 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Marlene Targ Brill, who is an author, educator, presenter and not a drummer. Marlene, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Bart. This is really exciting. Sure. And let me explain the not-a-drummer thing. So you're obviously an author, but you are a bit of an expert on our topic today, which is I think we're pronouncing his name, right? We both kind of said that. Orion P. Howell, who is standalone, he's one of the youngest people to receive the Medal of Honor, which we'll kind of talk about what that is for people who may not know, but but he's also a drummer boy in the Civil War. And before we get in, this is really cool because I had someone comment, Eric McKnight, commented just on a post I put on Instagram and said, hey, Bart, check out this topic and that was like a week ago and here we are recording this. So it's this happened really fast because it was it was quick for me to find you. So all that being said, Marlene, why don't we why don't you tell us about Orion and you know, who is he? What's his? I know his family is drummers. So take it away. Tell us all about him. Well, Orion Howell entered the military well, actually, he wasn't the first one. His father was a veteran of the Mexican-American War and he played the Fife and when the Civil War was getting revved up, he had given his two sons, Orion, who was 12 at the time and Liston, who was 10. He gave them some drums and they were practicing and he would take them out to different rallies to kind of drum up some business for recruiting different soldiers and and it was a motivational kind of thing and it was also a rallying cry and that's one of the main jobs of drummers and eventually his father and Liston went off to war and the thinking was that Orion as the elder son should go to school so he can eventually take over whatever was going on with the family and his father's cabinet-making business and that didn't turn out so well. Orion was having a really hard time being in school. The boys were dropping out one after another and he felt like he was he was kind of a sissy and eventually ran away and he coaxed his stepmother into letting him join the military and that's when he went and joined his brother and they became drummers in the different battles in the Civil War and eventually the father who had been in a different regimen transferred so he could be with his sons. He became the principal musician and he was in charge of the bands in the 55th Regiment. Wow. Now, okay, so let's just clarify too so people know like when he's at school and not going to the you know in the battle and feeling like a sissy, how old was he? Let's because I mean it's pretty wild. He was about 12 years old and so he would keep practicing because he was ready to go, you know, but it wasn't happening and then finally he couldn't take it anymore. All right, now before we move on first off when I was 12, I was like, I mean, I couldn't fathom going to it was a it's a different time obviously, but like, you know, I was playing video games in my parents' basement. I mean, it's just it's a different world obviously, but what obviously he legally couldn't go into, you know, the army, the military, right? I mean, you can't be a 12 year old. I know it's 1860 and you know, Civil War was on, but that's so young. How did he really get in? His brother was 10. So that's, you know, that's, you know, even younger. And I guess he could go with parents permission. I believe the youngest drummer boy was Johnny Clem, who I forgot what his nickname was, but he entered when he was nine years old and I think he got a parent to sign for him or he ran away and got some other adults to sign for him. And so I believe he was the absolute youngest and I know one of your previous speakers talked about how most of the drummer boys really weren't boys in essence. They were older teens, early 20s, but you know, doing this research, I found a whole host of young people who had joined, you know, 10, 12, 14, you know, which is still pretty young. Yeah, you know, and it's kind of cool too because I'm from Ohio, but like I've looked up Johnny Clem before as well because wasn't he one of the oldest surviving civil war drummers? I know he's up there because he's 1851 to 1937, but him and Orion are both from Ohio, which is kind of cool. I'm from Ohio. I think they're more north towards like the Toledo area, but God, 10 years old. I mean, some of these guys I can't imagine being so young. You're a little boy, you're a kid. It's just wild. Now, okay, carry on with the story. So the Howe family is now together, right? Serving together, playing music. The dad was playing the fife, right? And leading the, you know, he was the head of the, what was his role? William Howe was principal conductor. And I guess for some reason, they had qualified older people who were part of the band at the time. And those people left and more and more young people were coming like Orion and his brother Liston. And I guess the soldiers were getting grumpy or about, you know, and had all kinds of nicknames for these, for these youngsters. And actually the family was from Ohio. But when Orion's mother died, when he was a toddler, a little older, and the family moved to Waukegan to be closer to William's sister, so she could help take care of the two young boys. And so that's where they were. And that's when I talk about the 55th Regiment. It was the 55th Illinois. Okay, let's keep going forward here. Obviously, we're