Annette Ranald's Blog: Annette's History Reads - Posts Tagged "arizona"

When I go on a trip, I never miss an opportunity to go into all the gift shops I can find. I pass up the t-shirts, shot glasses, and other knick-knacks, and head right to the book shelves. There's a reason for this. Many of these books are by local historians, and not all of them will be available on Amazon, or even Kindle. Case in point, Bisbee: Then and Now, a book by a local historian and photographer, is available in the Mining and History Museum gift shop for $12. You have to buy it used on Amazon, for much more.

If you're lucky, like I was in both Bisbee and Tombstone, you'll find docents or book shop caretakers who are also amateur historians themselves. They are often full of stories, and of suggestions where to look for stories. In Tombstone, I made a contact with a docent who agreed to let me contact him in future to pick his brain, if and when the notion to write about the OK Corral gunfight ever strikes me. So many stories, so little time! Attached to this blog are a few of the books I picked up. Doc Holliday: A Family PortraitMattie: Wyatt Earp's Secret Second WifeOn the Border with CrookVictorio: Apache Warrior and ChiefBisbee, Arizona, Then And Now

When I took a recent trip to Bisbee, I stopped in their Mining and History Museum, which is a Smithsonian affiliate. I went in the bookstore, looking for books about Lozen, Victorio's sister. Instead, I found Victorio, Apache Warrior and Chief, by Kathleen P. Chamberlain. Chamberlain's book isn't the only biography of the Warm Springs Apache leader, but it is rated one of the best and with good reason.

Chamberlain traces Victorio's life from his birth c. 1825 in New Mexico, till his death in the battle/siege of Tres Castillos, Mexico, in 1880. Along the way, she sets Victorio in the context of his Apache culture and belief system, showing a human being trying to comprehend the unthinkable. Why would anyone else covet his native land with its sacred warm springs? Why would they not want to leave him and his people alone in exchange for stopping the fighting? Chamberlain also traces the contradictions of the United States' Indian Policy, and of the various military and civilian leaders charged with carrying it out. Men like Colonel Edward Hatch, who saw the wisdom of allowing Victorio's people to live at Ojo Caliente, versus leaders like Gen. Nelson Miles, who intended to force all the Apache bands to live at San Carlos in over-crowding and misery.

Although the book would be suitable for reading in any undergraduate college course, it is accessible to the lay reader. Chamberlain maintains control of the various threads of the story, setting it forth concisely and without repetition or confusion. This would be a 5-star rating on Amazon.


Victorio: Apache Warrior and Chief

Primary source material, such as diaries, letters, first-person memoirs and the like, are invaluable tools for historians and historical fiction authors. Many women who accompanied the husbands on military assignments were Eastern, educated, and took to writing to relieve stress and boredom, and to pay tribute to their husbands' service and their sacrifice. I remember studying two of these women in college and thinking that they whined their way through their time in the West. Looking back now, I know they weren't whining, they were reporting their experiences, what they saw and how they felt about it. Life for officers and men in frontier Army posts was thankless. It was even more grueling for their families, for whom little accommodation was provided.

Eveline Throop Martin Alexander (1843-1922), was born to a wealthy New York family. She had several siblings and her family made sure she was well educated and didn't want for anything. She fell in love with a Cavalry officer, Andrew Alexander, in 1864 and after the war, followed her husband on his various military assignments. He would eventually attain the rank of General. Eveline wrote letters back home, as well as notes about her life in various Indian territories of the Southwest. As the wife of a higher-ranking officer, conditions were sometimes passable, but her personal life was a tragedy. She bore Andrew five children, of whom five died as babies or children. In 1888, while they were traveling home to New York, Andrew died in her arms on the train. She would also outlive her oldest son, dying both widowed and childless. Despite these tragedies, she was remembered as an articulate woman of command presence, beloved by her large birth family. Her notes and reminiscences remained within her family and were not widely known in her day. They were later compiled as "Cavalry Wife: The Diary of Eveline M. Alexander.

Martha Summerhayes (1844-1926) was born in Nantucket, MA, also to a well-to-do family. She was educated and spent two years in Germany. When she met and married her husband, John Summerhayes, in 1873 his military assignments were to her another reason to travel and experience more of the world. Hayes was first a Lieutenant and, as post-War promotion was slower, attained the rank of Captain. Accommodations for junior officers were little better than those provided for men. Like most Army wives, her life was a series of moves. Flustered over what to pack and what to leave behind, an older military wife advised her to "take it all, it'll get carried along somehow."

Life in Apache country was scary to someone who did not know the ways and customs of the Indians. She saw an Apache woman whose nose had been sliced off (punishment for adultery), and picked up a stinking box thinking it contained rotten cheese. When she gave it to a soldier to dispose of, he opened it and found it contained a severed head! During at least one of their travels between various outposts in Arizona, their wagon train was ambushed. John Summerhayes gave his wife a pistol and told her she'd better learn to use it and fast. He also advised her to save the last bullet for herself. (No, that wasn't a myth. There are many accounts of this. Better to be dead when the Indians got to you, then half-alive and scalped that way). When their son, Jack, was born, Martha had to do the whole delivery by herself because post doctors did not attend childbirths and there were no other women around to help her. John Summerhayes retired from the Army in 1900 and their family returned back to MA, and later settled in NY. When Martha's diary was published as "VanishedCavalry Wife: The Diary of Eveline M. Alexander, 1866-1867 Arizona", she became a best-selling author and instant celebrity, a late but deserved reward Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life of a New England Womanfor all she had been through.