Teenage Boys of Civil War Forced to Steal for Survival

Most were little boys, 14 or 15 years old, frightened for their families and homes.

They were frightened for their own lives.

Yet they crept about Blair and Bedford counties, loaded gun in hand and stomachs growling for lack of food.

The country these kids were determined to defend and save could not or would not deal with the basic needs of the unpaid northern soldiers of Pennsylvania.

To stay alive and able to do battle, they had to resort to measures they detested, actions that left them with a scarred reputation they carry to this day and one that angers Civil War enthusiasts.

These teenage soldiers were called “chicken raiders.”

“The system did not properly feed the men, especially the men marching to the various defense positions being built in the Cove area,” wrote Cloyd Neely.

“Here we now have hundreds of volunteer militia assembled quickly for an emergency defense of their homes, with no advance plans for their sustenance. The men were toiling at building fortifications and scouting the area for the enemy.”

They were working hard and needed to be fed.

“Some of the men were compelled to seek food on their own,” Neely, a Duncansville resident wrote. “They went to neighboring farms, took food of all kinds, and did not offer to pay.”

The soldiers raided fields, orchards, spring houses and chicken coops, even pig pens.

They felt they were justified and it was a small price to pay because the volunteers were protecting homes and lives of the residents.

The “chicken raiders” moniker was unfair Neely wrote and today is considered politically incorrect.

Harry A. McGraw of the Blair County Historical Society took his argument to print in 1960 when he called the men comparable to the Minute Men of the Revolutionary War.

“The name chicken raiders will never die out, but I think it is the duty of historians to try to explain the true significance of this affair and not allow it to be judged by its name alone, which would seem to indicate that it was nothing more than a frolic or a merry adventure,” McGraw wrote in a winter bulletin of the Historical Society.

However indications are that there my have been a little adventure.

Chicken and other food was taken for sustenance but the men also consumed a fair amount of alcohol.

The problem was such that military leaders were forced into action, ordering the doors of all bars and saloons to be padlocked.

“The commanding officer of the military division has instructed me to close all bar rooms, saloons and places kept for the sale of spiritous liquors,” wrote William Jack, Provost Marshall of the McKee’s Gap dated 19th June 1863.