A Professor of History at UCSD, Rebecca Jo Plant will explore the topic of underage soldiers who fought in the American Civil by focusing on the political, military, and legal debates over young enlistees in both the Union and Confederacy. The problem of youth enlistment intersected with larger issues, including the relationship between parental rights and children’s obligations, the appropriate balance of power between state and federal governments, and the degree to which the military should be answerable to local communities. Collaborating with Professor Frances M. Clarke of the University of Sydney, their extensive research on this topic has been published in their book “Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era,” which won the 2024 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize.
