"I tell you what I'll do," he said at last. "If you are really in earnest about learning to drum, I'll give you lessons myself, for," said he modestly, "I was the best drummer in my regiment. If you can learn and they will take you, I'll give you the old drum. I'll send it to the front even if I can't go myself." This was enough for Johnny. Morning, noon and night he was with his friend Donaldson and it was a wonder that the drum-head was not worn out long before he learned. Learn he did, however, and in a few months there was not a roll or a call which he could not play. One morning as the school-bell was ringing, Johnny presented himself to his parents with the big drum around his neck looking nearly as large as he was. "I'm going to enlist," he said simply. At first his father and mother, like Donaldson, were inclined to laugh at him, he was such a little boy, but Johnny was in earnest and a boy who is in earnest always gets what he wants. A few days later found him a drummer for the Tenth Indiana and as he led the regiment, beating the long roll, Johnny was the proudest boy that had ever come out of Indiana. He had his first taste of fire at Fort Donelson and afterward at the bloody battle of Shiloh. Johnny drummed until the terrible drumming of the muskets drowned out even his loud notes. Then he laid down his sticks, carefully hid his drum, took a musket and cartridge box from off one of the dead soldiers and ran on with his regiment and fought in the front with the bravest of them all. He had a quick eye and it was not long before he could shoot as accurately as any man there.