Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1889 — The Youngest Confederate Soldier. [ARTICLE]

The Youngest Confederate Soldier.

Berry H. Binford, was the youngest soldier in the confederate array. His father, Dr. Binford, was a surgeon in the confederate army. The boy, when about nine years old, started out to find his father and reported to Gen. Wheeler, who took him for a federal spy sent in by some of the union people. The general kept an eye on the little’chap and finally turned him over, to Col. Josiah Patterson, who knew Dr. Binford and at once assumed the care of the boy. As he would not go back home, a pony was secured for hjm. a gun was sawed off the proper length, and he was recognized from that- time on to the end of the war as a soldier. It is stated that young Bin- 1 ford and another boy, not much older, undertook to do a little special service ouce. Thev went...£mt .between the lines somewhere up in North Alabama, threw up some small breastworks and awaited the advance of the feder.ils on the 1 opposite^side of a small river. The column came in sight, and the boys opened fire as if backed by an army, which the federals naturally supposed to be a fact. The boys h'Sid the fort a whole day. and when night came on they scampered off and rejoined their command several miles away. Binford w. s the famous “suspicious case” that caused a panic in this city last summer and subjected several distinguished physicians to a perfect avalanche of chaff, when it turned out to be a case of alcoholism instead of yellow fever.