leading up to the point where there was obviously a battle and there was, you know, the Medal of Honor and all that stuff. But yeah, what else happened as the the families now together and you keep it going from there? Well, eventually, the boys, mind you, there were about four feet six inches. So when they finally got uniforms, they dragged and the drum also dragged on the ground. And they had to make adjustments for boys as young as Orion and Liston. And the family was together and the father kind of protected the boys a little bit, and that they didn't have to do too many awful things. But they still did the breath of activities besides drumming that most drummer boys experienced. And they stayed together and then the father got sick and he left and went home. And that meant that the boys were pretty much on their own. And so it was getting more lonesome and they were finally getting into more battles. And it was a little bit scarier. Geez. Well, back up. So back up for a sec, what were some of the duties that drummers would perform that were not just playing the drums? I imagine they weren't too nice to these young boys and made them do stuff like, you know, cleaning things. And but yeah, what would they do? They were the ones who actually handled all the communications up and down the line, meaning the soldiers. And they had to sleep near the officers so that whenever an officer wanted to send a message, they would be available. So they would drill for a wake up, which meant that, you know, maybe four or five in the morning, they would wake everybody up and they weren't too happy with the boys. They would also sound for lineup and meal calls and lights out. And then they would have to learn other beats to tell foot soldiers to run or stay put. And then they would drum along with, you know, whatever else was going on. Now, the boys also had other duties. They would help with carrying things. They would help with the medical corps and they would help the surgeons. They would be the ones to carry the bodies. Man, picking up bodies and stuff. Again, you just, I guess it's just people were tougher then, but I just think of these poor little kids. You see, if you look on Wikipedia and I'll post one on social media for people to see, but you see these pictures of these little boys and they have these looks on their face of like, I don't know, just like, like they've seen some stuff. Like they've seen more horrible things in their 14 years of life than I have and probably ever will in my 30 years of life. It's like, you got to be tough. It's just so good. You do, but in essence, they were still boys underneath. And I found some information in the olden days. I don't know. I'm sure they keep records now of every, everything that's going on. But there's a book called The 55th Illinois from 1861 to 1865. And that was written by the officers and put together as a record of what was happening with this particular regiment. And that's where I got most of my information. And there's one part I'd like to read to you from the book to show that these were really boys underneath that outside our sleeping quarters, that was in when they were in transit. So they believe they were in St. Louis at the time, faced a huge open square. Here we march and parade, sun up to sun down. Often the weather quickly shifts from clear to cold to rain. The parade ground turns to a sea of gray musts. On a gloomy rainy day, us boys try to make our own sunshine. We shed our shoes and socks, roll up our britches and hop lively through the puddles. Liston Joe, these are the other people who they hung out with, somebody they called Betsy because he was probably whiny. Philip and I slap along singing John Brown's body. So they were still into doing boy things. Wow, on a battlefield. I mean, so there's a lot of people which is awesome who listen to this show who are outside of America, where maybe you take for granted that people know about the Civil War. We probably should have done this earlier on. But so obviously it's the North versus the South. Orion would have been a Union soldier, which is the North. And it's, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's known kind of as one of the bloodiest wars in history. I mean, it was just so brutal, and there was no, it's just such a, there's the technology of helping wounded soldiers. I mean, it was just horrible. And to think of these little boys jumping around is just nuts. Now, do you know, it's kind of a weird question, I guess, but I guess it wouldn't be documented, really. But like, would he be considered, would these boys be considered like really good drummers or was it just like, like, here's a drum, here's some sticks, play along and don't get out of, out of, you know, time? Like, were they trained at all? Or was it just sort of like, figure it out as you go? No, they were trained. And by the Civil War, there were very specific trainings. And I found where for drummers, during the American Civil War, they were younger than the previous ones, the Revolutionary Wars. So they had to shorten the drums a little bit, shorten all different kinds of things to make them fit the, the drummers who were playing them. And each drummer was required to play variations of 26 rudiments. Does that make sense to you? The rudiment that meant attack was a long roll. The rudiment for assembly was a series of flams, while the rudiments for drummers call, were a mixture of flams and rolls. The rudiment for simple cadence was open beating with