F Troop

In an unidentified Union camp during the closing months of the Civil War, Wilton Parmenter, a private in charge of officers' laundry, encounters an excess of pollen, sneezes, and blurts out what sounds like "CHARGE!" Stand-by troopers are prompted into an action that foils Confederate objectives and fosters a total Union victory. Parmenter is promoted to Captain, awarded the Medal of Honor, and assigned to the command of F Troop, a group of army misfits stationed at Fort Courage in Kansas.

Arriving and assuming command, Parmenter meets his men: Sergeant Morgan O'Rourke, who runs an illegal outfit dealing in Indian souvenirs made by the friendly Hekawi Indians; Corporal Randolph Agarn, O'Rourke's vice-president; Private Hannibal Shirley Dobbs, the inept company bugler; Trooper Duffy, a survivor of the Alamo; Trooper Vanderbilt, the almost-blind lookout; and Jane Angelica Thrift (aka "Wrangler Jane"), the beautiful, marriage-minded proprietor of the fort general store and Post Office.

Stories relate the misadventures of Captain Parmenter, "The Scourge of the West," as he struggles to maintain the peace, adjust to frontier life, and escape Jane's matrimonial designs. Complicating matters are O'Rourke and Agarn, who constantly devise schemes to conceal and expand their illicit enterprises.