Drummer (military)

A drummer was responsible for the drums in the army for use on the battlefield. Drums were part of the field music for hundreds of years, being introduced by the Ottomans to Europe. Chinese armies however had used drums even before that. With the professionalization of armies, military music was developed as well. Drums were not only used for the men to march in step, but were an important part of the battlefield communications system, with various drum rolls used to signal different commands from officers to troops. By the second half of the 18th century, most, -if not all western armies had a standardized set of marches and signals to be played, often accompanied by fifers.

The romantic idea about drummers is that they were young boys (for instance the Christmas carol "The Little Drummer Boy", or the painting "Steady the Drums"). The fact however is that drummers were adult men, recruited like the common soldiers. Fifers on the other hand, being not official part of the regiments early on, were usually recruited from young boys. During the 17th and 18th centuries, drummers were not only musicians, but also acted as diplomats, approaching enemy positions and asking for negotiations through a special drum signal. Drummers were acquired to be able to speak several languages, and have knowledge of the drum signals of different countries. When the diplomatic role of the drummers slowly disappeared, younger men and boys could be recruited. During the second half of the 19th century, it was pretty much accepted in many western armies that under aged boys served as drummers.

Although there were usually official age limits, these were often ignored; the youngest boys were sometimes treated as mascots by the adult soldiers. The life of a drummer boy appeared rather glamorous and as a result, boys would sometimes run away from home to enlist. Other boys may have been the sons or orphans of soldiers serving in the same unit. The image of a small child in the midst of battle was seen as deeply poignant by 19th-century artists, and idealised boy drummers were frequently depicted in paintings, sculpture and poetry.

Nathan Futrell (1773–1829) was said to have been the youngest drummer boy in the American War of Independence; he joined the North Carolina Continental Militia at the age of 7.

In 1793, Joseph Bara, a 14-year-old French Republican drummer at the time of the War in the Vendée, was killed by royalist counter-revolutionaries, supposedly while he was shouting "Long live the Republic!". His body was interred at the Panthéon along with other national heroes.

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