According to Mental Floss, John Clem, who ran away from home to join the army, first appears on the official records on May 1, 1863. Not long after, the 22nd Michigan would join the Battle of Chickamauga, the second-deadliest clash in the entirety of the war after Gettysburg. The rival armies clashed for three days in a fight that left 34,000 dead, and Clem and his fellow soldiers were right in the middle fighting off a Confederate advance.

Clem claims he fought with a musket, sawed off to fit his size, and found himself behind enemy lines on the third day. A Confederate officer charged at the boy, demanding his surrender, but Clem instead shot and wounded the officer, knocking him off of his horse. News of the incident reached other Union armies, where it lifted morale as they decreed Clem “The Drummer Boy of Chickamauga,” and a group of women in Chicago sent the boy a tailored uniform. Clem would later be captured and exchanged, as well as wounded twice in further engagements. He would continue in the U.S. Military after graduating from high school, eventually promoted to Major General for his actions, and was buried in Arlington Cemetery after his death in 1937, per Mental Floss. His Civil War nickname adorns his gravestone.