“Katie Bowen was literate, observant, curious, compassionate, lucid, and philosophical. Her letters are informative, affectionate, and delightful to read. These letters constitute one of the finest pre-Civil War collections about military life.”
Dr. Leo E. Oliva, Santa Fe Trail Historian
Lifelines: The Bowen Love Letters is a primary source collection of nearly seven hundred letters exchanged between Captain Isaac Bowen and his wife Catherine “Katie” Cary Bowen between 1846 and 1858 one of the finest pre-Civil War epistolary collections in American historical nonfiction.
This is not a historian’s account of the past. It is the past, told entirely in the words of the people who lived it.
The Story
Catherine “Katie” Cary is a hardy Maine girl from Houlton, a small village near the New Brunswick, Canada border. After being wooed by Second Lieutenant Isaac Bowen from Buffalo, New York, a recent West Point graduate — Katie decides to take a leap of faith. Her “gude man” opens her up to new experiences: romance, military life as an officer’s wife, becoming a mother, travel and its inherent dangers, the hardships of living on the western frontier, and the heartbreak of living so far away from her close family and friends.
Letters are Katie’s lifelines. She is a reliable and prodigious correspondent.
In this true story sourced from private, intimate letters spanning 1846 to 1858, the young newlyweds are separated for three years by the Mexican-American War before they have a chance to set up their own household. Isaac’s letters from the front — from the Battle of Monterrey and the Battle of Buena Vista provide a first-hand account of his service in northern Mexico from the perspective of a U.S. Army officer on the ground.
When Isaac returns safely, Katie and Isaac embark on the adventure of a lifetime on the Santa Fe Trail and across the American frontier:
- Drinking a soldier’s cracker toddy by campfire with General Zachary Taylor, Colonel Jefferson Davis, and a young Ulysses S. Grant
- Sipping champagne at the White House with President Millard Fillmore
- Receiving crucial military intelligence from frontier scout Kit Carson
- Enjoying tea and discussing philosophy with Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Being entertained with tall tales by a young steamboat pilot named Samuel Langhorne Clemens not yet known as Mark Twain
Katie is pregnant while traveling the Santa Fe Trail, but doesn’t mention it to her mother. In 1852, their son William “Willie” Holman Cary Bowen becomes the first child born at Fort Union, New Mexico Territory. Their daughter Agnes is born in Albuquerque in 1854. Millard Fillmore Bowen is born in New Orleans in 1856, and Robert Bowen follows in 1858.
Later, Katie and Isaac look back on their years in northeastern New Mexico Territory as the best of their lives.
Margaret — Margy
In 1851, when Isaac cannot find a reliable household servant, he purchases Margaret a young woman from Kentucky. Margaret travels with them to New Mexico and later to New Orleans. She lives with the Bowen family for seven years and helps raise their children, who love her dearly and call her Margy.
Despite being a valued member of the household, Margaret still feels enslaved. By the end of 1858, she is freed to start a new life.
Margy’s story does not end there. She is now the inspiration for the forthcoming Sergeant Bruno series a picaresque historical adventure told through the eyes of the Bowen family dog, with Margy as Bruno’s best friend and the moral heart of the story.
The Letters
Written under many conditions in Katie’s childhood bedroom, military tents, hotel rooms, carriages, wagons, on stagecoaches, trains and steamboats, and at various family homes the Bowen Love Letters display courage, devotion, determination, hope, humor, and a talent for gossip.
The letters include campfire recipes, remedies for diseases of the era, a delight in the change of seasons and its bounties, and a firm belief in the Divine Wisdom of Providence. Katie also shared detailed observations on frontier military life, the domestic texture of daily existence at Fort Union, and the extraordinary range of historical figures she and Isaac encountered personally.
Recognition
Lifelines: The Bowen Love Letters has been:
- Featured in Kansas History magazine
- Serialized in Wagon Tracks, the journal of the Santa Fe Trail Association
- Available through the Santa Fe Trail Association’s Last Chance Store
- Endorsed by Dr. Leo E. Oliva, the preeminent Santa Fe Trail historian
Get the Book
Lifelines: The Bowen Love Letters is available now in paperback and Kindle editions.