Wild Nat, the Trooper

# Wild Nat, the Trooper; or, The Cedar Swamp Brigade

By William R. Eyster

This Revolutionary War serial, published by Beadle and Adams (1865), begins during the darkest period of the American cause. Catherine Vale, a nineteen-year-old belle near Charleston, faces pressure from her widowed mother regarding her feelings for Nathaniel "Wild Nat" Ernshaw, a locally disreputable young man of unsettled character. When Nat visits the Vale home, he recruits Catherine's brother John for a militia company defending the Carolina region against British forces. Catherine's mother, initially skeptical of Nat's character, approves John's enlistment upon hearing Nat's patriotic sentiments. The narrative introduces Timothy Turner, a suspected Tory spy who overhears Nat and John's conversation at Squire Stoddart's house and determines to report their militia organizing to the British for reward and revenge.