Sarah Bowman became a legendary figure for her size, strength, and exploits as a participant in affirming American military control in the Great Southwest. Reputed to be the first woman commissioned as a U.S. Army officer and buried with military honors, Sarah brought liquor, food, water, “comfort” and, upon occasion, a gun to the task, as shown here in an artist’s view.
Sarah often was called “The Great Western,” a reference to her height, estimated at over six feet tall, at the time taller than most men, and her weight, well over 200 pounds. The reference was to a famous steamship known as The S.S.Great Western, shown right, the largest steamship afloat at the time. One of the soldiers for whom she was cooking, seeing her for the first time is reputed to have exclaimed: “Lordee. Look at the size of her! She’s purt’ near as big as The Great Western.” Others agreed and the name stuck.
Her birth date and origins are unclear. One source claims to have seen a birth certificate dated 1813 and the place Clay County, Missouri. Sarah, however told the census taker in 1850 that she had been born in Tennessee. The year of her birth varies from 1812 to 1817. Thus, she likely would have been in her early 30s when, married to a soldier, the first of many men in her life, she became attached to the U.S. Army in the Mexican War as a cook and fan of its commander, future President Gen. Zachary Taylor, shown right.
At the beginning of the conflict with Mexico, Sarah first came to notice when she is reputed to have rushed up to Taylor to say that if he would give her a pair of pants she would wade over the Colorado River “and whip every scoundel that dared show himself.” At the initiation of hostilities, however, Taylor ordered Sarah and other women cooks to what became known as Fort Brown. When Mexican forces mounted a siege of the fort, The Great Western came to the fore for her bravery in providing food, drink, and other assistance to the soldiers.
By the time Taylor’s troops relieved the garrison, Sarah’s legend was made. Not long after the battle, Lt. (later General) Braxton Bragg singled her out as the Heroine of Fort Brown attesting: “…Though the shot and shell were flying on every side, she distained to seek shelter in the bomb-proofs, but labored the whole time cooking and taking care of the soldiers without the least regard for her own safety. Her bravery was the admiration of all and were in the fort….”Journalists in the room recorded Bragg’s remarks. They consequently were reported in newspapers across America. The legend of Sarah Bowman, “The Great Western,” was now etched in American history.
As Taylor’s army moved as the Mexican War progressed, Sarah kept in close contact, in September 1848, a young trooper described her in his diary: “The Heroine of Fort Brown or “The Great Western” is in the crowd. She drives two Mexican Ponies in a light wagon and carries the apparatus and necessaries for her mess which now numbers about a dozen young officers.” After the occupation of Monterrey by Taylor’s army, she opened a saloon and brothel that provided food, drink and “comfort” for the soldiers.
When the war ended in 1848, one detachment of soldiers was ordered to California. Sarah wanted badly to accompany them. She was told, however, that only wives were allowed to go. As shown here in an artist’s depiction, she mounted her mule and rode along the line of soldiers reputedly bellowing: “Who wants a wife with $15,000 and the biggest leg in Mexico! Come, my beauties, don’t all speak at once — who is the lucky man?” Most of the troops were dumfounded but at last one, a soldier named David Davis, perhaps intrigued by the cash, agreed to marry her and she was enlisted as a laundress. Did her $15,000, equivalent to $300,000 in current dollars, come from Sarah’s other “personal services”?
Subsequently she met a newly discharged soldier named Paddy Graydon, an Irish immigrant, who was running a hotel and bar on the banks of the Sonora River. [See my post on Graydon, August 9, 2024.] Calling it the United States Boundary Hotel, he located it in a small settlement close to Fort Buchanan with its drinking population of soldiers. His establishment was a success, particularly after forging a business relationship with Sarah, by now most famous woman on the desert frontier. She brought a reputation for her attention to the needs of dragoons. Wrote one trooper: “They called her old Great Western. She packed two six-shooters, and they all said she shore could use ’em, that she had killed a couple of men in her time. She was a hell of a good woman.”
“The Great Western” particularly caught rhe eye of Sam Chamberlain, an officer, writer and artist assigned to Taylor’s army. Shown left, Chamberlain described Sarah throwing Davis “out of her affections” in favor of a soldier of remarkable size and strength the writer called “Samson.” She professed her love for him, the giant capitulated and they moved in together. Fascinated by this Western “Delilah,” Chamberlain made the only known full portrait of Sarah. Shown below, it depicts her in front of the bar, drawing a pistol from her belt, and preparing to order a hostile Mexican out of her saloon.
By 1850 Sarah was in Sorocco, New Mexico, sharing a household with five orphaned children, ages two to sixteen, acting as a mother figure and showing a more nurturing side to her personality. In Sorocco she met a 24-year-old Danish-born soldier named Albert Bowman. Although there may have been no marriage ceremony, Sarah took his last name and was known as his wife. For the next 16 years they shared life together in the harsh environment of the now American Southwest.
When Albert Bowman was discharged from the army in December 1852, the couple headed west to join the gold rush to California. The couple’s southern road west led to the historic Yuma Crossing, shown right. A place where the Gila and Colorado Rivers come together, this had been a Native American fording place and for centuries an opening to the Far West. Now there was a ferry to take pioneers and gold seekers across. In the year before Sarah and her consort arrived, 40,000 Westward-bound men, women and children had been ferried across bringing with them thousand of horses, cattle, sheep and other livestock.
The crossing had achieved such high importance for American expansion that a military base, called Fort Yuma, above, had been established there. Sarah, with her accustomed love for the military created a boarding house and a officers’ “mess” as she had in the past. Meanwhile, she and Albert drifted apart as he moved off to California to engage in prospecting. Sarah was increasingly engaged with her adopted family and in running her restaurant, bar, and hotel, said to be the first in Yuma.
Sarah died in Yuma in December 1866 at the age of 53, reputedly from the bite of a poisonous spider. A Catholic priest, Fr. Paul Figueroa, in his memoirs of Yuma wrote this eulogy about Sarah: “Mrs. S. Bowman was a good hearted woman, good souled old lady of great experience, spoke the Spanish language fluently…opened the first restaurant and kept it until she died…The military from the Post [honored] her remains with a splendid funeral, with the bands and all the military observances. The vicar general was visiting the new town for the first time and according to the Catholic rite conducted the remains to the military cemetery across the river by the Fort.”
Sarah’s burial at Yuma was not to be the end of the story. When the fort was abandoned and the military cemetery became overgrown, the decision was made by the Army in 1890 to remove the graves and rebury the remains at the Presidio in San Francisco. Sarah was the only female among them. Shown here is her Presidio gravestone.
When Sarah’s body was exhumed a religious medallion of unusually large size was found around her neck. One writer was occasioned to observe: “So, even after twenty-four years after her death, Sarah’s size was still worthy of notice.” That observation suggested to me that a final tribute is due this extraordinary woman. Accordingly, I have added below a figure of a large female figure seemingly guiding the nation’s movement across the continent. She is the epitome of “The Great Western.”
Note: A number of references to Sarah Bowman and related photos may be found on the Internet. This post relies on them and most particularly on a 78-page book by Brian Sandwich called “The Great Western: Legendary Lady of the Southwest, “ Texas Western Press, 1991. Mr. Sandwich has written the definitive biography of Sarah Bowman. A fictional treatment of “The Great Western’s” life is also notable, called “Fearless: a Novel of Sarah Bowman,” by Lucia St. Claire Robson, 1998, no publisher cited.
No comments:
Post a Comment