I Married a Soldier

Lydia Spencer Lane's account of her life as a young army bride on the early southwestern frontier is both invaluable history and delightful commentary. As an officer's wife, Lane left her home in Pennsylvania in 1854 to accompany her new husband to his first post in the West -- the encampment at Fort Inge, Texas, then in the midst of a yellow-fever epidemic. For the next sixteen years, Lane crossed the Great Plains by wagon seven times, travelled nearly 8,000 miles, raised three children, and became accustomed to tours of duty that required the family to move at least every six months to a different set of military forts, frontier garrisons, and trailside bivouacs across New Mexico and Texas. First published in 1893 and unavailable for nearly a decade, Lane's narrative manifests a dry wit that lends humour to events that range from the uncomfortable to the terrifying. Through her eyes we see the close-knit social life of an army post, the western frontier's divided response to the American Civil War (including the Confederate invasion of the Mesilla Valley), and the cultures and peoples of the West. As Darlis Miller makes clear in her Introduction, Lane's courage, her sense of humour, her powers of observation, and her obvious love for the western landscape make her an unforgettable narrator, a valuable historian, and a bold exemplar of strength under pressure.