A bicentennial honor for 'Little Gib'

Monday, March 01, 1999

A bicentennial honor for 'Little Gib'

At the age of 10, Gilbeert Van Zandt left his Ohio home and became one of the youngest people to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War

Tom Waldren and Gary Kersey are leading the effort to have a marker raised in Port William in honor of Gilbert Van Zandt.
(Gary Landers photo)

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PORT WILLIAM, Ohio — He was too young to fight, his mother pleaded, yet 10-year-old Gilbert “Little Gib” Van Zandt followed his teacher into the Union Army on a spring day in 1862.

When recruiters visited the local schoolhouse, the teacher told his students that he was going to war. Little Gib said, “I'm going, too.”

Coincidentally, army recruiters needed a drummer, so they took the boy down to Camp Dennison, near Milford, where he joined his father, several uncles and a number of friends in Company D, 79th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Today, Gilbert's hometown wants to honor him — one of the youngest enlistees in the Civil War — by erecting an Ohio bicentennial historical marker at Main Street and Sabina Road.

Sketch of Van Zandt

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The Ohio Bicentennial Commission is seeking nominations for historical markers that will be erected across the state in time for Ohio's 200th birthday celebration in 2003.

Although the commission must approve the requests, so far Little Gib has little competition.

There have been only a few requests for markers from Southwest Ohio, commission spokesman Brian Newbacher said. “It would be difficult to match the drummer boy story; it's unbelievable. According to the documentation we have, he just may have been the youngest soldier in the war.”

Another request was made for the Bunker Hill Universalist Cemetery on Reily-Millville Road in Butler County. A marker was awarded last fall to the village of Greenhills, built as an experiment in planned communities during the Depression.

The Gilbert Van Zandt marker, applied for by the Port William Dam Days Committee and coordinated by the Clinton County Historical Society, was the idea of Tom R. Waldren, 63, who grew up around the rural Clinton County town.

Van Zandt in the 1930s

“After I saw the big Civil War documentary on television a few years ago, I started digging into the little man's past,” Mr. Waldren said. “Even though I had lived around here all my life, I hadn't heard of him. The older people had, though. They knew all about him. I was afraid we'd lose any memory of him, so I got the idea for a marker.”

Kay Fisher, director of the county historical society, said a marker is significant because of Gilbert's age and his status as possibly the youngest soldier.

“This committee has set aside enough money to pay for one-third the cost of a historical marker,” Ms. Fisher wrote to the commission. “It is only with the partnership of the Longaberger Co. and the Ohio Bicentennial Commission that they will be able to afford to have a marker erected.”

TO NOMINATE

To nominate a site for a historical marker or a barn for painting, call the Ohio Bicentennial Commission at (888) OHIO-200. Its Web site is www.ohio200.org

Longaberger, a basket company from Dresden, Ohio, has donated $100,000 to place historical markers throughout Ohio to commemorate people, places, events, buildings and legends that have contributed to history.

Mr. Newbacher said each local person or group will pay one-third of the cost of a marker. The remainder will be split between Longaberger and the bicentennial commission.

Each 4-by-4-foot cast aluminum marker will cost $1,500 to $2,000, depending on text size and whether both sides are used, he said. “The markers will carry the bicentennial logo, which is a nice extra touch,” he said.

The proposal submitted by the Port Union group calls for a metal-plate photo of the drummer boy and the words:

Birthplace of Gilbert Van Zandt, one of the youngest enlistees in the Union Army during the War Between the States. Van Zandt enlisted at age of 10 years, 7 months and 16 days as a drummer boy with the Ohio 79th Volunteer Infantry, Company D. Al though barely four feet tall, “Little Gib” served bravely as a dispatch bearer in several battles, including “Sherman's March to the Sea.”

Whether he was the youngest enlistee could be impossible to determine, said Gary Kersey, a Wilmington real estate agent who has researched Gilbert's life.

“I think he was a symbol of home to the soldiers,” Mr. Kersey said. “He added something to camp life for the homesick. After a while, though, it became impossible for him to keep up. Drumbeats meant so many different things — retreat, water horses, etc. So he became a messenger. He's a great story that deserves a marker.”

Since Ohio celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1953, about 340 historical markers have been placed around the state, according to State Sen. Scott Nein, R-Middletown, who has been supporting bicentennial efforts.

He said at least 50 markers will be added through Longaberger's Legacy Initiative program.

“Wouldn't Gilbert Van Zandt be a perfect candidate?” asked Mr. Waldren. “I was afraid our young people would forget him and local history. The young ones need to know about it.”

For his bravery, Gilbert received a gold and silver drum from the 79th at Nashville.

At 13, Gilbert rode his pony, Fannie Lee, in a grand review for President Andrew Johnson. Later, he asked Mr. Johnson if he could keep Fannie, who was then government property. The president reportedly offered the boy the pony or a commission in the army. Gilbert chose Fannie.

During the war, he took only one furlough, for 30 days. He claimed that he was never homesick, except after that leave.

No doubt his mother cried. “They stole him from me, really — his father and the rest,” she once said.

When Gen. William Sherman marched through the South and burned Atlanta, Gilbert served him as a dispatch rider.

After the war, he returned to Port William with Fannie Lee, who became a favorite of Gilbert's brother, Johnnie. Gilbert went back to his little school, as if nothing had happened over the last three years, and when he finished, he started teaching school in neighboring Greene County, where his family had moved to Xenia.

Over the next few decades, he moved a lot and never married. In Chicago, he sold gloves for Marshall Field Co.; in Wyoming, he became a cowboy; in Washington, D.C., he operated a dry-goods store; and in Kansas City, Mo., he retired. When he died there Oct. 4, 1944, at age 92, he was hailed as the youngest boy in the War Between the States.

“You may get some controversy on that from different states and people,” Mr. Waldren said. “Johnny Clem, the drummer boy (of Shiloh), was always considered the youngest, but Gilbert Van Zandt was three months younger.”

Mr. Waldren said Port William is much the way it was when Little Gib lived there as a boy — about 200 people, a little post office, little else.

“Everyone in town is hoping to get the marker,” he said. “It's a big thing around here. It's history being preserved.”

Mr. Newbacher said the commission will continue to erect markers “until we run out to topics, which is difficult because Ohio is such a historic and diverse state. Markers are the type of thing that can really be effective. That's what the commission is all about — education, celebration, commemoration.”



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