Entertaining

Jennie Barnitz joined Albert at Fort Leavenworth in December 1867, and found the post and her quarters pleasing. She wrote to her mother about the vibrant social life: I had twelve calls after tea last evening, which will give you a little idea of our evenings. Three ladies and nine gentlemen. Every two weeks there is a Hop, at which they have elegant suppers, & every two weeks a promenade concert. We have a Theatre — Tableaux etc. (Utley, p. 130)

Jennie's description of social calls, hops (or informal dances), balls (formal dances or masquerades), suppers, concerts, and theatre was typical of most posts. Even at small or remote posts there were dances for almost any occasion. Holidays or the arrival of a new company, even for a brief stopover, called for music, dancing, and grand suppers. Special guests enlivened the quiet life of a Plains fort. A visit by General Sheridan or General Sherman was a major social as well as military event. In addition, travelers turned to Army officers for information on Plains life and politics. Officers and their wives welcomed special guests such as the artist Thomas Moran and writers Owen Wister and Mark Twain. With no less pomp, they prepared fine dinners for such illustrious Native American men as Chief Washakie of the Shoshone nation. (Burt, pp. 254, 113).

Though officers' wives had to sell their furniture every time they moved to a new post, they tried to keep a set of fine dishes and silver serving pieces that could be transported in relatively small boxes. Frances Roe was surprised to find "dainty china and bright silver" setting the table of the commanding officer at Fort Lyon. Mrs. Gibbs, known to "[put] on an immense amount of style," used her best silver to entertain General Sherman when he visited Fort Harker. Elizabeth Burt sent for her china before she set out for the Plains. Setting a fine table not only reaffirmed their upbringing as ladies, but asserted their rank as wives of commanding officers. (Roe on Mrs. Philips, p. 2; Barnitz on Mrs. Gibbs, pp. 15, 108; Burt, pp. 45–46)

Officers' wives give an inordinate amount of space in their letters and memoirs to describing the various balls, hops, dinners, and holiday entertainments they participated in, attended, or prepared. One might be left with the impression that their lives were an endless social whirl and that little else mattered. Certainly they danced more than their eastern counterparts. Ellen Biddle explained that Army officers were good dance partners, the dances brought the families together in pleasant circumstances, and that dancing was good exercise which Army couples enjoyed until the officer retired from the service. Dancing was another way in which Army women distinguished themselves from other women of similar class for, as Biddle claimed, "an Army woman usually keeps her youth because she dances so much." (Biddle, pp. 49–50)

The regimental band was usually assigned to the regimental headquarters garrison, but a band or orchestra could be got together at almost any post from among the officers and enlisted men who played instruments. (Baldwin, p. 37) A band was an important adjunct to military events, musically escorting the troops out of the post as they left on campaign (usually playing "The Girl I Left Behind Me"); playing for funerals — dirges on the way to the cemetery, light airs or jigs on return; welcoming fresh troops. So important was this tradition, that when two relief companies arrived at Fort Phil Kearny after the Fetterman Massacre, the band was employed to welcome the new troops with "impromptu dances and musicales" after receiving assurances from Frances Grummond that she did not mind the frivolity while she was in mourning. (F. Carrington, p. 173–175)

Frances Boyd described the round of social events that signaled the arrival of new regiments at Fort Clark. Those already stationed at Fort Clark gave a large ball to welcome the new-comers . . . which courtesy was returned by a very grand affair. Then each regiment — six were represented, two of them colored — extended hospitalities on its individual account and each vied with the others in somewhat varying the character of the entertainment. (Boyd, pp. 277–278)

Balls and hops were given and attended by the officers and their wives, but the enlisted men usually decorated the halls and served the meals. As Frances Boyd noted: We had only to notify the quartermaster that a hop was to be given, when our barren hallway would immediately be transferred [sic] into a beautiful ballroom, with canvas stretched tightly over the floor, flags decorating the sides, and ceiling so charmingly draped as to make us feel doubly patriotic. (Boyd, p. 198–199)

Enlisted men held their own dances which laundresses and servants attended. When the enlisted men held a special social event, officers and their wives were usually invited and attended for a short while. That was the extent of social mixing across rank at most posts.

