Excerpt from Arizoniana by Marshall Trimble, the state’s official historian.

One of the most colorful ladies who ever rode the old West was Sarah Bowman of Yuma. She didn’t fit the common frontier stereotype woman—calico dress, sunbonnet and a youngster hanging on each arm with another tugging at her skirt. In fact, there wasn’t anything common about Sarah. They called her the Great Western, after the biggest sailing ship of her day. Since she stood 6′ 2″ that didn’t seem to bother her; in fact, she liked the comparison.

The red-haired lady with blue eyes was a Southwestern legend in her own time. She could literally sweep men right off their feet (and did on more than one occasion). Because of her bravery during the Mexican War at the battle of Fort Texas, the soldiers affectionately dubbed her the American Maid of Orleans. The part about her being a “maid” was stretching things a bit but that happens a lot in Texas. Some folks might have questioned her morals—she had a long string of “husbands” during the war—but nobody ever ques­tioned her bravery or generosity. During the seven-day bombardment of Fort Texas (later Fort Brown) by Mexican artillery she dodged shells to serve hot coffee and soup to soldiers. Once she joined a battle charge declaring that if someone would loan her a pair of trousers she’d whip the whole Mexican army all by herself.

Sarah Bowman was born in Clay County, Missouri in 1812 and seems to have led a rather uneventful life until the war with Mexico broke out in 1846. When her husband volunteered for service she came along as a cook and laundress. He got sick and was put in a hospital so Sarah left him behind and went on with the regiment to Fort Texas on the Rio Grande.

During the siege she and nine other women, along with 50 men, were trying to hold against a superior Mexican force until the arrival of General Zachary Taylor’s army. Sarah was supposed to be sewing sandbags from soldiers’ tents but opted for more hazardous duty, defiantly dodging bullets to bring aid and comfort to the troops and thus earned their everlasting admiration. When Taylor’s army advanced into Northern Mexico she went along setting up hostels along the way. For Sarah it was truly a labor of love. Her husband died in the fighting around Monterey but the redoubtable Great Western continued to be the belle of Taylor’s army.

During the two-day battle of Buena Vista, Sarah’s com­manding presence caught the attention of officers and men alike as, once again, she moved fearlessly around the battle­ground serving hot coffee to the weary soldiers.

When the war ended, Sarah loaded her wagons and decided to ride along with Major Lawrence Graham’s dra­goons to California. When told army regulations required that a woman couldn’t travel with the troops unless she was married to one, she gave a snappy salute and announced with great alacrity, “All right, I’ll many the whole squadron.” She climbed atop the hurricane deck of her Mexican donkey and rode down the line shouting, “Who wants a wife with $15,000 and the biggest legs in Mexico! Come my beauties, don’t all speak at once—who is the lucky man?”

A fella named Davis took the challenge. “I have no objections to making you my wife,” he said, “If there is a clergyman here to tie the knot.” “Bring your blanket to my tent tonight,” she laughed, “and I will learn you a knot that will satisfy you, I reckon!”

Sarah’s ‘marriage’ to Davis didn’t last long. A short time later she cast her eyes on some mountain of a man her own size and fell madly in love—for a while. Actually, she switched husbands several times along the way.

Sarah got sidetracked in Franklin (El Paso), Texas and spent the next few months running an eating establishment that offered the customers other amenities not usually found in restaurants. Later, on the way to California, Sarah stopped at Arizona City (Yuma) at the Colorado River crossing and decided to set up business in a “dirt-roofed adobe house.”

Author Raphael Pumpelly noted in 1861 that Sarah was the only resident in the eight-year-old town. He described her as “… no longer young” and “… was a character of a varied past. She had followed the war of 1848 with Mexico. Her relations with the soldiers were of two kinds. One of these does not admit of analysis; the other was angelic, for she was adored by the soldiers for her bravery in the field and for her unceasing kindness in nursing the sick and wounded …”

Author-adventurer Captain James Hobbs described her as, “liked universally for her kind, motherly ways …” during the war.

Another observer, Jeff Ake said, “She always packed two pistols, and she shore could use “em.” He went on to say admiringly, “She was a hell of a good woman.” According to Ake’s father, Sarah was, “The greatest whore in the West.” In the proper context, this seems to be intended as a compliment.

Fort Yuma was evacuated briefly during the Confederate occupation so when the soldiers prepared to march to San Diego, Sarah sent her “girls” home to Sonora and “followed the guidon” once more. She returned a few months later with the California Column. Ol’ Dad Time was catching up with the Great Western. She died in Yuma on December 22, 1866. When the fort was abandoned years later, her remains and those of other soldiers who had died at that post were taken and re-buried at the Presidio in San Francisco.

Historians have used a lot of words including generous, loyal, devoted and brave, to describe Sarah Bowman, the Great Western. The community of Yuma, however, pays her the greatest compliment. Folks down there proudly call Sarah Bowman their First Citizen.

Excerpt from Arizoniana by Marshall Trimble, the state’s official historian.