A Boy Trooper with Sheridan

When the first shots at Fort Sumter rang, the fever of war swept through a quiet farm in Berlin, New York, igniting the imagination of a twelve‑year‑old boy who already felt as tall as a soldier. Watching his friend Nathaniel Bass return from furlough in a bright cavalry jacket, the boy tries on the uniform and believes each step in the yellow‑and‑blue coat brings him closer to the battlefields he has only heard about. Nathan’s lively tales of Camp Stoneman, though never having faced a rebel, turn the farmyard into a stage for heroic song and secret vows.

Compelled by that dream, he runs away in September 1861 and, pretending to be nineteen, slips into Capt. Boutelle’s Griswold cavalry, collecting a bounty and a neat uniform. When his parents discover his true age—only fourteen—a writ of habeas corpus forces his discharge, but the law replaces his military release with a civil charge and a hefty bail. The episode leaves him caught between youthful patriotism and the harsh realities of adult authority, setting the tone for his early war experience.