Journal Notes

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Among the exhibits on display at P. T. Barnum’s American Theatre in New York City during the summer of 1864 was an actress and patriot of the Union army named Pauline Cushman. Billed as the “Spy of Cumberland,” the celebrated thespian was dressed in the complete uniform of an infantry man, including a saber, a crimson, silk sash, and a forage cap. Her hair under the cap was disheveled, shoulder-length, and curly. She sported a mustache, thin, but unmistakable above her upper lip, and below the lip was a dark tuft of hair. The makeup and overall look was so convincing that unless otherwise notified ticket buyers had no idea the man was really a woman.

Pauline Cushman appeared on stage in the lecture room at P. T. Barnum’s American Theatre from June 6, 1864, to July 9, 1864. She offered a patriotic presentation to more than twenty thousand people in a single month. According to the advertisement issued by P. T. Barnam about Pauline’s engagement, “she was the modern American model of the renowned ‘Joan of Arc.’”

“Miss Pauline Cushman, the Union scout and spy, who under orders from General Rosecrans, passed through enemy lines and accomplished such wonders for the Army of the Cumberland while she was engaged in the secret service of the United States,” the July 6, 1864, edition of the Charleston Mercury read. “Every father and mother who have a son in the Union Army; every child who has learned to love its country and call on heaven to bless its present struggle and preserve its nationality, will rejoice at this opportunity of listening to ‘thoughts that breath and words that burn,’ as they fall from the lips of this high-souled, gallant girl, who, in her deter[1]mination to serve her country, risked her inestimable precious life, and was rescued from a Rebel prison, where by order of the notori[1]ous General Bragg, she lay wounded and languishing with sickness, UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH!

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

The Nevada County Railroad Museum Presents

The Women Who Helped Build the Railroad

Thursday, July 17, 2024 7-8 P.M. at the Nevada County Railroad Museum 

5 Kidder Court  Nevada City, CA.  

Free to the Public.  Refreshments will be served.

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

The distant cadence of drums from the nearly deserted town of San Antonio de Bexar sent a shiver of fear through Juana Navarro Alsbury.  She clutched her baby son closer and strained to hear.  Mexican president and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, enemy of her uncle and her husband, had come when least expected, bringing thousands of men and artillery as well as a thirst for vengeance.  The baby wailed at the nearby roar of exploding powder from the cannon mounted at one corner of the Alamo.

That shot signaled defiance by the Texians and Tejanos holed up in the old mission.  Juana soothed the baby and waited, holding her breath for Santa Anna’s response.

It was said he had 1,500 to 6,000 troops, cavalry, and cannon at his command.  Inside the crumbling fortress were several dozen women and children protected by fewer than 200 defenders.  Juana’s new husband, Dr. Horatio A. Alsbury, had galloped off to find volunteers to join the fight, leaving Juana and the baby behind.

Dr. Alsbury had warned that Santa Anna would come down with a heavy hand on the Tejanos (Texans of Mexican descent) and Texians (from the United States) who had settled in the area.  Her husband’s activities were known to the Mexican dictator, as were those of her father, who opposed Santa Anna’s overthrow of the constitution of 1824.  Her father’s brother, Jose Antonio, had put his name on the Texas Declaration of Independence.  If the Alamo fell under the general’s onslaught, the respected name of her Spanish forebears would not protect her little family.

Juana recognized the futility of attempting to hold off the overwhelming force of hardened troops surrounding the old mission turned fortress.  Those inside the Alamo’s walls were also ill prepared to fight Santa Anna, in part because too many people had discounted the Mexican dictator’s determination.  He had already killed all prisoners taken in a battle the year before and been granted by the Mexican government permission to treat as pirates all Tejanos as well as Texians found armed for battle, meaning they would be executed immediately.

The Tejanos and Texians had dismissed reports that the Mexican dictator was nearby.  After all, they argued, two blue northers had recently swept through the area, their freezing winds covering the barren landscape to the south with snow.  What commander would move his troops, many of them barefoot, in such conditions?

Thinking themselves relatively safe, they had celebrated the arrival on February 11, 1836, of the naturalist Davy Crockett with a fandango, a party with music and dancing and merry good spirits, despite the ominous threat said to be marching toward them.  Then, on February 20, a messenger galvanized the town with news that Santa Anna’s army was but twenty-five miles away.  Many townspeople rushed within the walls of the old mission for protection, including Juana, her baby son, and her sister Gertrudis.  The next morning, Juana’s husband had galloped off to bring back reinforcements.

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A cold sunrise greeted the soldiers stationed at Fort Cummings, New Mexico, on the first day of 1868. An eager bugler sounded a call to arms, and members of the Thirty-eighth Infantry hurried out of their barracks to line up in formation, their rifles perched over their shoulders. The enlisted African American men who made up the regiment pulled their army-issued jackets tightly around their necks in an effort to protect themselves from a bitter winter wind. Among the troops falling into place was Private William Cathay. Cathay proudly stood at attention, willing and ready to do battle with the Apaches who were raiding villages and wagon trains heading west. The determined expression the private wore was not unlike the look the other members of the outfit possessed.

The Thirty-eighth Infantry was just one of many black units known as the Buffalo Soldiers, a dedicated division of the US Army that seemed to consistently wear a determined expression. Cathay was not unique in that manner. By all appearances Private Cathay was like the other 134 men who made up Company A. What set this soldier apart from the others, however, was her gender. Cathay was a woman disguised as a man—anxious to follow orders to overtake the Chiricahua Apache warriors.

