This article originally appeared in the pages of the Gettysburg Times, August of 2024. It was penned by Scott Burkett of the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania, in the hopes of sharing the work the Fellowship does.

President Abraham Lincoln spent time with many soldiers during the Civil War. Few, if any, received the attention and kindness the boy bugler experienced.

Gustav Albert “Gus” Schurmann was just 12 when he volunteered on June 26, 1861, as a musician with the 40th New York Infantry. A chance meeting with Abraham’s son, Thomas “Tad” Lincoln in April 1863, brought him to the White House

Gus was serving as Dan Sickles’ bugler and aide when the president’s son saw the boy, just two years older than young Tad. The younger Lincoln implored his father to bring the boy bugler to Washington, but the president said, “he’s a soldier, he must do his duty here.” However, General Sickles responded, “Mr. President, if you desire, the bugler may accompany you. I will give him a two-week furlough.

During their fortnight at the White House, the two boys “had the run of the town” and White House, where they had free rein to play and, in some cases, create quite a bit of mischief. Taking a hand axe, thought at the time to be the one George Washington used to chop down a cherry tree, Tad and Gus hacked at furniture and sawed away the banisters of the main stairway in the White House.

When the boys were taken to Lincoln for the misadventure, the president didn't rebuke them. Instead, he told them tales of his time as a Captain in the Black Hawk War of 1832.

Later, the boys knocked loudly on the door of the Executive Office and burst in where the president was meeting with Secretary of State William Seward and Secretary of War Edward M. Stanton.

Tad hugged his father and then ran from the room. Gus saluted and followed Tad out into the hallway.

Secretary Seward asked, “Mr. Lincoln, are you not annoyed by those boys?”

The president smiled and said, “Oh, never mind. It’s a diversion, and we need diversion at the White House.”

Mary Todd Lincoln would later say their child-rearing philosophy was that children should be “free, happy and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to his parents.”

On a second visit to the White House, Tad and Gus rode horses throughout Washington and attended several plays. At one, the boys went backstage to meet the cast and were greeted and each given a rose by actor John Wilkes Booth.

Gus Schurmann would survive ten major battles and serve four Major Generals, including Dan Sickles at Gettysburg, and lived until 1905. He was 56 when he died.

The Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania’s “One Hundred Nights of Taps, Gettysburg” program features buglers of all ages – including several the age of the boy bugler – from across the country.