May 15, 191O.
Dear Mrs. Summerhayes:
I have read every word of your book "Vanished Arizona" with
intense interest. You have given a vivid account of what you
actually saw and lived through, and nobody can resist the
truthfulness and reality of your narrative. The book is a real
contribution to American history, and to the chronicles of army
life.
Faithfully yours, WM. LYON PHELPS,
[Professor of English literature at Yale University.]
LONACONING, MD., Jan. 2, 1909.
Col. J. W. Summerhays, New Rochelle, N. Y.
Dear Sir:
Captain William Baird, 6th Cavalry, retired, now at Annapolis,
sent me Mrs. Summerhay's book to read, and I have read it with
delight, for I was in "K" when Mrs. Summerhays "took on" in the
8th. Myself and my brother, Michael, served in "K" Company from
David's Island to Camp Apache. Doubtless you have forgotten me,
but I am sure that you remember the tall fifer of "K", Michael
Gurnett. He was killed at Camp Mohave in Sept. 1885, while in
Company "G" of the 1st Infantry. I was five years in "K", but my
brother re-enlisted in "K", and afterward joined the First. He
served in the 31st, 22nd, 8th and 1st.
Oh, that little book! We're all in it, even poor Charley Bowen.
Mrs. Summerhays should have written a longer story. She soldiered
long enough with the 8th in the "bloody 70's" to be able to write
a book five times as big.
