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327. [ARMY WIVES]. Lot of 17 titles (mostly 8vo, original bindings, very fine to good), including:
ALEXANDER, Eveline M. Cavalry Wife: The Diary
of Eveline M. Alexander, 1866-1867. College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 1977. Frontispiece,
illustrations, map. Cloth.
Fine.
First edition. Edited by Sandra L. Myres. Pingenot:
Being a record of Eveline Alexander’s journey from
New York to Fort Smith to join her cavalry-officer husband,
Andrew J. Alexander, and her experiences with him on active
duty among the Indian nations and in Texas, New Mexico, and
Colorado.
BALDWIN, Alice Blackwood. Memoirs of the Late
Frank D. Baldwin, Major General, U.S.A. Los Angeles:
Wetzel Publishing Co., 1929. Frontispiece, illustrations.
Original gilt-decorated cloth, gilt title on cover and
spine, autographed by the author on the front free
endpaper. Very
fine.
First edition. Dustin 284. Graff 144. Howes B58:
"General Baldwin campaigned against Indians all over the
West and was the only officer [besides Custer’s
brother] to receive twice the Medal of Honor." Tate,
The Indians of Texas: An Annotated Research
Bibliography 3171. Pingenot: Biography of a Civil
War hero who won the Medal of Honor at the Battle of
Peachtree Creek; later fought in the Indian Wars in
Montana, Colorado, and Texas. In 1874 on the Staked Plains
of Texas, Baldwin led a charge against renegade Dog
Soldiers, rescuing two little girls whose wagon train had
been attacked, and for which he received a second Medal of
Honor. Includes a description of an 1876-77 trip to
Yellowstone along with Alice Baldwin’s account of life
as a frontier army wife. Baldwin later fought in
Cuba and the Philippines.
BARBOUR, Philip Norbourne and Martha Isabella
Hopkins Barbour. Journals of the Late Brevet Major
Philip Norbourne Barbour, Captain in the 3rd Regiment, U.S.
Infantry, and His Wife.... New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1936. Frontispiece portrait,
illustrations. Original two-color embossed cloth, paper
label on spine. Very
fine.
First edition, limited edition (#728 of 1,000 copies
numbered and signed by editor). Connor &
Faulk, North America Divided 149. Tutorow 3602:
"Contains a vita of Barbour and recounts his death at
Monterey on September 21, 1846. His journal begins on March
28, 1846. It includes a daily account of troop movements
and battles and considerable commentary on his fellow
soldiers. Mrs. Barbour’s journal was written in
Galveston, Texas, and dates from July to October 4, 1846."
Pingenot: Written during the war with Mexico, 1846, it
also includes the journal of his wife, Martha Isabella
Hopkins Barbour.
BOYD, Mrs. Orsemus B. Cavalry Life in Tent and
Field. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
Frontispiece portrait. Blue cloth with gilt title on
spine.
Facsimile edition. First reprint edition with a new
introduction by Darlis Miller. Pingenot: One of the best
books on the frontier military as seen by an officer’s
wife. The Boyds served at posts throughout the Southwest
borderlands, including two tours at Fort Clark, Texas near
the Mexican border. The first edition is rare and the
reprint is now out-of-print.
BROWN, Marion T. Letters from Fort Sill
1886-1887. Austin: Encino Press, 1970. Frontispiece
portrait, illustrations. Cloth and boards in
publisher’s mylar d.j. Very
fine.
First edition. Edited by C. Richard King.
Pingenot: The letters of Marion Taylor Brown, daughter
of journalist and historian John Henry Brown, mirror the
activities of a woman visiting Fort Sill in hopes that the
dry climate will restore her health. The correspondence is
rich in details of the social life of a frontier army
post.
CHAPMAN, Helen. The News from Brownsville:
Helen Chapman’s Letters from the Texas Military
Frontier, 1848-1852. Austin: Texas State Historical
Association, [1992]. 12 black and white illustrations.
Cloth. Mint in
d.j.
First edition. Pingenot: A remarkable collection
of letters written by a U.S. Army officer’s wife on
the South Texas frontier. The author and her husband, the
first quartermaster at Fort Brown, were founding citizens
of Brownsville, Texas. Her letters touch on social
conditions along the Rio Grande, military activities, women
and minorities, and domestic life on the frontier.
DYER, Mrs. D. B. "Fort Reno" or Picturesque
"Cheyenne and Arapahoe Army Life," Before the Opening of
"Oklahoma." New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1896.
Frontispiece, 10 photographic plates. Original embossed
cloth, gilt. Minor shelf rubbing, else
fine.
First edition. Graff 1191. Howes D619. Rader
1250. Pingenot: The experiences of an Indian
agent’s wife. Mrs. Dyer’s husband, Colonel Dyer,
the first mayor of Oklahoma City, so resented his
wife’s allusions to his conduct in her book that he
divorced her and succeeded in having most of the books
destroyed, thus creating a rarity. Mrs. Dyer was the
daughter of Dr. N. R. Casey of Illinois.
FOUGERA, Katherine Gibson. With Custer’s
Cavalry. Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska
Press, 1986. Pictorial wrappers.
Mint.
Reprint.
GRIERSON, Alice Kirk. The Colonel’s Lady
on the Western Frontier... Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, [1989]. Illustrations, photographs, map.
Cloth. Mint in pictorial
d.j.
First edition. Pingenot: The wife of Benjamin H.
