take measures to procure and keep constantly on hand a good stock of marketable goods and conduct the business in a satisfactory manner," then "after a reasonable time measures will be taken to cause your removal." Post commander George Andrews intervened in March. Despite recent trips to El Paso and San Antonio, Chaney still had not added to his inventory. Andrews, asserting that every man on the post wanted a new sutler, concluded "that the garrison is suffering while Mr. Chaney is pursuing schemes that must prove abortive."13

Chaney returned to Fort Davis on May 20 after a visit to his San Antonio bankers, John Twohig & Co., to whom he owed $5,000. Two days after Chaney's return, his store closed. Colonel Andrews recommended that the War Department appoint Joseph Sender, local agent for the firm of S. Schurtz & Brother, as post trader. Sender enjoyed a good reputation among the troops, having extended credit when their pay was overdue. Inspector Nelson H. Davis urgently endorsed such action while at Fort Davis on July 27, 1875. Not only was Schurtz & Brother a reputable firm; Sender had operated a successful store just off the reservation for several years.14

Chaney offered his letter of resignation in November 1875, later becoming a county judge and taking up residence at "new Pat Murphy's store" on the outskirts of the fort. Despite the recommendations of both Inspector Davis and Colonel Andrews, on the advice of Rep. John L. Vance of Ohio, Secretary Belknap appointed an outsider, John D. Davis, as the new post trader. Belknap's enforced resignation the following spring led the incoming Secretary, Alfonso Taft, to insist that every post council investigate its trader. Sutler Davis won the support of both the board of officers and commander Andrews, who reported that "no complaints have reached me regarding him... either in regard to his

13 Post Adjutant to A. W. Chaney, Nov. 27, 30, 1874, Jan. 7, 1875 (first and second quotations), Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 66-783, roll 1); Andrews to Belknap, Mar. 19, 1875, ibid. (third quotation).

14 Ibid.; Andrews to Belknap, June 8, 1875, ibid.; Davis to Inspector General, July 27, 1875, 4914 A.C.P. 1875, box 340, Appointment, Commission, and Personal Branch.

manner of conducting his business, or the means he employed to obtain his appointment."15

In securing the sutlership, Davis beat out at least four competitors, including the hard-luck Daniel Murphy. Murphy's case is intriguing, especially considering his amiable relations with many officers at Fort Davis, his political support from Texas congressmen John M. Hancock and Edward Degener, and his repeated efforts to secure the position. Murphy, who had campaigned for the job since the darkest days of Chaney's unsuccessful regime, claimed to have Secretary Belknap's verbal support. Yet he found his application blocked, probably because of his indirect involvement in G Company's 1860 mutiny and his former service as beef contractor to the Confederacy. 16

Whatever the circumstances surrounding his appointment, John Davis again won the unanimous support of a post council held September 30, 1876. Secretary of War James D. Cameron concurred. Davis soon took on a partner, George H. Abbott, and by September 1877 they were leasing a tract just south of the guardhouse for seventy-five dollars a month from banker John Twohig. They expanded the sprawling sutler's compound, which after 1880 included a residence, shed, bar, store, telegraph office, and two privies. As was to be expected, a few criticisms against Davis and Abbott surfaced during their tenure at Davis, which continued through the 1880s. An inspector described their merchandise as "only fair" and the whiskey "poor" in 1878. On occasion, the traders were reprimanded for allowing undesirable elements to use their bar

15 Andrews to Assistant Adjutant General, June 2, 1877, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 66-783, roll 1); Orders No. 104, July 1, 1877, ibid. (roll 4) (first quotation); Applicants for Post Trader, vol. 2, Registers of Post Traders; ibid., vol. 3: 7; Utley, Frontier Regulars, 31; Andrews to Adjutant General, Mar. 20, 1876, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 66-783, roll 1) (second quotation).

