The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 86, July 1982 - April, 1983 Page: 49

A Woman's View of the Texas Frontier, 1874:
The Diary of Emily K. Andrews
Edited and annotated by SANDRA L. MYRES*
N THE LATE SUMMER OF 1874, COLONEL GEORGE LIPPITT ANDREWS,
commander of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, left his home in Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, to return to his post as commander at Fort Davis,
Texas. Accompanying the colonel were his new wife, Emily, and her
young daughter, Maud.' The Andrews party journeyed by ship and
rail to Austin, Texas, where they were joined by an escort from the
colonel's regiment and then proceeded via the Austin-Fredericksburg
stage road and the San Antonio-El Paso military road to Fort Davis.2
*Sandra L. Myres is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Arling-
ton and the editor of Cavalry Wife: The Dary of Eveline M. Alexander, 1866-1867 and
Ho for California! Women's Overland Diaries from the Huntington Library.
1Andrews was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1828. He served as a private in the
Fifth Ward City Guards in 1842 and in the Providence Marine Corps of Artillery in 1844.
In 1860, he went to Missouri as captain, Company B, Engineer Battalion, and after the
outbreak of the Civil War joined the Missouri Volunteer Infantry. In 1861 he was mus-
tered out of volunteer service and shortly thereafter was commissioned as a major in the
Seventeenth U.S. Infantry. He participated in a number of battles, including Second
Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and was breveted a colonel in 1863. After the
war, he served at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri; Fort Shaw and Fort Sully, Montana; and
as superintendent of Indian affairs for Arizona Territory before being appointed as com-
mander of the Twenty-fifth Infantry in 1871. "Mihitary Record of Colonel George L.
Andrews, 25th Infantry, U.S.A.," Adjutant General's Office, Record Group 94, National
Archives.
Andrew's first wife, Alice B. Potter, died in the spring of 1873 (?). Shortly thereafter,
he requested, and was granted, leave to return East to visit his only son, George, a cadet
at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and to settle his wife's estate. While
in the East, Andrews married Emily Kemble (Oliver) Brown, a widow and mother of a
young daughter, Maud. George L. Andrews to Adjutant General, U.S. army, Sept. 20,
1873, Adjutant General's Office, Letter Book, Vol. 16, p. 10o3, RG 94, NA.
2The Andrewses' route to Austin is not certain. However, most of the trip was probably
by sea since they had Mrs. Andrews's household goods, including a piano mentioned
later in the diaxy. A surprising number of women took their pianos West. A reminiscence
(written in the form of letters) by Guadaloupe Callan, also in the Barker Texas History
Center, recounts the adventures of her piano on a trip from Washington, D.C., to Fort