Carrington, like many officers' wives, kept a journal of her stay in the outposts of the West. She recorded her impressions of the scenery and the inhabitants of Absaraka (present-day) Wyoming, Montana, and the western Dakotas. Wife of the commander of Fort Phil Kearny, she also recorded events that led to the Fetterman massacre.

Margaret Carrington was the wife of Colonel Henry Carrington, who was in command at Fort Phil Kearny when the Fetterman Massacre occurred; this is her side of the story covered by Dee Brown in The Fetterman Massacre. (Colonel Carrington had been relieved before The Wagon Box Fight the following summer, so Mrs. Carrington doesn’t cover that battle).

Carrington’s book is partially a diary, partially travelogue, and partially generic comments on military life and the natives. She covers the trip out to Fort Phil Kearny from Fort Kearney; comments on the passing landscape in Nebraska and Wyoming – including Courthouse Rock, Chimney Rock, and Scotts Bluff; describes the building of Fort Phil Kearny and the daily life of the inhabitants – including a mountain climbing excursion with other officers’ ladies.

Given the situation, Carrington is sympathetic to the natives, “…for the bold warrior in his great struggle…”, and suggests the government should give more support to friendly Indians. This issue that precipitated the conflict – the erection of military posts in an area promised to be off limits to whites – is noted, but the military goes where it’s ordered to.

Mrs. Carrington is a little more favorable to Captain Fetterman than Brown (Fetterman was a brevet Lieutenant Colonel, and Carrington alternates between referring to him as “Captain” and “Colonel”; this is sometimes confusing, since she sometimes mentions “the captain” or “the colonel” without a name). She doesn’t mention the reported claim by Fetterman that “…with 80 men he could ride through the whole Sioux nation…” reported by Brown, but does report Fetterman saying after his first encounter with natives “…he has learned a lesson, and that this Indian war has become a hand-to-hand fight, requiring the utmost caution…”

The account of the massacre is only one chapter; Carrington seems most concerned with defending her husband against various accusations. She stresses that Colonel Carrington had ordered Fetterman not to go over Lodge Trail Hill, and that the orders were repeated just as Fetterman was passing through the fort gate. She doesn’t speculate as to why Fetterman disobeyed, just noting (in her obituary for him) that “…he reached forth for laurels that were beyond his reach…”. She has harsh – well, harsh for a Victorian lady – words for eastern newspapers that claimed that Colonel Carrington had locked Fetterman out of the fort while he was fleeing from the Sioux; Fetterman was out of sight when his unit was destroyed.

Interesting as a contemporary account of military life; Carrington writes with the florid style favored at the time, but it’s readable enough.

Engravings of some of the sites along the trip. A plan of the fort and a map of the surrounding area (although I found this hard to correlate to the text). Appendices have the formal report on the massacre delivered to the US Senate and a list of all the officers who served in the 18th US Infantry, with a sublist of all the men killed in the massacre (including enlisted and civilians). No index. ( )

I found this book to be a fascinating and well-written account of military life on the frontier in a time of war. The book was written by the wife of the post commander at Fort Phil Kearney in what is now Wyoming. At the time she was there, Red Cloud's War was in full swing and Fort Phil Kearney, built to guard the Bozeman Trail into the Montana gold fields, was at the center of the conflict. ( )

DEN