I portray a 1st Sergeant, dismounted trooper of the United States 7th Cavalry 1870's. My display consists of tent, equipment and uniform used during the period of the Indian wars. I would like to add Although a portray a 1st Sergeant. I try to give you a insight and a idea of camp durning that Period, I do not represent anybody imparticuly, but if so..............................My counter part in history would of been 1st Sgt William Heyn, Co. A 7th Cavalry. I would like to add the Information Below Was written by The Walter Mason Camp Papers

Heyn interview, Camp Papers, BYU. Register of Enlistments

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1st Sgt William Heyn, Co. A 7th Cavalry

Born in Bremen, Germany, on July 12, 1848, William Heyn immigrated to the United States in 1866, locating initially in Brooklyn, New York, where he worked as a grocery clerk. While in New York City, he enlisted in the army on February 3, 1867. His enlistment record describes him as 5’ 7½” tall, with blue eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion.

After completing his orientation, Heyn was assigned to the Third Cavalry and sent to join the regiment at Fort Union, New Mexico Territory. Arriving with a large number of other recruits on July 13, 1867, he was assigned to Company G, located at Fort Sumner. The following year, Heyn’s company was ordered into the field for three weeks scouting for Indians. Ten days after returning, Company G was again ordered out, this time as part of the Canadian River Expedition sent against Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. On Christmas Day, 1868, the expedition struck a Comanche village on the North Fork of the Red River.

Following the close of the expedition, Company G was stationed at Fort Union for a year and then sent to Camp Verde, Arizona Territory, for four months. Heyn was promoted to corporal but then later reduced [find dates]. In December 1871, the regiment was transferred to the Department of the Platte. Traveling by steamer, the regiment stopped briefly in San Francisco and then moved upriver to Benicia Barracks, California, where Private Heyn was discharged on February 28, 1872, having completed his five-year enlistment.

Heyn returned to New York City where on April 6, 1872, he signed up for his second enlistment. Ordered to the Seventh Cavalry, he arrived in Elizabeth town, Kentucky, on December 2 and was assigned to Company A, commanded by Captain Myles Moylan. Four months later, the regiment was ordered to the Department of Dakota, where Heyn participated in the Yellowstone Expedition in 1873 and in the Black Hills Expedition in 1874. He was promoted to corporal on July 1 and then to sergeant three weeks later on July 23, 1873. Heyn became the company’s first sergeant effective Dec. 8, 1873.

At the Little Big Horn, First Sergeant Heyn rode with his company as part of Reno’s battalion. On the skirmish line, he directed the movements of his troop, firing only a few shots himself. At one point, however, the ejector on his carbine jammed and he had to borrow a ramrod from Lieutenant Wallace’s sporting rifle to shove out the shell. His company fell back to the woods where Heyn was shot in the left knee. Sergeants McDermott and Culbertson managed to help him mount up just as they left the timber for higher ground. “The men straggled out and started across the flat without any particular command and no bugle being blown,” Heyn later told Walter Camp, “the officers digging spurs into their horses and every man for himself.” Heyn reached the top of the bluff, despite his horse being shot twice more during the climb. Heyn was placed in the temporary field hospital and his duties fell to Sergeant Fehler.

Heyn was evacuated with the other wounded aboard the steamer Far West to the post hospital at Fort A. Lincoln. He was back on duty with his company by Sept. 1876 but was transferred the following month to the General Service U. S. Army where he completed his enlistment on April 6, 1877. Heyn re-enlisted in the General Service on that same day and was discharged for the final time on Sept. 2, 1879. He then worked as a clerk in the Adjutant General’s Office for about ten years and then as a clerk at Headquarters of the U.S. Army for about a year and a half. By 1891, Heyn was working as a clerk at the Soldier’s Home in Washington, D.C. He married his wife Sarah about 1909 and died at the Soldier’s Home on June 11, 1910. He was buried there at the U. S. Soldiers Home National Cemetery, in Washington D.C.

This info was from

The Walter Mason Camp Papers

Heyn interview, Camp Papers, BYU. Register of Enlistments

and was posted on www.lbha.org

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