(The following is installment two of three and is being continued from the July 30th issue.)

Installment 2

After leading the Indian Battalion from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Mann on the Santa Fe Trail near present-day Dodge City in November 1847, Lieutenant William Gilpin assigned the two companies of infantry and the artillery company to occupy Fort Mann, repair the buildings, and store supplies so the little outpost could serve as the base of operations against Plains tribes in the spring and summer of 1848. Captain Pelzer was left in command of the post while Gilpin took the two companies of cavalry up the Arkansas River to encamp for the winter months near Bent’s Fort. There, as reported to superiors, he hoped to work with Indian Agent Thomas Fitzpatrick, meet with some of the tribal leaders, and negotiate with them to prevent the Cheyenne and Arapaho from forming alliances with the Kiowa and Comanche, thereby further disrupting travel on the Santa Fe Trail. Gilpin planned, if possible, to isolate the Indian bands who were raiding from the more peaceful groups so the battalion could force the hostiles away from the route of travel. That is what happened, and the Indian Battalion brought peace to the Santa Fe Trail in 1848. It was the most successful U.S. military command ever to serve on the Santa Fe Trail. Elizabeth (Bill) was no longer a soldier by the time those operations were completed in the summer of 1848.

The apparent cozy relationship of Lieutenant Schnabel and Private Newcomb was disrupted soon after they arrived at Fort Mann. Private Newcomb was ready to quit playing soldier and tent mate. Some people reported she was pregnant, but there is no documentation in the available records to support that claim. Private Newcomb decided to desert the army and return to Missouri, or the lieutenant encouraged her to do so, perhaps realizing the disciplinary actions he might face if Bill were discovered to be Elizabeth. Desertion was a common problem in the frontier army, and little effort was expended to apprehend those who absconded.

A wagon train from Fort Leavenworth delivered provisions to Fort Mann in late November 1847, and when the empty wagons started the return trip on December 1, Private Newcomb hid in one of the wagons. Newcomb’s absence from Fort Mann was discovered the evening after the wagon train departed. The next morning, soldiers were sent to catch up with the wagon train, where they found the missing soldier. Private Newcomb’s true identity was exposed (apparently she made her gender known at this time). Still, she continued to serve as a soldier at Fort Mann for several months before she was sent to Fort Leavenworth with a wagon train and removed from military service.

One of the soldiers provided an account of the discovery of Private Newcomb’s true identity for a St. Louis newspaper: “There was a young man, as we supposed, who was mustered into the service at the fort, and who drew his money, and accouterments, stood guard, performed the duties of a soldier, and appeared well satisfied with the trip. On the night the train left he ‘came up missing,’—but as the train had corralled but a few miles below us, we determined to start early in the morning, and bring him back to camp. In the meantime, a rumor was prevalent that he was a she! They brought him back when he frankly acknowledged that he was a woman! She still goes by the familiar name of Bill.”

When Lieutenant Schnabel was court-martialed in August 1848, one of the charges was his enlistment of Elizabeth Newcomb in his company. The charge provides details and an interesting conclusion regarding the recruitment of a woman: “Gross fraud upon the United States in obtaining and conniving at the false muster of a female into the service…[He] was in the habit of calling her and did call her in the presence and hearing of members of said company, by the false and assumed name of ‘Bill Newcome’ and passed her off by such false name, at the same time resorting to various means to keep the said female disguised as a male, off from duty in the company under different pretexts and during all or portions of that period was tenting, sleeping and co-habiting with the said female, thereby defrauding the United States of the service of a good and competent soldier.”

Because it was unsafe to send the young woman home without transportation and protection, she remained at Fort Mann as a soldier until May 15, 1848, when a supply train of 32 wagons began the return trip to Fort Leavenworth. How she spent her time at Fort Mann on the Santa Fe Trail for some five months after her true identity was exposed is unknown, but she remained a soldier until her discharge in June 1848. It is possible she was assigned duties as a cook or, possibly, nurse, but no records have been located.

George Rutledge Gibson, who had served as a lieutenant in the First Regiment of Missouri Mounted Volunteers during the first year of the Mexican-U.S. War, was returning from New Mexico and accompanied the same wagon train with Private Newcomb. Gibson kept a detailed journal of his adventures during the war, and he recorded the following about Private Newcomb on May 17, 1848: “We have in company a strange customer, no other than a woman in a man's clothes. She enlisted in Col. Gilpin’s Battalion and performed all her duties as a soldier, nor was her sex suspected until she disclosed it herself. There is nothing suspicious about her appearance, and she mixes with the Teamsters as one of them, smokes, chews, and acts like a man. After her sex was discovered, she was sent back to the States by this train and furnishes rough jokes daily for these men of hardy habits. She has not yet laid aside men's clothes.”