a flam repeat. Additional requirements included the double stroke roll, paradiddles, flamadiddles, flam accents, flam acues, rough, roughs, roughs, single and double drags, random acues and sex tuplets. And a lot of this was put down in a book by Bruce and Emmett, Bruce Emmett's 1862, The Drummers and Pfeifers Guide. So early on, even though drumming went back to ancient Babylon, early on during the wars, there was a recognition that you absolutely needed to, to standardize these on both sides, reunion and Confederate. And that, and that was how they, they came to, to do the same things. And in terms of, you know, they weren't rock stars back then, but they were stars in what they did. So they did have training and they did have some standards. Now that's great. And sometimes it, I have to ask a question to then remember sort of more information about it. And, and I recommend people, if they want to hear more about kind of the notation, they can go back to the episode with Mark Beecher, who's the president of the National Association of Rudimental Drumming or Drummers. And he actually talked about, I think he talked about, I believe it was George Washington, who was all like embarrassed about how the drum core sounded. And it was like so terrible that he then actually kind of made it like a thing where it's like, no, no, no, we're going to get these guys and kids sounding better, which then led to obviously more of the, the formation of like, you know, notation and all that stuff. So I think it, it, it sort of was a over time they realized, okay, we need to, it makes the whole army look bad if these people can't play their instrument correctly. So, but that was a great, great bit of information. It's fun to hear you say flamadiddles and paradiddles and all that. Okay, cool. Now, that answer is that. All right. So correct. Stop me if I'm going too fast here. But he obviously got the Medal of Honor, they don't just hand that out. So what happened? And again, pause if there's other things that happened before that are interesting with his family and his, you know, career as a drummer, but how did he end up getting the Medal of Honor? Well, if I may, could I read the section that talks about what happened? Please. And, and let's, and you probably have a better explanation of it. But just so again, people around the world know, not if my pretty bad explanation of what the Civil War was wasn't enough. I'm not going to read a Google explanation of what a Medal of Honor is. So it says, the requirements for the Medal of Honor were standardized among all the services requiring that all recipient had distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. So that's kind of a confusing way of saying that you really have to do something extremely brave and put yourself in danger, right? Just to explain what it is. Yes, that's accurate. Okay, great. That being said, now, yeah, please read this segment. Okay. And this was May 27, 1863. And this was near Vicksburg. And I write this as a first person from a count from Diary of a Drummer Boy, which is fictionalized it, but it's it's got all the rudiments that were from the 55th Illinois Regiment book. This is the first day my head is clear. I have been mending in a field hospital near Vicksburg since May 19. On the fearful day, I was wounded in our attack on the last rebel stronghold before Vicksburg Bluffs. What happened was we drummed the order down the line to strike at about two o'clock. Three cannonball blasts followed signaling the mad charge of howling men toward the rebels. I was supposed to run to the rear supply wagons with the other musicians, but I followed our colors to Fort Hill Ditch instead. I joined this war to help not sit back and watch. Our main line stopped suddenly where the ditch proved too deep to cross. Heavy fire reached within 50 paces of us coming from rebels guarding Graveyard Road, which leads to Vicksburg. Our only cover was to lie flat behind the ditch. The zip zip from pistols made my skin creep. And then he talks about different comrades falling dead. Union soldiers loaded and fired one round after another, then the men started running out of cartridges. Yet rebel fire grew hotter, killing and wounding more men around me. I took it upon myself to collect cartridges from the bodies. I got across the ditch and up the opposite steep ridge. I filled my shirt tails with all I could carry. Then I brought my tiny load to the sharpshooters. Sometimes I tripped over bodies or tree stumps. I remember hearing a chorus of gaffes after one fall, perhaps from men fearing for my safety. On one trip back, Colonel Halberg ordered me to the rear wagons for more cartridges. Bring caliber 54, he yelled after me. The men's muskets were filling with dirt. He thought smaller cartridges would load easier. So this was a slight difference that most people wouldn't pick up. I started back but my path was cut off by rebel fire. I raced toward the clearing. Thick puffs of dust rose where musket balls hit the dry hills. Enemy fire whizzed and zing past my head. Suddenly, a bullet struck my right thigh. Blood sloshed in my boot like a puddle of water. I kept climbing the hill but had to stop every few feet. I grew dizzy from loss of blood. My legs wobbled and my eyes blurred. I worried I couldn't make it to the rear regiment. I think I started to cry. Somehow I reached the hilltop and leveled ground. A few yards away, who should I spot but General Sherman? Watching the lines, I hobbled to him and cried something