My Army Life and the Fort Phil Kearney Massacre: With an Account of the Celebration of "Wyoming Opened"

"[Carrington's] descriptions of Western army life are illuminating, earthy and remarkable with keen observations. . . . An intriguing and informative read." — True West Magazine

The West was not just settled by men with rifles and revolvers alone.

Indeed, as the army divisions moved west to protect the westward trails, they frequently brought their wives and families with them.

Frances C. Carrington had been married to Lt. George Washington Grummond for little more than a year when she was stationed with her husband in Fort Phil Kearny. She was three months pregnant when she arrived and within another two months she would be a widow.

Fort Phil Kearny had been built to protect the Bozeman Trail, but from the moment it was constructed the soldiers and settlers had been harassed by Chief Red Cloud and his coalition of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians.

Captain William J. Fetterman led a resistance to these attacks, but the Native Americans organized an ambush and killed all eight-one men.

This was the worst defeat the U. S. Army suffered during the Indian Wars at that time, and Frances C. Carrington lost her husband on that day.

Alone and with little protection she and the other survivors in Fort Kearny did not give up but instead continued to survive in the perilous conditions until reinforcements arrived.

My Army Life and the Fort Phil Kearney Massacre is a fascinating work that tells the story of frontier life, not from the perspective of a soldier or frontiersman, but instead from the perspective of a woman who saw and experienced some of the most brutal events of the American West.

"Carrington's book is a riveting portrait of life at a frontier post in dangerous territory, as well as a snapshot of Victorian mores and the lingering influence of the Civil War. . . . It is a necessary addition to other material on Fort Phil Kearny, the Fetterman Massacre, and the Bozeman Trail." — Roundup Magazine

After the loss of her first husband Frances went on to marry Colonel Henry B. Carrington. She wrote My Army Life and the Fort Phil Kearney Massacre forty years after the fort was abandoned and it was first published in 1910. Carrington passed away in 1911.