The Life of an Officer’s Wife

I’ve written before about my great-great-grandmother Kate Mifflin Loud and her adventures as an army officer’s wife on the 19th century western frontier. We actually know quite a bit about what life was like for the wives of army officers of the era because there are many journals, compiled letters, and memoirs written by such women, some published in their lifetimes and others collected by modern scholars (Myres 1982; Eales 1996). Officers’ wives who wrote memoirs include Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of General George Armstrong Custer, and Ellen McGowan Biddle, wife of Colonel James A. Biddle, who was the commander of the 9th Cavalry at the time my great-great-grandfather John S. Loud and his family were living at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. [1]

Kate Mifflin Loud. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook.

In the years following the Civil War, the U.S. Army encouraged its officers to marry. [2] Military leaders believed that marriage would have a civilizing effect for officers living on the frontier and would help keep them away from the temptations of drink, gambling, brawling, and prostitution. What the army did not do was make any provision at all for the housing and support of its officers’ wives, who had no legal status in military regulations. Officers had to pay for the transportation of their wives and children to new posts, and the families received no army rations, limiting them to the food they could purchase from the post trader or pay to have shipped in (Stallard 1978; Myres 1982; Handy-Marchello 2025). When an officer died, his wife immediately lost access to her housing at his post, Following the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, Elizabeth Bacon Custer and 25 other new widows had to leave their homes at Fort Abraham Lincoln, North Dakota, within a few weeks of their husbands’ deaths (Stallard 1978).

Of course, in many cases, those homes were nothing to write home about. As the army moved west in its efforts to protect settlers from attacks by displaced Native Americans, it re-occupied forts that had fallen into disuse during the Civil War and established new garrisons, neither of which had much to offer in the way of housing. In the early years of the plains wars, officers and their families often lived in dug-outs or one-room shacks and could be evicted from even those quarters if a more senior officer arrived at the post and wanted to live there (Stallard 1978; Myres 1982; Handy-Marchello 2025). As they struggled to make homes out of almost nothing, officers’ wives also found themselves faced with extreme heat or cold, terrible storms, and a wide variety of pests, ranging from tiny chiggers to huge rattlesnakes (Eales 1996).

By the 1890s, when my great-great-grandparents John and Kate Loud were living at Fort Washakie, the housing situation had improved considerably. Officers and their families were typically housed in duplexes that had parlors and dining rooms as well as bedrooms and a kitchen (Eales 1996). The post commander would often have an even larger dwelling because he and his wife were expected to entertain visiting officers and other guests (Handy-Marchello 2025). The pictures my family left of the officers’ quarters at Fort Washakie show rooms furnished in true Victorian style, with printed wallpaper, fringed tablecloths, and many paintings and knick-knacks, all of which would have been transported from their previous post at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

(left) John S. Loud in the parlor in the Loud’s quarters. Portrait of woman on the wall at left is his oldest daughter Mabel.1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook.

(right) Kate Mifflin Loud in the parlor in the Loud’s quarters. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook.

Officers’ wives bore the primary responsibility for maintaining their homes, as their husbands were often away in the field. They also mended their husbands’ uniforms and made clothing for themselves and their children. As this photo shows, Kate Loud had a sewing machine, which had become available to consumers in the 1860s. Its convenience must have been worth the cost of transporting it to Fort Washakie.

Kate Mifflin Loud in the bedroom in the Loud’s quarters. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook.

The officers’ wives did not undertake their responsibilities alone. This era was one in which middle- and upper-class families had servants, and officers’ wives were no exception. They typically hired people to cook and clean as well as to care for their children. Finding the right servants was not an easy task. Local hires were often unable to meet the women’s expectations for skill and industriousness while servants from the east resisted moving to the frontier. Female servants who did come west often quickly married soldiers themselves (Stallard 1978; Eales 1996; Handy-Marchello 2025).

For many officers’ wives, the solution was to hire “strikers,” enlisted men from their husbands’ companies, who took on the work to earn extra pay. The army forbade this practice in 1870 but to little effect. Enlisted men could earn $5-$10 per month working as a striker—a substantial sum given that the regular pay for a private was $13 per month—and many officers continued to employ enlisted men as servants (Stallard 1978; Eales 1996).

Unidentified 9th Cavalry “striker” beside a table set for dinner. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook.

Another common source of servants was the wives of enlisted men, which often proved a satisfactory arrangement for both parties, offering additional pay to support the soldier’s family and stability in servants for the officer’s family. In 1894, for example, the Army and Navy Journal published an obituary for “Sarah Ann Lewis, wife of Sergt. George Monroe, 9th Cavalry, and for ten years faithful servant of Capt. Joseph Garrard, 9th Cavalry” (“Died” 1894).

With servants to help with household chores, the officers’ wives had plenty of free time. Drives and picnics in the area surrounding the post were frequent diversions, provided the area was safe from bandits or attacks by Native Americans. Some officers’ wives learned to ride horseback, fish, and hunt for game, activities that helped them provide for their families as well as entertain themselves (Stallard 1978; Myres 1982).

Kittie Scanland Gardner, wife of 1st Lieutenant John H. Gardner, Mary Virginia Moore, daughter of post trader James K. Moore, and Dollie Loud, daughter of Captain John S. Loud, riding horses. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook.

