Little Drummer Boy

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During the Civil War, twelve-year-old Clarence Mackenzie signed on with the Thirteenth Regiment of the New York State Militia as a drummer boy whose duty was to beat out march cadence. In 1861, MacKenzie accompanied the unit to a camp in Annapolis. Tragically, he was killed on June 11, 1861, by the accidental discharge of a musket during a training exercise, becoming --at age 13 -– Brooklyn’s first war casualty. Three thousand people attended his funeral at Green-Wood Cemetery. MacKenzie’s grave was marked only by a wooden sign until his story became part of a book about the cemetery. After this, a campaign ensued, resulting in MacKenzie’s grave being moved to a different spot and marked by this zinc statute

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