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 it's pages-learned their craft.