Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England WomanSummerhayes, Martha
History
Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman
Summerhayes, Martha
Arizona -- Biography; Arizona -- Description and travel; Summerhayes, Martha, 1844-1926; United States. Army -- Military life
It was so good to see the gay yellow of the cavalry again! Now I rode,
to my heart's content, and it was good to be alive; to see the cavalry
drill, and to ride through the canons, gorgeous in their flaming autumn
tints; then again to gallop through the sage-brush, jumping where we
could not turn, starting up rabbits by the score.
That little old post, now long since abandoned, marked a pleasant epoch
in our life. From the ranches scattered around we could procure butter
and squabs and young vegetables, and the soldiers cultivated great
garden patches, and our small dinners and breakfasts live in delightful
memory.
At the end of two years spent so pleasantly with the people of the First
Cavalry, our company was again ordered to Angel Island. But a second
very active campaign in Arizona and Mexico, against Geronimo, took our
soldiers away from us, and we passed through a period of considerable
anxiety. June of '86 saw the entire regiment ordered to take station in
Arizona once more.
We travelled to Tucson in a Pullman car. It was hot and uninteresting.
I had been at Tucson nine years before, for a few hours, but the place
seemed unfamiliar. I looked for the old tavern; I saw only the railroad
restaurant. We went in to take breakfast, before driving out to the
post of Fort Lowell, seven miles away. Everything seemed changed. Iced
cantaloupe was served by a spick-span alert waiter; then, quail on
toast. "Ice in Arizona?" It was like a dream, and I remarked to Jack,
"This isn't the same Arizona we knew in '74," and then, "I don't believe
I like it as well, either; all this luxury doesn't seem to belong to the
place."
After a drive behind some smart mules, over a flat stretch of seven
miles, we arrived at Fort Lowell, a rather attractive post, with a long
line of officers' quarters, before which ran a level road shaded by
beautiful great trees. We were assigned a half of one of these sets of
quarters, and as our half had no conveniences for house-keeping, it
was arranged that we should join a mess with General and Mrs. Kautz and
their family. We soon got settled down to our life there, and we had
various recreations; among them, driving over to Tucson and riding on
horseback are those which I remember best. We made a few acquaintances
in Tucson, and they sometimes drove out in the evenings, or more
frequently rode out on horseback. Then we would gather together on the
Kautz piazza and everybody sang to the accompaniment of Mrs. Kautz's
guitar. It was very hot, of course; we had all expected that, but the
luxuries obtainable through the coming of the railroad, such as ice, and
various summer drinks, and lemons, and butter, helped out to make the
summer there more comfortable.
We slept on the piazzas, which ran around the houses on a level with the
ground. At that time the fad for sleeping out of doors, at least amongst
civilized people, did not exist, and our arrangements were entirely
primitive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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