[1] After the death of his father, at age 14 he ran away from home to enlist in the Confederate States Army, but was rejected as too young.
However, Tyler spent most of his time on a ship quarantined due to yellow fever and left naval service in 1864.
[2][3] In 1865, he and his brother, David Gardiner Tyler, traveled to Germany to attend college, where he studied in Carlsruhe, Baden and Freiberg, Saxony to become a mining engineer.
Still in Germany in 1870 at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Tyler enlisted in the Prussian Army and joined the First Uhlan regiment under the command of King John of Saxony.
Although he did find a job with a railroad, the salary did not allow him to meet his debts, and he had financial problems until he married a wealthier third cousin, Sarah Griswold Gardiner,[2][4] on August 5, 1875.