My great-great grandfather was at the battle of Austerlitz, and supposedly became a prisoner of war. He was about 12-13 years old at the time. This was in his obituary, written in German. He died in St. Joseph, Minnesota. My ggf was living in Luxembourg at the time of Napoleon, and as the French revolutionary Army passed through, it took quite of few of the young boys into their army. What function they did is unknown, but doing some research, I found an item on ‘boy soldiers’ during the Napoleonic wars. The English army had boy soldiers too. They carried water to the soldiers, carried the flag when the army was advancing [which was extremely dangerous], and possibly were messengers.
Needless to say, my ggf survived, returned home, married in January of 1815, and then when Napoleon escaped from Elba and formed a new army, they went through Luxembourg again and pulled all the young men into their army again. So, my ggf was also at Waterloo when Napoleon finally was defeated for good. If not for the obituary, my family would never have known this story.
Wow. That is incredible! I highly suggest visiting the Austerlitz Memorial. I visited a few years ago and was very impressed.