At the time of which we write, recruiting officers were not very
particular in regard to the age of those whom they received into the
volunteer army. If the young man seemed to have the requisite physical
qualifications, it was of little consequence what his age was; and Tom
Somers was tall enough and stout enough to make a very good soldier.

Captain Benson examined the certificate brought to him by the young
recruit, not, however, because it was deemed a necessary legal form, but
because he was acquainted with his father and mother, and would not
willingly have done any thing to displease them. The matter, therefore,
was disposed of to the satisfaction of all the parties concerned, and Tom
actually commenced his career as a soldier boy. He immediately resigned
his situation in the store, for the company now numbered forty men, not
half a dozen of whom had any knowledge whatever of military drill.

As the volunteers of the Pinchbrook company could ill afford to lose the
time devoted to drill before they should be mustered into the service of
the United States, the town voted to pay each man fifteen dollars a month
for three months. This generous and patriotic action of the town rejoiced
the heart of Tom Somers, for his mother actually needed the pittance he
had earned at the store. Mrs. Somers had heard nothing from her husband;
but the destruction of the Gosport Navy Yard, and the seizure of several
northern vessels in the harbor of Norfolk, left her little to hope for in
that direction. Suddenly an impregnable wall seemed to rise up between the
North and the South, and she not only feared that Captain Somers had lost
all his worldly possessions, but that he would hardly be able to escape
himself from the fiery furnace of secession and treason.

To her, therefore, the future looked dark and forbidding. She foresaw that