16 Registers of Applications, File #541, vol. 1: 498-99, File #375, vol. 2: 45, Appointment, Commission, and Personal Branch; Andrews to Wilson, Apr. 11, 1876, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 66-783, roll 1); Cameron to Schleicher, June 6, 1876, vol. 79: 587, Letters Sent by the Secretary of War Relating to Military Affairs (microcopy M 6, roll 72); McKeever to Murphy, Aug. 13, 1873, vol. 4: 234, Letters Sent, Department of Texas, National Archives (microcopy M 1114, roll 2); Registers of Post Traders, vol. 2: 141; Applicants for Post Trader, ibid.; Williams to Shideler, Sept. 17, 1990 (copy in author's possession).

and billiard table. Despite these complaints, Davis and Abbott satisfied the garrison's needs.17

The two partners also participated in one of the fort's most bizarre series of marriages. In 1877 Ellen Jane Brady, a step-daughter of Daniel Murphy, married John Davis. While still in her early teens, Ms. Brady had several years earlier married S. C. Hopkins, a nephew of Lt. Col. Wesley Merritt who worked as a carpenter at Fort Davis in 1869 and 1870. She and Hopkins had two daughters in the early 1870s. The Brady-Davis marriage also produced six children. Davis's partner, George Abbott, married one of Ellen's step-sisters, Sarah Murphy, in 1883, thus linking, if only briefly, the partnership through extended family relations. But in what community gossips must have found especially titillating, Ellen later divorced the sutler in favor of her first husband, S. C. Hopkins.18

Like the post traders, women played a vital function at the typical frontier post. The census of 1870 reported 134 females present at Davis; that of 1880 listed 345 women at the community and fort along the Limpia. One hundred and six women were not housekeepers; all so listed were black, mulatto, or Hispanic. An overwhelming majority (66) were laundresses. Sixteen seamstresses, 9 cooks, 5 domestic servants, and 2 laborers rounded out the list of common occupations. But not all women at Fort Davis fit these unskilled classes. Three teachers, a teamster, and a tailoress were also present. Jesusia Sanchez received the unceremonious label of "idler." At least two operated their own businesses: Dominga Learma was a widowed shopkeeper, and 36-year-old Manuella Urquedes “keeps a dance house," according to the enumerator.19

17 Circular, May 27, 1876, in 2496 A.C.P. 1876, box 376, Appointment, Commission, and Personal File; Post Adjutant to Davis, Oct. 4, 1876, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 66-783, roll 1); Registers of Post Traders, vol. 3: 7; Deed Records, Sept. 14, 1877, vol. 1: 15-16, Jeff Davis County Courthouse, Fort Davis, Texas; Jerome A. Greene, Historic Resource Study: Fort Davis National Historic Site (U.S. Department of the Interior: National Park Service, 1986): 216 (quotation); Wilhelmi to Post Trader, July 30, 1881, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 65-855, roll 1). A sketch of the complex, compiled by James Ivey, may be found in the Land Acquisitions File, Fort Davis Archives.

18 Mary Williams to Robert Wooster, Oct. 19, 1988, Fort Davis Archives; Williams to Scannell, Sept. 22, 1987, Sergeant John Scannell, Enlisted Men File, ibid.; Williams to Regional Director, Southwest Region, August 16, 1990.

19 Manuscript Returns, U.S. Census, 1870 and 1880, Presidio County.

The federal censuses of 1870 and 1880 (during which time only black units garrisoned the fort) show twenty-nine laundresses or hospital matrons clearly associated with the United States Army. Of these women the census reported eighteen blacks, seven mulattos, and four Hispanics. Their average age was twenty-eight, with the youngest reportedly aged sixteen and the oldest forty-six. Only one of those listed as black or mulatto listed her birthplace as being outside the South or Indian territory. At least fifteen were married to soldiers.20

Army laundresses and hospital matrons received government transportation, rations, quarters, and fuel, along with pay rates established by the post council of administration or the surgeon. In 1885 laundresses earned 37 1/2 cents per man per week. Assuming two laundresses per company of fifty, each washerwoman would have netted $37.50 per month. By regulation laundresses collected their debts directly at the pay tables. But long intervals between the paymaster's visits often left the women, like their customers, strapped for cash. In other instances lax enforcement allowed the men to shirk their financial responsibilities. Two laundresses appealed for assistance from the post commander in October 1886. "We are a lone [sic] standing women and thought best to try for your assistance," they explained. Twenty-seven soldiers from one of their companies owed them for five months' work.21

