Soldier's Heart (Gary Paulsen Novel)

Soldier's Heart (Gary Paulsen Novel)

Soldier's Heart: Being the Story of the Enlistment and Due Service of the Boy Charley Goddard in the First Minnesota Volunteers is a historical war novella by Gary Paulsen aimed at the teenage market. It is a fictionalization of the true story of the farmboy Charley Goddard, who at the age of 15 enlisted in the Union Army in the American Civil War, was involved in combat at Bull Run and Gettysburg, and returned traumatized and suffering from "soldier's heart" (Da Costa's syndrome).

Soldier's Heart is based on a true story about a fifteen-year-old boy in Minnesota named Charley Goddard who lies about his age to join the First Volunteers of Minnesota to fight in the Civil War. Some of the events and time sequences are not completely factual, but the essential elements of the book's story are true.