Julian Scott * fifteen-year-old drummer boy in the? Third Vermont infantry hi 1*62. The act which gained him the medal ▼unperformed several months before the congressional act institutifcg the reward was passed. The medal of honor Is the highest decoration for personal valor awarded! to the soldiers and sailors of the Baited States. It is to Americans what the Victoria Cross is to the English or ||i|g Iron Cross to the Germans. ~ The act of congress ordering 2,06* of these medals to be prepared was av* proved by President Lincoln July 11, 1862, and the first medal was issued! the following year. It was a five-potob-ed star of gun metal, tipped with trefoil. each point containing a victor's crown of oak and laurel. On official occasions, says Bode Sam’s Magazine, it was worn suspended around the neck and under the center line of the chin by order erf the president.' A bowknot of ribbon is worn in the lapel of the coat in the absence of the- medal. - In 1868 the Grand Army of the Republic' organisation adopted a design so similar that it was misleading and steps were taken by the Medal of Honor Legion to have a new designissued to replace the old one. Congress in 1904 adopted the new medal. It is of silver, heavily electroplated to gold. The five-pointed star has been re* tained and in Its center appears the head of the heroic Minerva, the highest symbol of wisdom and righteous war. It was on the morning of April 16 Urnt the afterwart famous Vermont brigade—Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth regiments—was ordered to advance and to attack a strong fortification masked In a forest near Lee’s Mills, or Burnt Chimneys, on the right bank of Warwick liver. When the command Reached the bank of the river under cover of the fire of a light battery four Companies of the Third regiment, in one of which Julian Scott was serf-’ lng as a musican, despite desperate re-

. sistance by the enemy, hidden among opposite side, succeeded in wading Tbq water midstream was breast high and soaked the paper cartridge* carried in little leather boxes on the back. The rest of tbs brigade failed to come np, but the plucky advance guard drove the Confederates from their position and had pursued thou setne distance before they rallied. Then, unsupported and with worthless ammunition, the Vermonters Ml back. As soon as the enemy realized that the retreating companies had no defence but bayonets they subjected them to a merciless Are. i The climax to the catastrophe came when the companies reached While the fighting had beefgoing on the fffliffitonitiw had opened the floodgate* at the mills above and had cut off their assailants. Many of the Ter monters tried to swim the stream, but were frowned. shot a* midstream and laid him on the hank out of danger and again and again returned to the stream, rescuing wounded and exhausted men until he had drawn It < of his comrades to safety. gle and suffering intensely from a bad Un head, he went baric once with the flood. The man died as Scott laid him on the bank. It was by each service that tha^ ofj*on?r ■star it sd-H is buried bow *u s Pius ji, j cemetery. >- *•> A..,

Scott Pulled Him to Shore.