Forrestine Cooper Hooker's notes and memoirs on army life in the West, 1871-1876, arranged, edited, and annotated by Barbara E. Fisher Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Fisher, Barbara Esther, 1939- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 04/10/2021 03:17:15 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/551645 FORRESTINE COOPER HOOKER'S NOTES AND MEMOIRS ON ARMY LIFE IN THE WEST, 1871 - 18?6 arranged, edited, and annotated by Barbara E, Fisher A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1 9 6 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: JOHN A. CARROLL Professor of History ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author wishes to express her sincere appreciation to Dr. John Alexander Carroll, Professor of History at the University of Arizona, for his guidance in the preparation of this thesis* iii INTRODUCTION The early life of Forrestine Cooper Hooker on the frontier of the American Southwest was filled with colorful experiences« "Within a year of her birth at Philadelphia on March 8, 186?, she was taken by her parents to the army post at Ship Island, Mississippi, where her father. Lieutenant (later brigadier-general) Charles L. Cooper, was stationed with the Thirty-ninth U. S. Infantry* Here as a small child she acquired the nickname "Birdie" by which she was known throughout her life. In 1871 she journeyed West with her mother and her younger brother Harry to join Lieutenant Cooper, who had been assigned to the Tenth U* S. Caviary at the frontier post of Camp Supply in Indian Ter­ ritory. During the year 1872 the Coopers were at Fort Sill, center of the principal Indian reservation on the South Plains and headquarters for military operations against hostile bands of Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes. Here another daughter, Florence, was b o m . In April, 1873, Lieutenant Cooper was transferred to Fort Concho near San Angelo, Texas, where he remained with his company until January of 1878 when he was assigned again to Fort Sill. While the family was at Fort Concho, "Birdie” left to attend school in Philadelphia, but before •her graduation in I88I4. she had returned several times to the Southwest for extended vacations with her family. She was "home" again with the Tenth Cavalry for only a short time when, in 1885, the regiment iv moved from Fort Davis in the Big Bend country of Texas to Fort Grant in Arizona. In 1886 she was married to Edwin R. Hooker, son of the pioneer Arizona cattleman Henry Clay Hooker, and for the next eleven years she lived on the Hooker ranches at Sierra Bonita and Hot Springs near the town of Willcox. In 1897 she moved into Willcox with her husband and two children where she took an active part in livestock inspection and the cattle commission business. A charming young woman and a true daughter of the frontier, she so impressed the playwright Augustus Thom­ as that he fashioned after her the character of Bonita Cariby, heroine of his Arizona. Late in 1902 she moved to a small ranch near Fresno, California, and began to write short stories. Many of them were published in Young *s Magazine under the pen name H. Forrest. Later she set up residence in Los Angeles where she did some newspaper work and soon became concerned with problems of child welfare. In time her interest in children led her to develop ideas for books which, based on her own experiences in the West, would appeal to young people. Between 1920 and 1929 she produced nine such novels, each a success. The first. The Dim Trail, was centered at Willcox and Sierra Bonita. Among her more popular books, which were published by Doubleday, Page and Company, were Star: The Story of an Indian Pony (1922) and Cricket, A Little Girl of the Old West (1927), both set in Indian Territory, and Where Geronimo Rode (1921*), the story of the Apache campaign. Two of her books were re-issued in English editions in London, and one was translated into German. While Mrs* Hooker was writing her novels she carried on an extensive correspondence with retired army officers — notably with General Nelson A. Miles — and spent some years in Washington, D. C*, where she was surrounded by old army friends* Late in the 1920*8, probably with the encouragement of some of her friends in Washington, she decided to write a volume of recollections of her early life on the frontier* For this she buttressed her memory with some research into the published recollections of officers of the Indian-fighting army, principally those of Miles and Captain Robert G* Carter, neither of whom can be regarded as wholely reliable in their interpretations* Nonetheless, much of what she recorded in notes and in the drafts of chapters was based on vivid personal experience and was uniquely illus­ trative of American military life in the last half of the nineteenth century* Forrestine Cooper Hooker did not live to see the publication of her last literary effort* Following her death at Los Angeles on March 21, 1932, at the age of sixty-five, the manuscript notes and drafts for her projected volume of western recollections remained in the possession of relatives for nearly thirty years* The pages of this thesis present, in the main, that part of Mrs* Hooker’s memoirs which treat the years of her childhood (1871-1876) on the plains of Oklahoma and Texas. Her materials have been arranged and edited in such a way that a narrative sequence is obtained; and the annotations, based on research in all pertinent and available primary sources and secondary works, are intended to provide the background and amplifi­ cation necessary to a meaningful presentation of the text. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter I FROM PHILADELPHIA TO THE DEEP SOUTH . .................. 1 (JULY 1863 - DECEMBER 1870) II JOURNEY TO INDIAN COUNTRY ............................... 2£ (1871) III THE INDIAN FRONTIER AT FORT SILL IN 1871 ........ $0 IV ADVENTURES IN THE INDIAN TERRITORY...................... 6? (1872) V SOUTH TO FORT CONCHO .............................. 98 (1873) VI SOLDIER LIFE ON THE TEXAS PLAINS ......................... 126 (1871* - 1873) VII THE GREAT ARMY SCANDAL OF 1 8 7 6 ........................... 11*3 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................... vii CHAPTER I FROM PHILADELPHIA TO THE DEEP SOUTH (JULY 1863 - DECEMBER 1870) The Fourth of July, 1863, was drawing to a close• All.day the people of Philadelphia had waited breathlessly while anxious-faced men and women whispered to one another that the Confederates had reached Chambersburg and were marching on to Philadelphia. The city had been practically depleted of organized forces by the call of the President; Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington seemed doomed. Then came the news that General George G. Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, had by a forced march swung into line before Lee's Confederates at Get­ tysburg. On July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd the struggle raged with furor. At sunset of July Uth there came the glorious news that the Army of the Potomac had been victorious. Philadelphia was safe! The tired people went to bed thankful, yet dreading the coming of dawn when they would learn the price of victory. A storm that night was one of the worst ever known in the city; thunder crashed incessantly like the firing of heavy artillery on a battlefield. Few slept, and those who did dreamed of soldiers marching, fighting, and dying. Those lying awake whispered prayers for loved ones who might be dead or wounded on the battlefield of Gettysburg. It was midnight when, above the thunder, a cannon shot roused them all. My mother, then a girl of seventeen, was out of bed and on 1 2 her feet before Auntie Green exclaimed, "Get up. Floral Fort Brown is calling us." Fort Brown was not a garrison. It was the name of a little cannon that was fired to assemble the men and women who made up the committee of the "Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon" of Philadel­ phia. This work began when Brown, an importer of tea and coffee, dis­ tributed food brought to his store by neighborhood people for soldiers p passing through Philadelphia to the front. The famous little cannon stood at the foot of a flagstaff, ready for service far different from its former records. It had been cast years before in the armory at Springfield. Then it was taken into Mexico by the American army under Zachary Taylor. Captured by the Mexicans, it was mounted at an old Mexican fortress named San Juan de Ulloa, and while being transferred from there on a Mexican gunboat the Americans recaptured the cannon and sent it to Philadelphia.