This is an IHeart podcast.

This is our American stories, and we love to tell stories about American history, sometimes about people you know, events you know, and we try to fill in the rest of the story of those stories. Or sometimes there are stories you've never heard of. And they're some of our favorites. Up next is the story of the youngest non-commissioned officer in Army history and told by Kristen O'Donnell

Tubb. And by the way, she writes under the pseudonym E.F. Abbott. She's the author of John Lincoln

Clem, Civil War drummer boy. I first learned about the amazing John Clem when my publisher,

Macmillan Children's books, approached me to write

a story for a new historical fiction series they were developing. The series was called,

based on a true story, and they'd compiled a list of a few of the true American heroes that they

wanted to highlight.

John Clem was on that list.

When I did a quick Google search for him,

I knew his story was the one I wanted to write.

John Lincoln Clem was born John Joseph Clem in Newark, Ohio on August 13th, 1851. When he was nine years old, his mother was killed by a train.

Later that same year, John became so enamored with the idea of restoring the divided union.

He volunteered his services to Captain Leonidas

McDougal of the Third Ohio Union Regiment.

Years later, he said laughingly,

My help was obviously needed.

Captain McDougal laughed at this offer from a nine-year-old boy saying, I'm not enlisting infants, son.

Johnny Clem's father wisely refused to let his nine-year-old enlist,

so Johnny concocted a plan.

He told his brother Lewis and sister Lizzie that he was skipping church to swim in the canal.

But instead, Johnny stowed away on a train.

...