AFAIU, drummers have always been a staple in infantry units to keep order, coordination, and rhythm. This makes intuitive sense!

Now, when popular media depicts battle scenes between armies with muskets or powder rifles, there always seems to be a pre-pubescent boy playing a fife next to another boy playing a drum. Both boys are always depicted on the front row of the formation.

According to the Wiki on this topic:

"drummers were more often adult men, recruited like the common soldiers. Fifers, on the other hand, being not an official part of the regiments early on, were usually recruited from young boys... the youngest boys were sometimes treated as mascots by the adult soldiers... The image of a small child in the midst of battle was seen as deeply poignant by 19th-century artists."

How did the opposing armies typically engage with these so-called "mascots"?? Did they generally let them live and play on, or did they try to attack them as fast as possible, or....?

It seems self-evident that the fifer/drum boys would be easy targets... and, if one were to silence the enemy's mascot right away, wouldn't that grant your side a tactical advantage by immediately demoralizing your enemy?

What if a fifer boy or a drummer boy/man were to be captured? How would they be treated compared with other combatants?

If I was an infantry man in an army on the literal front line, and I took out the enemy's fifer/drum boys, how would this act be viewed by my compatriots? (I am assuming that the enemy army would view it as an act of high barbarism since the youth was not firing shots).

What did the fifer/drum boys do once the combat got really intense? Were they also armed? What were their typical "marching orders"? Were these orders along the lines of "keep playing no matter what to keep up morale"... or something else?

Are there any known stories of a fifer/drum boy coming face to face with the enemy army's fifer/drum boy? If so, what happened?

Finally, I know this community prefers specific eras for discussion, but I would love to also learn more about "combat mascots" and their treatment during other time periods and other modes of warfare! (When my brother-in-law fought in the Battle of Ramadi in Iraq as a Marine Corps Infantryman, his battalion utilized vehicles outfitted with giant loud speakers that blasted Heavy Metal music for many days of heavy fighting to keep the troops amped up. I couldn't help but think that this was a modern version of that fifer boy.)

Also, special shout out to this badass fictional character that inspired me to want to learn more about this historical phenomena.