Fanny Dunbar Corbusier, Recollections of Her Army Life, 1867-1908, and: Soldier, Surgeon, Scholar: The Memoirs of William Henry Corbusier, 1844-1930 (review)

Military memoirs are usually about wars but the richest lode of American military wives' memoirs is about the last days of the American frontier. Rare, indeed, are memoirs by both a husband and wife, thus Fanny and Will Corbusier's memoirs are of particular value. Readable and informative, they are welcome contributions to the literature of the frontier Army.

Fanny was a Southern belle who lived through the hardships of the Civil War in Louisiana and Alabama. The difficulties did not end with the war as she, a younger sister, and her mother, with what help a severely wounded brother could provide, tried to maintain their home. When she was thirty she met Will who was a contract surgeon with the occupying troops. A New Yorker, he had spent a year as a contract surgeon during the Civil War before he earned his M.D.

Within months, he was back with the Army on another limited contract. Although he was six years younger, they married and promptly set out for their first frontier station—a one-troop post in Nevada. It was a desolate place but they made the best of it. Both observed the wild life, the flowers, and the Indians closely. Will would eventually work up and publish the vocabularies of several tribes.

Ordered to an even more desolate post in Arizona, Fanny took her baby and traveled by sea, river, and in a spring wagon across the desert before reaching her destination just ten days before the birth of her second son. Again, there was the process of making do with whatever they had to make themselves as comfortable as possible in primitive conditions.

In 1876, Will finally received an appointment in the Regular Army as a surgeon. As the years passed he also earned additional income with his practice among civilians who lived near the post. There were respites for both of them in the East as they visited their families. Then, he did have several tours at Eastern posts which were not only much more comfortable but also, in some cases, afforded opportunities to send their boys to public schools. Yet, duty brought him back to the frontier.

Both Corbusiers were keenly aware of the necessity for educating their five sons. At times, both tutored them in various subjects or employed soldier tutors or civilian tutors who lived with them. As the boys matured, Fanny and Will decided that she should take them East and settle until they finished school. When she was sixty, in 1898, the Spanish-American War sent both her husband and two of her sons to the Philippines. She was anxious to join them but did not reach there until 1903. She and Will then spent more than two years on Mindanao. Life was not as difficult there as on the frontier. Besides, she was delighted to see the sights in Japan and Hawaii as they made the Pacific crossings.

After Will's retirement in 1908, they traveled abroad and throughout the United States as they visited their sons and other relatives. Fanny died during World War I, in which three of her sons served. After a brief call back to active duty, Will again retired and picked up their pattern of traveling about the country.

Fanny and Will Corbusier were interesting people who led rich lives and took care to write about their experiences as they participated in the last decades of the frontier and the first years of...