Between the Covers

Hardcover. Commercial album in decorative cloth over boards. Measuring 10” x 13”. Contains 118 photos mounted on paper leaves and 23 loose prints laid-in, a total of 141 original photographs, including numerous cyanotypes. Most of the photos measure from about 3” x 4” to 5” x 8”, but included are some larger format cyanotypes measuring up to 8” x 10”. Most are captioned, sometimes a bit sloppily, but mostly readable with only modest effort. Additionally mounted in the album are over 100 original freehand sketches and caricatures by Arthur in pen & ink, pencil, wash, and watercolor. The sketches and caricatures are mounted after the photos on the rectos and versos of ten leaves; six are laid-in. Both boards and several leaves are detached, else about very good overall: most leaves have short tears and fraying at the edges with occasional modest creasing and short tears to the edges of some of the mounted prints and drawings, and some fading and scattered staining.

At least 35 photos (cyanotypes and gelatin silver prints) date from when then Captain (later Brigadier General) William Arthur was posted as Assistant Surgeon at Fort Bowie, Arizona in 1888, and at two other U.S. Military forts: Ft. Bayard, New Mexico (1888-90) and Ft. Grant, Arizona (1890-92). Included among the other photographs are snapshots of colleagues and friends, and of family members and their residences in the Midwest and back East.

Brigadier General William Hemple Arthur was a leading American Army Surgeon and was later the first commanding officer of Walter Reed General Hospital. Born in Baltimore in 1856, he graduated from medical school at the University of Maryland in 1877. In 1881 he was appointed Lieutenant and Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army, and served in the Indian Campaigns of the Far West from 1881-1892: first in Wyoming at Ft. Sanders, and soon thereafter at Fort Washakie, where he and his wife Laura Bouvier developed close ties with Chief Washakie, head of the Eastern Shoshones.

For the next four years he was engaged in “a mixed military and civilian practice” that involved “much rough frontier surgery, including work upon fractures and dislocations, as well as gunshot and knife wounds of varying degrees.” At Fort Washakie he was the sole doctor who provided “medical care to the small garrison, to all the Indians on the reservation, about 4,000 … and to all the cowboys, miners and odds and ends of civilians found on the frontier, who came in for a radius of 150 miles.” He also was sent to Fort Douglas at Salt Lake City for duty as post surgeon during a severe epidemic of typhoid fever.

In 1885 he was ordered back East for assignment at Fort Niagara, New York, and was promoted to captain. In 1888 he returned to the Far West, having been ordered first to Fort Bowie, Arizona and then to Fort Bayard, New Mexico (where he met and befriended future General John J. Pershing). In 1890 he was transferred to Fort Grant in Arizona for duty with the 10th Cavalry and the 12th Infantry, where he remained until April, 1892.

Most of the photographs in the album span this period from 1883 to 1892. Featured among the approximately 35 photographs taken in the Far West are:

Twelve cyanotypes taken at Fort Bowie in 1888, including snapshots of Arthur with colleagues, his wife Laura Bouvier and their dogs, one of whom is named “Washakie” after their friend Chief Washakie.

Three gelatin prints (likely Fort Bowie) of two “Cowboys” on horseback; horses and wagons; and of Arthur in uniform with a sword.

One gelatin silver print (6¼” x 4¼”) taken at Fort Grant of five Native Americans, including a child, all in ceremonial dress. This print is captioned underneath in pencil: “1891 / Taken by Capt. Dodge, killed before Santiago, 1898.” Captain Charles Dodge of the 24th United States Infantry was killed in Cuba in 1898. At the time this photograph was taken, Arthur was at Fort Grant, and Dodge was serving with him as First Lieutenant.

Five gelatin silver prints taken at Fort Bowie in 1888 including snapshots of Laura and the dogs, and of soldiers “Returning from marching drill.”

Four gelatin silver prints (likely Fort Grant, or possibly Fort Bayard) including a snapshot of Arthur at his desk in an officer’s quarters; a “Giant Cactus, New Mexico”; “Quarter masters’ wagons”; and “Inspection of Cavalry”: most likely the 10th Cavalry at Fort Grant, Arizona.

Six gelatin silver prints (likely Fort Grant) including two snapshots of soldiers and cavalry at the stables, most likely the 10th Cavalry at Fort Grant.

Two gelatin silver prints (likely Fort Grant) of four Native Americans captioned underneath the print: “Gossip – Indian Squaws …” (6½” x 4¼”); and: “Inspection of Indian Scouts” (6½” x 3”).

Two gelatin silver prints of two senior officers in a drawing room, and one of two horses.

Included among the other photographs are images of family members and of Arthur’s wife Laura Bouvier. Two family residences are identified at Philadelphia and Chicago. Also included are unidentified family members photographed at a farm, likely Bouvier’s family farm in Missouri.

Included among photographs laid into the album and of special interest is a mysterious and macabre sepia-toned carbon photograph of a seated skeleton in female dress, holding a doll baby, likely dating from the mid-1870s when Arthur was a medical school student in Maryland.

Many of the approximately 103 original sketches and caricatures at the back of the album most likely date from the late 1870s - early 1880s, before Arthur’s appointment to the Far West. According to a biography written by a close friend, during his student days Arthur had developed “a remarkable talent for sketching and caricature” a skill that he practiced throughout his career. His most famous caricature “The Examining Board” was created circa 1903-05, when he was a member of the Army Medical Examining Board and chief surgeon at Barnes Hospital, U.S. Soldier’s Home. Although none of the caricatures in the album are dated, there are also likely several dating from the 1890s.

From Fort Grant in April, 1892 Arthur went to Vancouver Barracks, Washington, before being ordered back East. At Fort Meyer, Virginia he worked under Major Walter Reed, and was promoted to Major and Chief Surgeon. During the Spanish-American war he outfitted and commanded the hospital ship *Missouri*, and he also served in the China Relief Expedition during the Boxer Rebellion. He continued to serve as chief surgeon and commander of several army hospitals in the Philippines and Washington, DC, before taking command of the newly formed Walter Reed Hospital (1909-11).

During World War I, when Arthur was serving as commander of the Army Medical School and president of the Army Medical Examining Board in Washington, DC, he and his old friend General Pershing caused “much surprise in military circles” when several high ranking officers who were expected to qualify for services in France, were “found physically or otherwise unfit” by the medical board and were relieved of their commands. The story was reported in the *Washington Post*, which noted that the vacancies occasioned by “Pershing’s Exacting Standards … will afford opportunity for advancement of a corresponding number of brigadiers and colonels …” The vacancies also likely had a positive effect on the advancement of future Generals Douglas MacArthur and George Patton, thus in the long term providing some considerable impact on the conduct of World War II as well.

A remarkable primary resource documenting the life, photography, and peripherally, the caricatures of a historically important Brigadier General during the final decade of the Indian campaigns in Arizona and New Mexico. A more detailed listing of the album’s contents is available.

Item #437276