Cathay stomped her feet to warm them and allowed her eyes to scan the faces of the troops on either side. She’d been with this regiment for more than a year, and no one had learned her secret. No one knew the extremes to which she was willing to go to defend the country that had saved her from a life of slavery.

Fort Cummings’ commander, James N. Morgan, and his entourage approached the soldiers from the headquarters office and looked over the armed men assembled on the parade field. “The Apaches are less mobile in the dead of winter,” Lieutenant Morgan announced. “In fact, this is the only time of year they are even remotely vulnerable.” Private Cathay and the other soldiers hung on every word their commanding officer said. They knew this would be a dangerous mission. Many of the Buffalo Soldiers would die trying to overtake the Indians.

To learn more about Cathy Williams and other such patriots read

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

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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.

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The moment Madam Alavez arrived at Copano, she began her work of intercession and performed deeds of mercy for the poor[,] suffering Texans who had fallen into the hands of the Mexican enemy. —Pioneer Press, October 1920

A slim shadow darted toward the old church at the ruined fortress of Goliad.  The smell of smoke stained the night air as the figure picked a careful path through the rubble inside the fortress walls.  Moonlight starkly displayed the damage caused by the retreating forces of Colonel James Fannin’s command.  Hundreds of Fannin’s men now lay on the hard ground, prisoners of General Jose de Urrea, one of Supreme Commandant General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s best commanders.

Pausing in a dark corner, Francita Alavez gazed toward the southwest gate and the dull gleam of a cannon positioned to fire on anyone who might attempt a rescue of the Americans.  She shivered in the warm night as the knowledge of their fate bowed her shoulders.  She knew what the captives did not.  They believed they would be returned to the United States as prisoners of war.  Francita had seen the order sent by Santa Anna to execute all of them.

As she had at Copano Bay almost the moment she arrived in Texas, Francita vowed to save as many as she could.  On the eve of Palm Sunday, March 27, 1846, she slipped into the church and began the task.

“She had heard many tales of the bad, bold, immoral Texans, but like all good souls loath to think ill of others, scarcely believed they could be as bad as painted,” recounted the Pioneer Press in 1920.  The article went on to outline what was then known about the woman who came to be called the “Angel of Goliad.”  Little more is known today about the young woman who worked against a dictator’s orders at the risk of her own life.

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

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Mrs. Frank “Tobey” Riddle, better known as Winema, was a mediator for the Modoc people, other Indian tribes in the area of Klamath Lake, Oregon, and the United States Army in early 1878.  With her skills she was able to negotiate treaties that kept the land of her ancestors in peace.  Whenever that peace was threatened, her job was to set things straight.  On February 1873, she rode into hostile Modoc territory to persuade the chief to surrender to the cavalry.

Chief Keintpoos, or Captain Jack (a named given to him by the settlers because of his liking for brass buttons and military medals on his coat), was Winema’s cousin.  In 1863 the U.S. government forced his people from their land onto a reservation in Oregon.  Conditions on the reservation were intolerable for the Modoc people.  They were forced to share the land with the Klamath Indians of the region.  The Modoc and the Klamath did not get along.  The Modoc struggled to live in this hostile environment for three years.  Modoc leaders appealed to the U.S. government to separate the tribes, but officials refused to correct the problem.  In 1869, Captain Jack defied the laws of the white man and led his tribe off the reservation and back to the area where their forefathers had first lived.

The cavalry and frustrated members of the Indian Peace Council wanted to use force to bring Captain Jack and his followers back to the reservation.  Winema persuaded them instead to give her a chance to talk with the chief.

When Winema reached the Modoc camp, Captain Jack’s men gathered around her. A dozen pistols were drawn upon her as she dismounted. She eyed the angry tribesmen as they slowly approached her. Then walking backward until she stood upon a rock above the mobs, she clasped her right hand upon her own pistol, and with the other on her heart she shouted aloud, “I am a Modoc myself.  I am here to talk peace.   Shoot me if you dare, but I will never betray you.”  Her bravery in the face of such difficulty won the admiration of her people, and instantly a dozen pistols were drawn in her defense.

To learn more about Winema and other women loyalists read

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

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

From the earliest days of the western frontier, women heeded the call to go west along with their husbands, sweethearts, and parents. Many of these women were attached to the army camps and outposts that dotted the prairies. Some were active participants in the skirmishes and battles that took place in the western territories. Each of these women-wives, mothers, daughters, laundresses, soldiers, and shamans-risked their lives in unsettled lands, facing such challenges as bearing children in primitive conditions and defying military orders in an effort to save innocent people.

Soldier, Sister, Spy, Scout tells the story of twelve such brave women-Buffalo Soldiers, scouts, interpreters, nurses, and others-who served their country in the early frontier. These heroic women displayed a depth of courage and physical bravery not found in many men of the time. Their remarkable commitment and willingness to throw off the constraints of nineteenth-century conventions helped build the west for generations to come.

After such a long time trying to get The Widowed Ones on the shelf at

the Little Bighorn Museum,

I learned yesterday that the book is indeed for sale at the famous location.

Next year at this time, I’ll be in Montana signing copies of book.

Thank you Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield.

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