The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004 Page: 364
660 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Hzstorical Quarterly
banks of the Trinity and throughout her three-and-a-half-year tenure
there with her husband the only officer's lady at Fort Worth. One of the
junior officers who enjoyed her hospitality, Lt. Samuel Starr, described
her as "quite a firm little lady," and an early resident summed up
Catherine's life at Fort Worth with only slight exaggeration as, "a lone
woman in a frontier garrison with no other sympathizing females within
hundreds of miles to lend a comforting hand."' She was only twenty-five
when she first saw Fort Worth.
Ripley Arnold the officer was a brave, conscientious man, one of the
very few army officers to win multiple commendations and even brevet
promotions during the Seminole Wars. He demonstrated remarkable
initiative as a staff officer, small unit commander, and recruiter. He was
a harsh taskmaster who demonstrated a typical martinet's weakness for
being a stickler for details toward others while displaying a cavalier atti-
tude for rules and regulations when they applied to himself As a garri-
son commander he rode his men hard, punishing infractions harshly
although creatively, and made the tiny fort on the Trinity a model fron-
tier post. One of the pioneer settlers of the little community that grew
up around the fort later described Arnold as "every inch a commanding
soldier."8 He proudly wore the blue and gold uniform of the dragoons, a
career soldier who spent nineteen of his thirty-six years in military ser-
vice to his country.
Unfortunately, the redheaded major was also stubborn and hot-tem-
pered and his career was marked by frequent personal quarrels that
quickly escalated. He was a firm believer in the Southern tradition of
dueling. A trail of courts-martial going back to his West Point days was
testimony to his problems controlling his temper." When not provoked,
however, he was a devoted and caring officer and family man.
In the spring of 1853 Arnold was ordered back to Fort Graham, bid-
ding farewell to Fort Worth for the last time. On September 6, 1853, the
thirty-six-year-old brevet major was commanding Company F of the
Second Dragoons at the small fort on the Brazos River. Dr. Steiner was
the civilian contract surgeon at Fort Graham, usually a benign role, but
there had been bad blood between him and Arnold for some time.
Disputes between garrison commanders and their medical officers were
7 S. H. Starr to E. K Starr [wife], from Fort Worth, Jan. 6, 1850, Starr Papers (Center for
American History, University of Texas at Austin); Howard W. Peak, A Ranger of Commerce (San
Antonio- Naylor Printing Co, 1929), 238.
8 Biographical essay by Howard W Peak (typescript), in "Ripley Arnold" vertical file, Local
History and Genealogy Department (Fort Worth Pubhc Library, Central Branch, Fort Worth)
' U.S. Army Court Martial Records, Record Group 94, files CC225 & 243, EE 16 (National
Archives).364
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004, periodical, 2004; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101224/m1/422/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.