Frances Boyd – The Lieutenant’s Wife

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Soldier, Sister, Scout, Spy: Women Patriots and Soldiers on the Western Frontier

Frances eyed the horizon before them then disappeared into the wagon. She picked up two sabers lying next to a trunk, unsheathed them, and thrust them out either side of the back of the wagon. From a distance she hoped it would look like they were armed with more travelers who were ready to do battle with the Apaches. Unless they come very close, she thought, the dim light will favor our deception.

She returned to her husband’s side, cradling a pistol in her lap. The strap on Orsemus’ gun in his holster had been undone, and he was ready to fire his weapon as well. The riders in front of them had pulled their bayonets from their sheaths, the blades gleaming in the low-hanging sun. Frances believed the small band looked as warlike as possible. Members of the Eighth Cavalry had passed this same way a few days before and had been assaulted with bullets from some of Apache leader Geronimo’s warriors. Frances and the others were relying on an appearance of strength they in nowise possessed. They knew the Natives would not attack unless they were confident of victory.

The train proceeded into the canyon. The mountain walls on either side were jagged and high. They were a treacherous color against which an Indian could hide himself and almost seem to be a part of them. Frances later wrote that their “hearts quivered with excitement and fear at the probability of an attack.”

The going was slow, and, as time progressed without any hint of an ambush, the party started to relax. Then, suddenly, they heard the fearful cry of an Indian. His cry was answered by another.

Frances stared down at her baby lying at her feet. The child was bundled up in many blankets and sleeping soundly. Orsemus urged on the mule team pulling the wagon through the imposing gorge. Everyone with the party believed death was moments away. “At last, and it seemed ages,” Frances later recalled, “we were out of the canyon and on open ground.” The Boyds eventually met up with a large party of freighters and made their way to the northern part of the state, frazzled but unharmed. Thus was the life of a military wife on the wild frontier.

Women like Frances Boyd chose to endure the hardships of army living in order to make life for their husbands less burdensome and to help settle an untamed land. “I cast my lot with a soldier,” Frances wrote in her memoirs, “where he was, was home to me.”

Frances Anne was born into a well-to-do family in New York City on February 14, 1848. Her father owned a bakery; her mother was a housewife who died when Frances was quite young. Historians record that she was a bright girl with an agile mind. She met Orsemus Boyd when she was a high school senior and he was a cadet at West Point. They were married a year later, on October 9, 1867. Orsemus had a desire to go west, and Frances had a desire to be with Orsemus.

To learn more about Frances Boyd and other such patriots read

Soldier, Sister, Scout, Spy: Women Patriots and Soldiers on the Western Frontier.