At Fort Davis the laundresses occupied a variety of quarters all of them in poor condition. Insufficient funding and post commanders who placed higher priorities on other projects left the laundresses without suitable habitation. In 1871 they lived in tents behind the enlisted barracks. The women subsequently inhabited a series of small adobe hovels situtated throughout the military reservation. The laundresses had taken over an eight-room adobe structure located southeast of the parade ground near the old bakery and storehouses by

20 Manuscript Returns, U.S. Census, 1870 and 1880, Presidio County; James Sheire, Fort Davis National Historic Site. Furnishing Study, Enlisted Men's Barracks HB-21 (Denver: National Park Service): 14, 15.

21

Bill dated May 1, 1885, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 66-783, roll 9); Miller J. Stewart, "Army Laundresses: Ladies of the 'Soap Suds Row,'" Nebraska History 61 (Winter, 1980): 423-24. John R. Sibbald, "Camp Followers All," American West 3 (Spring, 1966): 65, using similarly inconclusive evidence, comes up with similar estimates; Mrs. Merrill and Sister to Clendenin, Oct. 5, 1886, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 66-783, roll 9).

1883. Formerly the quarters of the sergeant majors and the principal musicians, the structure had been deemed "past repair" even before the laundresses moved in. In March 1884, although annual inspections again found the site "bad, past repair," the washerwomen remained. Officials demolished the structure sometime within the next twelve months.22

Military officials gave laundresses and hospital matrons mixed reviews. Occasionally, the army tried to help those wives in destitute condition by arranging their appointment as laundresses. Surgeon Daniel Weisel labeled his two matrons, one black and the other Hispanic, "efficient" in January 1869. But Lt. William Beck criticized the work of his laundresses a decade later: "I send you the cuff you loaned me," he wrote the son of a fellow officer. "My laundress tarried long in restoring it to a proper degree of whiteness and even now I am afraid that it is not 'good.'" Many believed the laundresses either engaged in prostitution or harbored ladies of the evening. Hoping to clear out a brothel in 1880, the post quartermaster expelled all nonlaundresses and locked up all vacant quarters in the area.2

23

Congress investigated the situation in 1876, with most officers arguing that the number of laundresses could be decreased. Benjamin Grierson believed that the army could reduce from four to two the number of laundresses per company. Col. George Andrews, then senior officer at Davis, declared that he would not allow any laundresses in his company if he were again a captain. Like commanding general Sherman, Andrews thought enlisted men could handle the job. Following the hearings, the army prohibited laundresses from accompanying the troops. Only in 1883, however, did the army strip the women of their

22 H. H. McConnell, Five Years a Cavalryman; Or, Sketches of Regular Army Life on the Texas Frontier, Twenty Odd Years Ago (Jacksboro: J. N. Rogers and Co., 1889): 211; Stewart, "Army Laundresses," 423; John S. Billings, Circular 8, War Department Surgeon General's Office, Report on the Hygiene of the United States Army, with Descriptions of Military Posts (Washington: Government Printing Office): 200; Greene, Historic Resource Study, 245-46; Annual Inspection of Public Buildings, Mar. 31, 1883, Mar. 31, 1884, Mar. 31, 1885, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 63-172) (quotations).

23 Taylor to Commanding Officer, Co. E, 35th Inf., June 8, 1867, vol. 4: 339, Letters Sent, Department of Texas, 1865-70 (microcopy M 1165, roll 1); Post Medical Returns, Jan., 1869, Fort Davis Archives (first quotation); Beck to Rob, Sept. 29, 1880, GPSpr (roll 1) (second quotation); Orders No. 84, Oct. 15, 1880, Fort Davis Archives (microfilm 66-783, roll 4).