From soldier to wagon master to scalp hunter

Chamberlain left Boston as a mere youth and joined the United States Army. He became a soldier in the 1st US Dragoons and determined to become the very ideal of the daring cavalryman both on and off the battlefields of the American-Mexican War. His is a tale—not a little tall—that includes accounts of passionate love affairs, duels to the death, pitched battles and exploits of daring in which Chamberlain himself features as the central heroic figure. Certainly he was a larger than life character, as his accounts of constant troubles with his superiors for brawling, drunkenness and insubordination appear with a detail and frequency which suggest authenticity.

At the end of the war Chamberlain became a wagon master—possibly after deserting the army—and then threw himself into a series of adventures with a notorious band of scalp hunters led by the infamous John Glanton. A highly entertaining and informative account of the United States cavalry at war, in which many of the principal characters of the American Civil War—who appear within its pages—learned their craft.