Grierson, a major general who won fame in the Civil War;
her letters begin in 1866, when her husband reentered the
army as colonel of the "buffalo soldiers" of the Tenth
Cavalry, and end with her death in 1888. These letters are
extraordinary for their insight into 19th-century attitudes
toward marital roles, race relations, and her life and
duties as a commander’s wife on the western frontier.
Contains much on life at frontier posts like Fort Riley,
Gibson, Sill, Davis, Grant, and especially Fort Concho.
LAUFE, Abe (editor). An Army Doctor’s Wife
on the Frontier: Letters from Alaska and the Far West.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962.
Frontispiece, portraits. 8vo, original cloth in a slightly
chipped but very good
d.j.
First edition. Pingenot: Letters of Emily
FitzGerald, an assistant surgeon at the U.S. Military
Academy, who was ordered to Sitka, Alaska. She was one of
the first white women to live in Alaska less than a decade
after its purchase by the U.S. from Russia. Later, the
FitzGeralds were transferred to Fort Lapwai in present-day
Idaho where they faced an Indian uprising. Her letters
provide a valuable contribution giving firsthand
information about methods of travel, the hardships on the
northern frontier, and a woman’s viewpoint of
existence in a western fort.
LAURENCE, Mary Leefe. Daughter of the
Regiment. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
Plates. Cloth. Very fine to mint in pictorial d.j. Review
copy with Pingenot’s review and a note from Smith laid
in.
First edition. Pingenot: Written in 1943-44 by
the daughter of a 19th-century army officer, these memoirs
remained unpublished until recently discovered in the
library at the U.S.M.A. at West Point. Mary Leefe’s
reminiscences cover a 20-year period in her life from age 6
in 1878 at Fort Dodge, Kansas, to age 26 in 1898 at Fort
Brady, MI. Army life on the frontier, as seen by a child,
include memories of Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, Forts
Ringgold, Duncan, and Clark, on the Texas border, Mount
Vernon Barracks, Alabama, Geronimo, etc.
LOGAN, Mrs. John A. Reminiscences of a
Soldier’s Wife. New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1913. Frontispiece portrait, plates. Cloth, gilt
lettering on front and spine. Fine in plain d.j., chipped
at edges.
First edition. [One only: TAS 1994 $65 inscribed]
MAGOFFIN, Susan Shelby. Down the Santa Fe Trail
and Into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin,
1846-1847. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1926.
Frontispiece, 6 plates, folding map. Original cloth. Fine
in a chipped but very good pictorial
d.j.
First edition. Connor & Faulk, North America
Divided 436: "This is one of the most delightful of all
Southwestern reminiscences." Dobie, p. 62: "She was juicy
and a bride, and all life was bright to her." Graff 2656:
"One of the great Santa Fe Trail diaries." Harvard Guide
to American History, p. 156. Howes M211. Powell,
Southwestern Century 62: "Basic source on the year
of decision." Rittenhouse 392. Saunders 2870. Rader
2331. Tutorow 3592. Pingenot: Susan Magoffin accompanied
her trader husband over the Santa Fe Trail during the
Mexican War and was the first woman to write a major book
about New Mexico.
MILES, Susan. Mrs. Buell’s Journal, 1877. Pp. 109-126 in: Fort Concho and South Plains Journal XXII, 4 (Autumn 1990). [San Angelo]: Fort Concho National Historic Landmark, 1990.
ROE, Frances M. Army Letters from an
Officer’s Wife 1871-1888. New York: D. Appleton
and Company, 1909. Frontispiece portrait, illustrations,
t.e.g. Original blue cloth with gilt title on front cover
and spine. A very fine bright
copy.
First edition. Flake 7400a. Graff 3546. Hanna,
Yale Exhibit: "[T]his intelligent and sensible
woman[‘s]...lively account of her experiences...[are
well] worth reading." Howes R403. Myres, Following the
Drum, p. 12: "Describes army life at various posts in
Kansas, Colorado, Montana and Indian Territory." Rader
2815. An intimate and valuable narrative of army post life
in the far west.
SUMMERHAYES, Martha. Vanished Arizona:
Recollections of My Army Life. Philadelphia: J. B.
Lippincott Company, 1908. Frontispiece portrait,
illustrations. Original gilt pictorial cloth.
Fine.
First edition. Clark, Southwest Classics, pp.
272-284: "What she wrote was the story of an army wife on
the Arizona frontier in the 1870’s, a story that is
peerless in the literature of that time and place." Graff
4028: "One of the most readable books about Arizona." Howes
S1132. Munk (Alliott), p. 210. Myres, Army Wives in the
Trans-Mississippi West, a Preliminary Bibliography, p.
13.
VIELÉ, Teresa. "Following the Drum:" A
Glimpse of Frontier Life. New York: Rudd &
Carleton, 1858. 12mo, original embossed pebbled cloth, gilt
spine. Somewhat shelf slanted, overall very good. Herbert
T. Fletcher’s copy, with his signature
stamp.
First edition. Hanna, Yale Exhibit: "As a
bride she went with her soldier husband to Texas when the
Mexican War had not been long over and where the fierce
Comanche were plentiful." Howes V92. Myres, Following
the Drum, p. 14: "Vielé was the first woman to
publish an account of army life in the trans-Mississippi
West, and one of the few women who wrote about Texas."
Plains & Rockies IV:312a:1: "In this lively
account...Vielé describes her year’s stay at
Ringgold Barracks in Texas...an entertaining commentary on
life on the Texas frontier in the early 1850’s."
Raines, p. 209. Winegarten, p. 118: "Mrs. Vielé was
an army wife...who wrote about Brownsville, Brazos Island,
Galveston, and Rio Grande City."
(17 vols.)
($750-1,100)