like, General Sherman, please send ammunition to Colonel Malberg. The men are all out. I can't collect any. General Sherman asked my regiment and where the enemy was but he mainly seemed troubled by my bleeding. Never mind me, send ammunition. I told him and he said he would do that and then as he limped off to the hospital he remembered the rest of Colonel's message. I turned around and called caliber 54. I hear General Sherman was most impressed that I recalled the cartridge size while so weak. He plans to write Secretary of War Stanton on my behalf and that's kind of how that happened. Oh my God, that's like, oh man what a tough little boy. It's just mind blowing that he's so young. I mean, I can't imagine many 14-year-olds today being stuck in that position and dealing with that. Unbelievable. Now, how did the rest of that, so it's the Siege of Vicksburg, is that right? Yes, it was one of the battles for the Siege of Vicksburg and what wound up happening is they didn't exactly break through but they wound up making a significant gain so that the next time there was a battle they were able to take Vicksburg. Wow, that is just unbelievable and you said, it's funny because this episode is just as much drum as it is like military history but you said, so he on purpose wanted to do a smaller caliber, you know, I guess it's not a bullet but we'll call it a bullet for now. But two, because there was dirt and everything filling in the guns so he wanted it to, it would be easier to load that way, right? Yes, yes. That's fascinating. Okay, so all right, so our hero drummer boy, so he gets taken away then, he's out of, is he out of the rest of the Civil War or does he come back? Well, he was sent home so that he could heal but he wanted to go back and once his leg healed, he returned and so did his longing to finish the war and on December 25th, 1863, Orion re-enlisted in the 55th Regiment and this time though, he was assigned as orderly for General Giles Smith and Orion stayed with the 55th until November 3rd, 1864, five months before the war ended and by then he had taken part in 14 battles. Jeez, that's unbelievable. I mean, it's like you said December 25th, you went back in, it's like, you know, Merry Christmas, going back to the fight. God, his mom must have been very proud. I mean, I guess she must have been used to a family of, you know, soldiers and then his brother was obviously still in the battle as well, right? Did he make it through? Okay. Yes, in fact, when General Sherman barreled east, they defeated rebels in the, you know, along the way and Liston House stayed with Sherman's division until he reached the Atlantic, so that was the end of the war and Liston became the youngest longest serving Illinois drummer in the Civil War. Wow. There are discrepancies about both boys, especially in Illinois where we're really proud of them. You know, the accolades are that, you know, that Orion was the youngest congressional medal of honor winner, which wasn't true and that Liston was the youngest drummer in the war altogether, but he really wasn't. It was the youngest in Illinois. Now, all right, so that being said, do you know, and I'm sure we can, I can Google it, but like, who was the youngest drummer in the Civil War? Is that a known person? I believe that was Johnny Clem. Oh, that was Johnny Clem. That's right. Okay. Gosh, these kids, it's just unbelievable. Now, it seems like if you're a 10-year-old, how old was Johnny Clem when he was in it? I know you said he entered it at age nine. At nine, oh my God. All right, so if you're nine years old, do you really have any other option of what you can do in the war besides being a drummer boy? I mean, is there anything else for you to do besides drumming? Well, obviously, Orion was an orderly. Oh, sure. Yeah, I'm sure they could help with masks, meaning food preparation. I know as they were getting deeper into the south and food was getting not only worse, but scarcer, the boys would run off and try and scrounge what they could from different farms around there. I guess we could call it stealing. Yeah, no, but pretty serious times where you got to do what you got to do. Okay, cool. Now, this is just an interesting side note that I think you might find interesting. So there's a very famous, and people listening to the show probably know all about this from hearing this, but Sanford Moeller, he's a very famous. I guess you'd call him a teacher. He created the molar technique, which derived from the story goes that he was he would go and when he was younger, hang out with civil war veterans and would watch these guys play who would basically be Johnny Clem or Orion P. Howe, for example, type guys, and he would watch their technique of how they play and how they were getting extreme volume and they were still playing the certain kind of technique at 80 years old. And then he adopted that and created the molar technique, which is still very prevalent today and a lot of drummers use it. But that directly goes back to him watching civil war drummers. So I just thought you might find that kind of interesting how it developed from civil war. Yeah. Okay, cool. Now, all right, Orion lived on to be 81 years old. And on that note, it's just so interesting to me that he was wounded in his leg and the level of medical technology at that point, the fact that he could go back into the war. You know what I mean? Like you think of like all of the problems that could have arise from having this musket ball in your leg that's, you