Masquerade balls were popular at Great Plains posts. Somehow, with few resources, officers' wives created complicated and original costumes for the dance. Masks hid their faces and each dancer took delight in trying to guess the person behind the mask. Officers sometimes dressed as women; apparently there was no costume too silly to impede an officer's career. The women may have found it more satisfying to make ridiculous costumes for a masquerade than to try to come up with fashionable finery for a ball. At Fort Lyon, Ellen Biddle attended a masquerade where Lieutenant Anderson, who was six feet two or three inches tall, went as a skeleton. His costume was of heavy black [fabric] and was painted in white, the mask being painted as a skull. Hentig went as the 'Evil Eye.' He was also in black, with one eye, and really scared me whenever he approached. . . . There was a harlequin, and the devil . . . who was sewed up in red and painted with white and phosphorus. . . . [N]o one knew them. (Biddle, p. 122–123)

Residents of military posts enjoyed plays, musicals, and skit nights which passed the time. Usually officers and their wives were the actors. Elizabeth Burt devotes much of her memoir to "theatricals" or tableaux, which were sometimes well-known plays and sometimes were organized at the post. While traveling the central Plains, the Burts spent a few days at Fort Sedgwick in southwestern Nebraska where Major Burt's "theatrical talent" bloomed. He and Lt. Colonel Van Voast prepared a vaudeville show for the post residents. Years later, stationed at Fort Sidney, Burt was still engaged in theatre and one play was so successful that [it] was given for charity at the theater in [Sidney] reaping a harvest for the poor. . . . [The actors] covered themselves with glory as stars on the stage. (Burt, p. 228)

Weddings brought post residents together in a joyful occasion that required no less preparation than did the balls. A regimental wedding was glamorous as any other event at a remote post and seemed to draw the envy of women who had married in their parents' eastern homes. France Roe attended a "real Army wedding" at Fort Shaw. The bride, "a child of the regiment," married a lieutenant of the regiment. The wedding hall was decorated with American flags, regimental flags, ropes of cedar branches, and wild flowers. Two companies of enlisted men, one commanded by the father of the bride, the other associated with the groom, stood at attention in full dress uniforms at the back of the hall. The bride received gifts of silver serving dishes from the officers of the regiment and the enlisted men. The regimental band played for the wedding and the reception. (Roe, pp. 348–350)

Holidays, especially Christmas and New Year's were marked by feasts and home visits. Army women placed orders with the quartermaster for special foods to be sent from distant cities. In 1878 Fanny Corbusier's Christmas dinner shopping list included items from Grand Island, Nebraska and Chicago. Before sitting down to her own table with her guests, following Army tradition, the Corbusiers' went to the enlisted men's mess hall "to inspect the men's dinner, which was equally as good as ours, for the Captain was a good provider." (Corbusier, p. 89)

On January 1, 1868, Jennie Barnitz kindly invited Mrs. A. E. Smith, wife of a lieutenant of her husband's company and a woman she had once called "commonplace," to receive calls with her at Fort Leavenworth. They received more than fifty guests including forty-eight officers, "some of them of high rank," and five gentlemen from the city, "one a judge." The day was pleasant, but Jennie was nearly overwhelmed by the "responsibility to entertain so many." (Utley, p. 132)

The sheer number of social events and the detail with which Army women recorded them in letters, diaries, and memoirs suggest the importance of the occasions to people who always lived with danger in the background, but expected, nevertheless, to maintain standards of class and rank. Alice Baldwin, thinking about a dance she enjoyed at Fort Harker, explained that social events chased away the isolation of a remote post. "Forgotten for the time was absence of home and the associations of dear friends of the past."

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