Popular leisure activities included making and receiving social visits, doing embroidery or other fancy handwork, engaging in card games, and playing croquet or lawn tennis (Stallard 1978; Myres 1982). Any sort of musical entertainment was highly prized (Handy-Marchello 2025), and the lady in this photo was likely a welcome guest at Fort Washakie parties, given her ability to play the lute.

2nd Lieutenant Herman A. Sievert and Emily Herald Sievert in the parlor in their quarters. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook.

Social life at a frontier army post could be surprisingly robust. Informal dances called “hops” were a common occurrence, and holidays or visiting dignitaries were a reason for more formal dinner dances (Stallard 1978). An earlier post quartermaster had fitted the chapel at Fort Washakie with “a stage for amusements” (Wheeler 1923). In 1895, one such amusement included music from several enlisted soldiers and the Troop I quartet, poetry recitations, tableaux enacted by officers’ wives and daughters, and a display of “prestidigitatorism” by none other than Captain John S. Loud  (“Fort Washakie, Wyo.” 1895).

Pets were a welcome addition to life at a frontier army post, and sometimes these pets were rather unusual ones (Eales 1996). Kate Loud, in an interview published in the Detroit Free Press in 1888, listed a number of pets owned by her family, including an antelope, a wildcat kitten, several gophers, a quail, and an armadillo. The most interesting pet she described, though, was a black bear cub, about which she said:

I put it in the crib with Mabel, my little daughter, and brought it up on a bottle. We called her Nellie, and she became the pet of the regiment. She would come and look up into my face and whine until I took her up, when she would hug and kiss me and show every mark of affection (“Some Queer Pets” 1888).

Unsurprisingly, Nellie did not remain a pet after she became a full-grown bear.

The children of army officers on the western frontier enjoyed a freedom unheard of back east. They learned to ride very young and often had their own ponies (Stallard 1978). My great-grandmother Dollie Loud enjoyed riding to visit the Shoshone people who lived in the area of Fort Washakie.

Dorothy Helene “Dollie” Loud, age about 12, riding a pony. c 1891. Most likely taken at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Loud family photo.

One time, even though she was not supposed to ford the Big Wind River alone, Dollie was determined to see the Shoshone Wolf Dance. She wrote:

I started down at a certain place, but my pony would not go into the water. I looked across the river and there was an Indian watching me and my pony. He beckoned to me to let my pony have its head and go where he wanted, I did so and my pony rambled along to a nice place, went in and across and I did not even get my feet wet. (Longley, n.d.)

It is hard to imagine a middle-class teenage girl having this experience in most of Victorian America.

A serious challenge for many army officers and their wives was how to educate their children. At most western forts, there was no school. The officers’ wives would tutor their younger children and try to find opportunities for the older children to attend school, sometimes sending them back east to live with family members (Myres 1982; Handy-Marchello 2025).

James Mifflin “Jim” Loud, age 12, on a march with companies D and H, 9th Cavalry. August 1889. Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming. Loud family photo.

Dollie Loud and her brother Jim at various times had a governess or attended school in a nearby town, driven there each day in the army ambulance. Later, they attended high school at a boarding school in Omaha, Nebraska, traveling several days by stagecoach from Fort Washakie to get to the train (Longley, n.d.). 

The life of an army officer’s wife at a post on the western frontier in the 19th century was one of contradictions. On the one hand, she was expected to conform to the Victorian ideals of a lady, dressing in corsets and hoop skirts, riding side-saddle, and maintaining her home as a haven for her husband and children. On the other hand, she had to do all these things under extreme conditions of danger and deprivation and often without her husband, whom she might not see for months at a time. Not all officers’ wives were able to manage this challenge, but many thrived and seem to have valued the freedom and adventure their lives offered (Stallard 1978; Eales 1996).

[1] See this earlier post for more details on Fort Washakie and how the 9th Cavalry came to be there.

[2] The army did not do the same for enlisted men. Married men were prohibited from enlisting although men who married while serving in the army could re-enlist. The prohibitive cost of supporting a wife and family meant that many enlisted men did not marry until they left the army.

Works Cited

“Died.” 30 June 1894. The United States Army and Navy Journal and Gazette of the Regular and Volunteer Forces. p. 779.

Eales, Anne Bruner. 1996. Army Wives on the American Frontier: Living By the Bugles. Boulder, CO: Johnson Books.

“Fort Washakie, Wyo.” 14 December 1895. The United States Army and Navy Journal and Gazette of the Regular and Volunteer Forces. p. 263.

Handy-Marchello, Barbara. 2025. Army Officers’ Wives on the Great Plains, 1865-1900. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Center for Digital Research in the Humanities.

Longley, Dorothy Loud. n.d. The Life of an Army Girl in the Far West. Unpublished manuscript.

Myres, Sandra L. 1982. “Romance and Reality on the American Frontier: Views of Army Wives.” Western Historical Quarterly 13 (4): 409-427

“Some Queer Pets.” 27 May 1888. The Detroit Free Press. p. 22.

Stallard, Patricia Y. 1978. Glittering Misery: Dependents of the Indian Fighting Army. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Wheeler, Homer W. 1923. Buffalo Days: Forty Years in the Old West. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.