Photograph of Powder Monkey on USS New Hampshire

A Student’s Guide to Essential Primary Sources
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Photograph of Powder Monkey on USSNew Hampshire
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https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844179.book-part-084

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Abstract

During the American Civil War (1861–65), both the Union and the Confederacy used children as young as ten as soldiers and sailors. The photograph is of a young sailor serving as a powder monkey, a naval term for someone assigned to bring gunpowder from a ship’s magazine to its cannons. The picture is from the later years of the Civil War and features the deck of the USS New Hampshire (some sources identify the ship as the USS Pawnee, a much smaller vessel).

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