“The women who go to the Philippines on our great transports of to-day cannot realize and will scarcely believe what we endured for lack of ice and of good food on that never-to-be-forgotten voyage down the Pacific coast and up the Gulf of California in the summer of 1874” (28). Martha wrote that sentence about her trip from Fort Russell to Arizona. This segment of her journey included some moments of enjoyment, but Martha mostly remembered it for its rotten food, lack of water, discomfort, and uncertainty. As a new army wife, Martha had already experienced some common military spouse situations and struggles, as we saw in Part 3. Her lengthy journey to Arizona, however, would eventually shake her to her core, as we will see in upcoming posts. But for now, she weathered this small portion of the trip as a true soldier’s wife would – with courage and tenacity.
In late July, the Eighth Infantry departed Fort Russell and traveled to San Francisco where they awaited their ship. For Martha, the trip began pleasantly enough with a two week stay in San Francisco until the steamship Newbern was ready to transport them down the coast of California (22-23). While some might have enjoyed this adventure on the steamship, Martha spent the entire seven days that it took to reach Cape St. Lucas confined to her quarters thanks to a healthy dose of sea sickness (23). As someone who experiences every type of motion sickness there is, I can relate to Martha’s plight! The story of our family whale watching trip lives on in infamy as the day when we realized that it is indeed possible for people (namely, my Dad and I) to actually turn green from sea sickness!
Unfortunately for Martha, at the end of these seven days she traded one discomfort for another. Once the Newbern reached the Gulf of California, the waters and Martha’s stomach simultaneously settled, but the heat increased to the point that Martha described it as “insufferably hot” (24). Martha passed the time by getting to know the other officers and their families and by learning about the history of the Eighth Infantry (a good overview of its history can be found on the U.S. Army Center of Military History Website). Of all the people Martha met, she was perhaps most impressed with Mrs. Wilkins, the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkins. As Martha said, Mrs. Wilkins “represented the best type of the older army woman,” one “who had been so many years in the army that she remembered crossing the plains in a real ox-team” (25). Mrs. Wilkins was an influential woman in Martha’s life, and she will reappear in future posts.
However much steamships had improved travel conditions compared to crossing the country with an ox-team, nothing could solve the issue of the terrible, stifling heat. The heat was so intense that all the passengers had to sleep on deck for most of the night. Sleep, though, was illusive thanks to the “novel and altogether ludicrous” “situation….and our fear of rats which ran about on deck” (25). The passengers retreated to their own rooms in the early hours of the morning, but by sunrise they already had to escape their insufferably hot rooms by going on deck for “black coffee and hard-tack” (25).* During the days, the company sunburned horribly and even their lighter, summer clothing did little to remedy their distress from the blazing sun (26).
Meals provided no relief in the slightest from the conditions on the Newbern. In addition to the hardtack the passengers were served before breakfast, some of the available foods included bread, meats, butter which “began to pour like oil,” and sweet potatoes, but everything perishable soon began to rot (26). As Martha wrote, “the ice-supply decreased alarmingly, the meats turned green” and “the odor which ascended from that refrigerator was indescribable. …It followed us to the table, and when we tasted the food we tasted the odor” (26).
This disgusting situation was temporarily relieved when the ship arrived at various ports, such as Mazatlan. Despite her discomfort and hunger, Martha was enthralled with the beauty of this port and town, which she described as “a picturesque and ancient adobe town in old Mexico” (26). Local inhabitants brought fresh fruit to the travelers, and some officers and their wives even disembarked to explore the town. Martha stayed on the ship, but she regretted this decision. As she recalled, her “thirst began to be abnormal” (27). She and Jack did purchase some coconuts from the Mexicans to alleviate their thirst, which was so extreme that Martha remembered drinking the milk from twelve coconuts (27)!
After a couple more days, the Newbern next arrived at Guaymas, and here Martha herself went on land in the hope of finding good food and water. Mrs. Wilkins reported rumors of “an old Spaniard there, who used to cook meals for stray travellers(sic)” (27). Martha and Mrs. Wilkins were determined to find this man, and so the two women wandered about the Mexican town together asking questions of the locals in Mrs. Wilkins’s broken, limited Spanish. At last, they found him – but he refused to serve them. Much like in the parable of the persistent widow, the ladies would not give up. Mrs. Wilkins pleaded, Martha summoned what little Spanish she knew from the depths of her memory, and the offer of some money at long last wore the poor man down. After a short wait, the ladies returned to the man’s “little old, forlorn, deserted-looking” house where they were greeted with a meal that “met and exceeded our wildest anticipations” (27-28). Martha’s mouth likely watered as she remembered the meal she ate there – “a delicious boullion, then chicken, perfectly cooked, accompanied by some dish flavored with chile verde, creamy biscuit, fresh butter, and golden coffee with milk” (28). The diners thanked and paid this old man, who was mostly forgotten by history but immortalized by Martha in her grateful memory and words. A good meal is hard to overrate, especially when rotten food is the only other option available!
Martha did not record how often she complained to Jack or to the other wives of their situation, nor did she give any indication of whether or not she ever regretted her choice to join the Army (at least not yet – she will get to that point eventually). Regardless of what private thoughts, fears, or frustrations Martha entertained, she and the other women on this journey displayed great bravery and courage just by enduring the sea sickness, heat, discomfort, poor food, and new surroundings they encountered on this trip. Unfortunately, their misadventures were far from over. The next part of this series will address how their journey went from bad to worse before it began to improve.
*In next week’s cooking post, I will relate my experience making my own hardtack. Let’s just say it was successful – perhaps too much so! Stay tuned for more!
Bibliography
Title quote: Summerhayes, Martha. “Chapter 4: Down the Pacific Coast.” In Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman, 26. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017. First published 1911.
Summerhayes, Martha. “Chapter 3: Army House-Keeping.” In Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman, 14-23. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017. First published 1911.
Summerhayes, Martha. “Chapter 4: Down the Pacific Coast.” In Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman, 23-28. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017. First published 1911.
An Army train covered wagons and artillery crossing the plains to Utah. 1858. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/99614245/.
Living in History 