Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman

Julian Hawthorne with his daughter Hildegarde, now so well known as a literary critic; Henry Loomis Nelson, whose fair daughter Margaret came to our little dances and promptly f...

The week we spent going up the Colorado in June was not as uncomfortable as the time spent on the river in August of the previous year. Everything is relative, I discovered, and...

A portion of our regiment was ordered to Oregon, to join General Howard, who was conducting the Bannock Campaign, so I remained that summer in San Francisco, to await my husband...

We were expected, evidently, for as we drove along the road in front of the officers' quarters they all came out to meet us, and we received a great welcome.

Whenever I think of San Antonio and Fort Sam Houston, the perfume of the wood violet which blossomed in mid-winter along the borders of our lawn, and the delicate odor of the Ca...

The journey itself, however, was not to be dreaded, although it was so undesired. It was entirely by rail across New Mexico and Kansas, to St. Joseph, then up the Missouri River...

Bowen proved to be a fairly good cook, and I ventured to ask people to dinner in our little hall dining-room, a veritable box of a place. One day, feeling particularly ambitious...

The road began now to ascend, and after twenty miles' travelling we reached a place called Updyke's Tanks. It was a nice place, with plenty of wood and grass. The next day we ca...

Thou white and dried-up sea! so old! So strewn with wealth, so sown with gold! Yes, thou art old and hoary white With time and ruin of all things, And on thy lonesome borders Ni...

And now began our real journey up the Colorado River, that river unknown to me except in my early geography lessons--that mighty and untamed river, which is to-day unknown excep...

Not knowing before I left home just what was needed for house-keeping in the army, and being able to gather only vague ideas on the subject from Jack, who declared that his quar...

"Overland" in those days meant nine days from New York to San Francisco. Arriving in Chicago, I found it impossible to secure a section on the Pullman car so was obliged to cont...

We asked my sister, Mrs. Penniman, to come out and spend the winter with us, and to bring her son, who was in most delicate health. It was said that the climate of Ehrenberg wou...

The orders for Santa Fe reached us in mid-summer at Nantucket. I knew about as much of Santa Fe as the average American knows, and that was nothing; but I did know that the Staf...

By the fourth of October we had crossed the range, and began to see something which looked like roads. Our animals were fagged to a state of exhaustion, but the travelling was n...

How broken plunged the steep descent! How barren! Desolate and rent By earthquake shock, the land lay dead, Like some proud king in old-time slain. An ugly skeleton, it gleamed...

"The grasses failed, and then a mass Of dry red cactus ruled the land: The sun rose right above and fell, As falling molten from the skies, And no winged thing was seen to pass....

In January our little boy arrived, to share our fate and to gladden our hearts. As he was the first child born to an officer's family in Camp Apache, there was the greatest exci...

It was a fine afternoon in the latter part of September, when our small detachment, with Captain Ogilby in command, marched out of Camp Verde. There were two companies of soldie...

In June, 1878, Jack was ordered to report to the commanding officer at Fort Lowell (near the ancient city of Tucson), to act as Quartermaster and Commissary at that post. This w...

It was the custom to change the stations of the different companies of a regiment about every two years. So the autumn of '82 found us on the way to Fort Halleck, a post in Neva...

The stalwart men of the Prussian army, the Lancers, the Dragoons, the Hussars, the clank of their sabres on the pavements, their brilliant uniforms, all made an impression upon...

Under the burning mid-day sun of Arizona, on May 16th, our six good mules, with the long whip cracking about their ears, and the ambulance rattling merrily along, brought us int...

"I must send you out. I see that you cannot stand it here another month," said Jack one day; and so he bundled us onto the boat in the early spring, and took us down the river t...

At last, after a voyage of thirteen days, we came to anchor a mile or so off Port Isabel, at the mouth of the Colorado River. A narrow but deep slue runs up into the desert land...

Now the "Newbern" was famous for being a good roller, and she lived up to her reputation. For seven days I saw only the inside of our stateroom. At the end of that time we arriv...

At a bend in the road the Mexican guide galloped up near the ambulance, and pointing off to the westward with a graceful gesture, said: "Colorado Chiquito! Colorado Chiquito!" A...

One day, in the early autumn, as the "Gila" touched at Ehrenberg, on her way down river, Captain Mellon called Jack on to the boat, and, pointing to a young woman, who was about...

The December sun was shining brightly down, as only the Arizona sun can shine at high noon in winter, when we crossed the Colorado on the primitive ferryboat drawn by ropes, cla...

Some serpents slid from out the grass That grew in tufts by shattered stone, Then hid below some broken mass Of ruins older than the East, That Time had eaten, as a bone Is eate...

I was put in charge of the captain of the North German Lloyd S. S. "Donau," and after a most terrific cyclone in mid-ocean, in which we nearly foundered, I landed in Hoboken, si...

And now after the eight days of most distressing heat, and the fatigue of all sorts and varieties of travelling, the nights spent in a stage-coach or at a desert inn, or in the...

One fine afternoon, after a march of twenty-two miles over a rocky road, and finding our provisions low, Mr. Bailey and Jack went out to shoot wild turkeys. As they shouldered t...