know, you think of all the amputations and stuff. So he's pretty lucky that he survived a little and went back into the war. True, because the main the main vehicle for surgery was to amputate. Yeah. Which is awful. That's terrible. So obviously, maybe his wasn't as bad, but it was bad enough that he got to go home and heal. Yeah. Okay. And then I have another like, you know, again, not as drum, drummy of a question, but more of a military question. I've always wondered this, like, so it would have been probably maybe, I forget, you said General Sherman, right? Who was, he was like going and reporting to give more of the ammunition to, right? Like he kind of witnessed his Valor, I guess you call it. Does Sherman then like, I've always wondered, how does someone report that this soldier should get a Medal of Honor? Would it be Sherman then goes to the higher ups and says, this boy needs a Medal of Honor? How does that work? Well, in the olden days, you wrote letters. So General Sherman wrote a letter to the Secretary of State Stanton about Orion. And then President Lincoln awarded him entry to the Naval US Naval Academy in Annapolis, because he was too young to go to West Point. But it took several years before he received the Congressional Medal of Honor. That was in 1896, when I guess some article must have come up or whatever. And people remembered, hey, yeah, this is really brave and he deserves this Medal of Honor. That's awesome. Because I mean, he would have been, you know, obviously a little bit older. He lived to 1930. So after the Civil War, the next big war that would have happened would have been World War One, as far as wars that he could have been involved in. So he would have been too old. So. Well, tell some my understanding that Fife and Drone started to be lessened. Yeah, exactly. As communication tools. Because by then, you know, you've got an active telegraph machines. You've got a Morris Code. You've got, um, I was the telephone. They had a telephone by then, although not much. I mean, it wasn't like having a cell phone. But there were other means of communication. So the boy's word is necessary. Sure. And the episode you were referring to before, which is a great one that people can check out is the history of US military drumming with Patrick Jones, who's a great guy and very knowledgeable about all this. So he talked all about that, about how it just, it kind of phased out of like, you know, it's just not as prevalent and necessary. And I've got a lot of episodes. There's actually a recent one, which will be out before this, which is the history of Noble and Cooley, which they made rope tension drums, they made toy drums. And then they got commissioned by the US government to start making drums for the, for the war effort. So it just, it just shook everyone's, it just shook up everything for everyone. So wow. Okay. So then, so he went to the Naval Academy, right? And then did he go back into the service as just like a, you know, a general? Obviously, he didn't see battle again. But what did he do after the Naval Academy? No, he was a merchant marine for a while. He was kind of a vagabond, I get the impression. And he came out of Corporal's. So he wasn't all that high level. You know, he moved up, but not all that much. And then he, and then he received schooling as a dentist. And it's a little murkier, exactly when that happened. He moved to Streeter for a while, then he would move elsewhere. And especially died in St. Louis where his daughter was, but that was only after his second wife died in Streeter. So he had a bunch of, he was, he opened up a saddle shop. So he was making saddles and things like that. And then he went to be a dentist and, and did that until he retired. Wow. Okay, that came out of that field like, okay, I'm going to be a dentist now. Yeah, it's unclear, especially since he didn't have the most scholarly reputation in terms of when he was at the Naval Academy. You know, it seemed like he was a good guy who was brave and had lots of courage. I mean, I don't, I don't know how to explain him any other way. Yeah. No, that's great. Boy, what a, what a fascinating young, young man. You don't hear about guys like him too often, but poor little kids. So let's talk a little bit about your book, which is, it's, it is a kid's book. Like it's, you said, I believe it's for like sixth graders, typically fourth to sixth grade, diary of a drummer boy, which is kind of a fictionalized version of his life, which I just think it's neat because this is the kind of thing where, you know, if you're a young kid and you're drum crazy, like many of us are and many of us were as kids, you'd love reading this. So I think if people out there have grandkids or kids, this is just a pretty neat thing to pick up that's history, you know, war stuff, which a lot of little boys and little girls really like. I know I did. So how did you go about, how did you learn about Orion P how? I was doing a book earlier called extraordinary young people and I was looking for young people who were doing anything that was beyond the norm for their age and we're, you know, and their time. And I went to my library and I saw a flyer where the Lake County Historical Society or Lake County Museum was having a drummer boy exhibit and I didn't know much about them. And so I called up the museum and I said, explain my situation. And they said, we have the perfect boy for you. And that's how I first learned about Orion. But that was only the beginning. I love