Letters from the Past

Dear Gertrude A SOLDIER'S LETTERS HOME – 1867-70

Fort Yuma, Arazona February 25, 1867 Dear Gertrude, In the day time it was hot enough to scald your brain out and at night you could not keep warm with two blankets. I have not slept with my pants off for three months.

Most of the houses are made of mud and So are all of them from here to Wilmington [California]. The timber is So Scarce that it is impossible to build them of wood. I have not Seen a tree a foot thick except in the mountains Scince I left New York. We have been So hard up for wood that we had to burn Cow manure.

George He wrote 18-year-old Pvt. George Cranston to his sister Gertrude on his arrival at Fort Yuma, Arizona. In the fall of 1866, George left New York to join the Army. He quickly discovered Army life wasn't all the recruiter promised when he ended up stationed in Arizona Territory to fight the Apaches. With elaborate swirls, curls, and misspelled words, Lonesome George's letters home give a comic description of Army life in Arizona just after the Civil War.

March 3, 1867 Dear Sister Gertrude It is true that I don't get all I should like to eat and that is saying a considerable bit. I Suppose I can live without eating by Practice. I think of my Complaining of the fare at home but I Think I have learned a lesson when I get out of the army I can live on puding and milk. I should like to have old gray [cow] to milk about now. I would give up writing for a time and go milking until I got my Belly full.

Fort Grant April 27, 1867 Dear Absent Father As I expected we started from fort Yuma on the 11" of March for Tucson, Arizona territory, about 400 miles Tucson is the largest place that I have Seen Scince I left Sanfrancisco but like all the Citys of Arizona that I have Seen it is made of mud There is not a house built of Wood in tucson; they are all built of mud Bricks, and I have not seen a house Built of Wood Scince I left the Pacific Cost. There is no wood here but little Brush Called Mas keet. Arizona is the most forsaken looking Country that Can be made. There is no Such thing as raising Crops because it is nothing but Sand plains, and those Sand plains are almost entirely Destitute of Watter This is Where Gertrude could get an assortment of Shrubery if She was here. It makes me almost Sick when I think of her trying to raise the prickly pear. There is nothing else hardly but them here. They are a Specie of the Cactus which grows hear in every form. There is Some that grow like a tree only they are entirely destitute of limbs. They very in hight from 5 to 50 feet. Covered with long Prickers. While I am talking about prickers I will tell you the fact there is nothing that grows but what has Prickers. The brush, Cactus, every [sic] even the toads and frogs on the banks of the Colorado and Gila river are honestly covered with prongs. Snakes, there is Snakes from Yuma to Tucson; just one Stream of Snakes. We have killed rattle Snakes on the march, from 5 to 30 a day. There is one pest greater than the Snake, that you Cant guard against, that is the Scorpian We have to lay on the ground and I have waked up many mornings and found a Scorpian in bed with me. Well lets Change the Subject. Arazona [is] a miserable place.

Camp Crittenden Sept 23rd 1868 Sister Gertrude You told me in one of your last letters that you read an account of Devens [Thomas C. Devin] scout, and that the Indians run at their approach. Now they done no such thing. The Indians never do run from no troops in their own Country. They only laugh at our aparance. But he put it down that they fled at his approach in order to make a show before the outside world, but we know better. There is no such thing. And now Gertrude I tell you that it is realy a fact thare are Indians in Arizona.

Indians run at their approach. Now they done no such thing. The Indians never do run from no troops in their own Country. They only laugh at our aparance. But he put it down that they fled at his approach in order to make a show before the outside world, but we know better. There is no such thing. And now Gertrude I tell you that it is realy a fact thare are Indians in Arizona.

Only think Gertrude, only a year more and then I can begin to talk about turning my face towards home. Wont I be glad to think of being my own man, and can think and act for myself.

After nearly three years of homesickness and complaining, Cranston sent home a letter that caught his family off guard. Arizona had worked her magic on the young soldier.

On the Ranch January 9 1870 AT Dear Sister You will see by the date of this letter that I am still in A. T. [Arizona Territory] Christmas I worked hard all day and New years I went on my Ranch about 10 miles from Camp. Now I know what you will say. His Ranch? He has not got any Ranch. But I say I have, though. I payed $350 New years day for one half of 100 acres as ever was staked in Arizona. A very comfortable house, 2 Yoke of oxen. and Flour and Beans enough to last 4 months. I must tell you that Beans is the princaple food on the Ranchero. Now Gertrude, I have done better to Stay where I am. If I have any kind of luck while I am here, and get out alive, in three years time I can be indipendent. Whereas if I had went back to NY, I would had to of worked hard all the days of my life Now it is about 12 oclock at Night and I am getting sleepy. We sleep in this country the same as they do in the civilized portions of the globe. Now good night, for I am played out.

Write soon. Direct to Camp Crittenden. No company or Reg [iment). Uncle sam and I had a settlement, and the upshot of it was he Discharged Me. Goodbye, Your Brother George George Cranston spent the rest of his life "trying to get back home to New York." Within a year after buying his Arizona ranch, George sold out and was in Franklin, Texas. Always short of cash, but on the verge of hitting it rich, George spent the next 12 years in Texas and Kansas working on trail drives, raising horses, and running a saloon.

By 1883 George was in Deming, New Mexico, trying to get enough money ahead for a trip home. First he tried the hotel business, then went to work at the Bull's Head Saloon and Lodging House. On May 3, George wrote Gertrude that he was married and had a daughter he had named Gertrude. He must have realized he was never going to make it back to New York, since he asked for some flower seeds from "back home" to plant around his house. In George's last letter to Gertrude in 1883, he announced the birth of a son and enclosed clippings of the hair of both children. The boy was a redhead like his father. No record exists that George ever returned to New York or that he found the riches that were always just over the next horizon.

Janet Webb Farnsworth, a life-long resident of northern Arizona, lives in Snowflake. She specializes in Southwestern history and travel. Photo illustration by Judy Miller with photographic contributions by Peter Noebels, Marty Cordano, Paul and Shirley Berquist, Arizona Historical Society, and University of Arizona Special Collections. Arizona Highways 19