The Romance of the Camp, Grant County Herald (Article, 1861)
Full Text
The Romance of the Camp.
On Monday afternoon two gentlemen--solid-looking farmers--arrived in Camp Curtin, in this State, sought an interview with the officer of the day, and informed him that they were in search of a girl who had strayed away. The officer thought a military camp a queer place to hunt for stray girls, especially as it reflected on the virtue and dignity of the men at arms, nevertheless the gentlemen were at liberty to make a search. As the old song says, "they hunted her high, and they hunted her low," but they did not hunt her "when a year passed away," for lo! in less than an hour she was found on guard, doing duty as a sentinel, in the uniform of Captin Kuhn's company of Summer Rifles, of Carlisle. We do not know what name she enlisted under to protect the honor of her country's flag, but her real name is Sophia Cryder, and her residence only about a mile from this city. She had been in Captain Kuhn's Company a week, is a plum lass of only sixteen years of age, and had so completely unsexed herself that she could safely bid defiance to any one not acquainted with her to detect her. How she shirked an examination, which is said to be made with great strictness by the medical men of Camp Curtin, we are not informed.
She is represented as a girl of umblemished reputation, and did not, as generally happens in such cases, enlist to be near the object of her affections, but merely in a wild spirit of adventure. It does not speak well for the modesty of Miss Sophia, however, to say that she was in the habit of accompanying the men on their excursion to the river to bathe; but she may have done this to ward of suspicion, especially as she took precious good care to keep out of the water herself. This is the first case of the kind that has been brought to light, but we are informed that the most reckless dare devil attached to the Seventh regiment of the three month's volunteers, was a woman--the mother of four children. Miss Cryder was taken home, where she can reflect over what she did see, as well as what she did not see.