it when I can do research closer to home and I don't live that far from Waukegan. So I could go there and I could picture his house overlooking the ravine. I could go to the Historical Society and do research first hand. I could get diaries and letters that the boys wrote home and what their families wrote to them and get a clear idea of what was going on in Waukegan at the time and also what it was like to be in the war. Geez, that's awesome. So then you, and I haven't read the book, I'll be full transparency. I tried to get a digital copy and it just didn't work out, but I think we've still gotten a good, very good representation. But how did you like, so do you sort of like, when you fictionalize a story like that for kids, do you sort of just like add in kind of like how they make a screenplay out of like, you know, a story, do you add in little bits of like, you know, drama and just more reality? Is that kind of what happens in this situation? Well, it's different for everybody. But for me, historical fiction is always about a real person, usually a young person in a real event that happened in their lives. And the reason it's called fictionalized or historical fiction is because obviously I wasn't there. So there's going to be elements of it that have to be interpreted, assumed, if you will. But I try and like, going back to the 55th Regiment, I mean, I got real situations, really people talking to each other. And I hope it's as close to fact as possible. Yeah. No, I'm sure it's very thorough. Now, a question just popped into my head, which you probably don't know the answer to, but it makes me wonder like, if you're a drummer, boy, like, it almost seems like him playing the drums wasn't like he was a diehard born to be drummer. It's like, because you said he did other jobs, like I wonder if when he got out of when the Civil War ended, if he continued to like, practice his drum playing the snare, or if, you know, in like the, he died in the 30s, I doubt he did when he was, I doubt he got a drum set, you know, in the 20s when they were really starting to get more popularized because he'd be a 70 year old man. But I wonder if he still enjoyed practicing and if he, you know, played, you know, his rudimental stuff and practiced when he was more of an adult. I got the impression that when he was young, he really, really liked it. And of course, probably wanted to please his father. The other in terms of what happened when he was older, there was nothing that I found that he continued drumming. So I don't know for sure. I don't also know if he was allowed to keep the drum that he was given during the Civil War. Not, not all drummers were, were able to keep theirs. In fact, when I was doing a little research recently, I found that one drummer, it verified that he took his drum home with him. But it sounded like it was so odd that it usually didn't happen. Yeah, they're not from what I've heard from doing these episodes about the more, you know, rope tension, kind of Civil War era drums is they're not that common. Like you, a lot of people wonder too, like what they are out there, but it's like, what happened to these drums? Like there's, there was a ton of them made, but maybe they were destroyed, maybe they were lost to fires, maybe they were left on a battlefield and just rotted away. Who knows? It's because they're really, really works of art and historical. I mean, they're so significant. I know the Lake County Museum has, has a Civil War drum. But interestingly, it looked like one that I had borrowed from a neighbor family whose son had a drum set. It was a kid, obviously a kid's drum set, but it had the same kinds of decorations, which they used to have on all the drums back then. So there would be, you know, there, there were paintings that displayed Union Eagles and Confederate shields. Sometimes there would be stars on them. So they were hand painted decorations that were made each one a little bit unique. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. They're, they're, it's, but like you always, you typically see an Eagle. You typically see like designs like that. So the Eagle and all of the Union stuff, it just makes me wonder too, like, so we're talking, this is all pretty much been about the Union, the North, in the South. In your experience, do you know, did they have similar drummer boy experiences? Yes, they definitely did. The only difference I found is that the Confederate States tended to have 11 stars on their drums instead of 13 to distinguish them, but they had the same, same drummer boys who were drumming out the same rhythms to make, you know, to make things happen. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's obvious because like, we're not, I mean, they could literally be like next door neighbors, but depending on where the state line was, you're now enemies, which is, so it's not like, not like a different country, obviously. It's, it's so, it's such a interesting war, but well, that's great. Okay. Well, this is really fascinating stuff. Is there any other kind of fun tidbits from his life that you think might be interesting to people, you know, drum, drum or no drum? Well, can I add Liston, his younger brother? Oh, please. Yeah, yeah. Talk about his family in general just as, yeah, anything about them. Well, Liston, after the war, he wound up, he moved, he moved to, he worked on railroads and eventually he was the head railroad person in Streeter, Illinois. And then he decided to make more money. So he went