Corpus Christi History
By Murphy Givens

Wednesday, Dec. 30, 1998

Tough women, Part 1

Amazon called `the Great Western' arrives with Taylor

   Frontier Texas, it was said, was hell on women and horses. This was when women were regarded as the softer sex who needed the protection of strong men. One of the rare exceptions of that time was Sarah Bourjett, famous for her courage, her strength, and her promiscuity.
   She was born in Tennessee about 1817. Her first husband enlisted in the 8th Regular Infantry at Jefferson Barracks, Mo. When Zachary Taylor's army landed in Corpus Christi in July, 1845, Sgt. Bourjett was with it, and so was his wife Sarah.
   She was a towering Amazon, 6-foot-3, weighed 200 pounds, and had flaming red hair and sparkling blue eyes. When she got off the boat at Camp Marcy in Corpus Christi, a soldier said she reminded him of the biggest ship of its day, with twin smokestacks, the British steamer named The Great Western.
   "Look at the size of her," he said, "she's as big as the Great Western." The name stuck.
   She was called a laundress, but she was a laundress only in the sense that in taking the soldiers' paychecks she took them to the cleaners. She opened an "eating saloon" and boarding house in Corpus Christi under her nickname, "The Great Western." An advertisement in the Corpus Christi Gazette said meals would be served to bachelors at any time, day or night, with oysters the house speciality. She provided other services not listed in the ad.
   When the army moved to the Rio Grande, her husband was sent by sea to Port Isabel; perhaps he was ill, but he soon dropped out of the picture. Camp followers were not allowed to tag along, but Sarah convinced someone to let her go and she bought a mule-driven cart to make the trip.
   Taylor's army reached the Colorado River on March 20, 1846. They ran into a company of Mexican cavalry. The Mexican horsemen taunted them from across the river. "The Great Western," carrying a rifle and a pistol, threatened to wade the river and "whip any scoundrel who shows himself."
   Mexican forces laid siege to Fort Texas (renamed Fort Brown) on the Rio Grande. The bombardment lasted a week. Sarah cooked and tended the wounded. She was in the thick of the fighting; one bullet tore a hole in her bonnet and she took the place of a dead soldier manning a cannon. A Mexican officer struck her with a saber, leaving a scar on her cheek.
   "The Great Western" became famous throughout the army for her part in the battle. When Taylor's army invaded Mexico and moved on to Monterrey, she went with it and opened a bawdy house called "The American House" in Monterrey. When the army moved to Saltillo, she opened a second American House.
   Taylor's army was attacked by Mexican forces at Buena Vista, five miles from Saltillo. A soldier from Indiana (perhaps a deserter) ran into the American House and yelled that Taylor had been badly whipped in the field by Santa Anna's army.
   "The Great Western" hit him between the eyes, sending him sprawling.
   "You son of a bitch," she said, "there ain't Mexicans enough in Mexico to whip old Taylor. You spread that rumor and I'll beat you to death."
   After the war was over and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed, much of the U.S. Army was being sent to take possession of California. The army's departure would have a depressing effect on Sarah's business, so she packed up and left and caught up with the army on the third day of the march. An officer described what happened:
   "She rode up to Major Buckner and asked permission to go with us; he informed her that if she would marry one of the dragoons, and be mustered in as a laundress, she could go. Her ladyship gave the military salute and then, riding along the front of the line, said, `Who wants a wife with $15,000 and the biggest leg in Mexico? Come, my beauties, don't all speak at once -- who's the lucky man?' "
   A man named Davis finally accepted the offer. The "marriage" lasted until they reached Juarez.
   "The Great Western" opened a place called the Central Hotel in El Paso in 1849. It was here that the legendary Texas Ranger Rip Ford ran into her. He wrote that "she could whip any man, fair fight or foul, could shoot a pistol better than anyone in West Texas, and at blackjack could outplay (or outcheat) the slickest professional gambler." No man in his right mind, Ford said, crossed her.
   She moved on to New Mexico and then Arizona, operating places of business along the way. She died from the bite of a tarantula spider on Dec. 23, 1866. She was buried with full military honors for services rendered, as one wit put it, "in hors de combat, or combat des whores."
   Sarah Bourjett Davis Bowman was a prostitute, but she refused to accept the limitations imposed on her gender by the times. She lived up to her nickname as "The Great Western," one of the most remarkable women of the Old West.
   (This is the first of two columns. The second, on Banquete's Sally Skull, will appear next Wednesday.)