into the coal business. He was able to invent something that helped the coal industry. And that's what allowed him to kind of live as the rest of his life in Streeter, pretty much, you know, a lot easier. And both of the boys were honored in Streeter. There's, there's exhibits at the Streeter Museum. There's an obelisk there. There's, there's a school in Waukegan named after, well, that Orion Howe. So they've, they've established all kinds of honorary things besides the Congressional Medal of Honor. That's neat. What a, I mean, for a family like that to stand out and kind of be, I don't know, like there's so many soldiers and there's so many people and so many even drummer boys. It's just fascinating. And it's great that they, they're, you know, valor to keep using that word really stands out to this day. And they really did a lot. I mean, what an impressive family. It's kind of a shame they don't, I mean, a lot of people know about them, hopefully, but right now we're getting the word out more, which I think is, is a great thing. There must be some interest. I know there was an article written in Waukegan about Orion enlisting just this last Veterans Day. So every once in a while things bubble up. And about the same time that my book came out, there were two, two novels for slightly older kids that also came out. And then, then there's been nothing. So it's, it's, it's kind of weird. And there's also a really good book. I don't know if it is accessible now called The Boys War by Jim Murphy. And that has a huge section about, about drummer boys. And that's all again. Cool. Yeah, no, that's great. Well, I feel this is just such an interesting topic and it's different, which I always love to do on the show is to do kind of different stuff. So why don't you, Marlene, tell people where they can check you out. Again, you typically write kind of books for younger people, but I think a lot of people who listen to the show, myself included, have kids and have grandkids and can get them some stuff. So where can they learn more about your books? You can learn more about my books from MarleneTargBrill.com. That's M-A-R-L-E-N-E-T is in Tom. A-R-G is in GeorgeBrill.com. In terms of getting diary of a drummer boy, you can either contact me and I would have hard copies and paperbacks, or you could go just about any place online. It's available for, for on demand. So you could get it that way. Great. Cool. Well, this is a fun one. I appreciate you kind of taking the risk to come and talk to, you know, about drums as a non-drummer. And I think, I think you did a great job. And it was really neat to hear just the excerpts from the story and hear about his moment of, I feel like it really kind of defines you, those moments of like, like in the battle when he was going to get the cartridges or when he was going to get the ammunition. What a brave little boy. I mean, and he's a little boy. He's probably more of a man than me, but he's really a little boy. And that's just so impressive. So I loved hearing the story. Well, thank you for having me. This has been wonderful. And something I could tell my daughters is also a drummer. Oh yeah. I forgot about that. So it's cool that your daughter, how old is your daughter? My daughter is 38. Oh, great. Nice. How long has she played the drums? She's played the drums I know since junior high age. She had a band in high school and she just enjoys drumming. So she plays all different kinds of drums and she'll join different groups, but nothing formal now. Oh yeah, sure. But that's awesome. So you get it. You are connected to drummers because your daughter is one. So I'm sure you grew up with drums constantly being played in your house and hearing the noise. Well, it wasn't too bad. She entered drumming about the time that we were redoing our basement. So we insulated it. Good, smart. Yeah. Yeah, I'm moving in 10, no, I'm moving in seven days and I'm going to be doing the third floor of my house up and renovating it. And I'm going to try and insulate a bunch because you're right. That's but God, the difference between having drums in a basement versus a third floor is big because it shakes your whole house when you're up top. So all right. Well, Marlene, this is awesome. Thank you again for coming on the show and being such a nice person and sharing all of this information with us. And I want to thank Eric. I'm thick. I'm seeing it right. McKnight, Macknight for just sending that comment to me and saying this is a cool topic. So as everyone who listens to the show knows, if you ever have any ideas, send them in my way. And they typically take a long time to put together. So if anyone has suggested something to me, just know that I have a list of really cool episode ideas. There's history of cocktail kits, phosphorus. Let's see, there's a ton of them. Alan Dawson episode, history of Moongel. I'm working on one about the modern calfskin heads being made. But these take a while. But with Marlene, it took about four days for us to get it set up. So that was very fast. So on that note, Marlene, thank you for being here. And good luck with the rest of 2020. And hopefully we make it through. Okay. Oh, I know we will stay safe, everybody. And thank you so much for having me. Okay. Bye, Marlene. Thank you. If you like this podcast, find me on social media at Drum History and please share, rate and leave a review. And let me know topics that you would like to learn about the future. Until next time, keep on learning. This is a Gwynn Sound podcast.