In a previous adventure on The Way West, a young Phillipe St. George Cooke arrived at Cantonment Leavenworth, Fort Leavenworth’s earliest designation, in the spring of 1829. 2nd Lt. Cooke was with four companies of the 6th Infantry Regiment under the command of Maj. Bennett Riley. Within two weeks, he took the field in a campaign to protect freighting companies from marauding Pawnees along the Santa Fe Trail. The campaign kept the troops in the field throughout the summer.

The 6th Infantry returned to Cantonment Leavenworth on Nov. 8, 1829, and Cooke settled in to the daily routine of military life at an isolated frontier post. Quite unexpectedly, Cooke’s military routine was disrupted with the arrival of Miss Rachel Hertzog in the spring 1830. Miss Hertzog was on post at the invitation of her sister, Mrs. (Mary) Dougherty, the wife of Indian Agent Maj. John Dougherty. Sparks flew, and as the days turned into months, the budding romance led to the first military wedding west of the Missouri River on “Kansas” soil.

Except for a brief return east, Phillipe and Rachael Cooke made an enduring home at Fort Leavenworth. Four children, John Rogers, Flora, Maria and Julia, were born between 1833 and 1842.

There were many adventures for Phillipe and Rachael as they negotiated a life of dedication to the U.S. Army It was said of Phillipe Cooke that “Few soldiers had greater knowledge of the frontier inhabitants and trails leading west from Fort Leavenworth.” He was an expert horseman and was recognized as “The Father of the American Cavalry.”

In 1855, a young graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (Class of 1854) was transferred from his first assignment in Texas to the newly-formed 1st U.S. Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth. The dashing 2nd Lt. James Ewell Brown Stuart, known familiarly at JEB, was in his element. The Cavalry would be his life.

Phillipe St. George Cooke was now a lieutenant colonel and his daughter, Flora, was 19 years old. She had been educated in a private boarding school in Detroit, but that did not mean she was frail or that she led a pampered life. Flora easily attracted the attention of the gallant JEB Stuart. With an extraordinary skill as a horsewoman, she could outride most men and was accomplished with both pistol and rifle. She was described as “an effective charmer” to whom Stuart succumbed “with hardly a struggle.”

Soon, Flora and JEB were taking long evening rides together. Within weeks, the couple was engaged to be married. Of their engagement Stuart wrote, “Veni, Vidi, Victus, Sum.” (I came, I saw, I conquered). They were married Nov. 14, 1855, at Fort Riley.

Stuart served as a quartermaster and commissary officer at Fort Leavenworth. In June 1856, he was present for the dramatic negotiations between U.S. troops and John Brown after Brown had taken Henry Clay Pate captive at the Battle of Black Jack (near present- day Baldwin).

In the summer of 1857, Stuart participated in Col. Edwin V. Sumner’s campaign against the Cheyenne. The campaign was noted for the famous cavalry saber charge against warriors armed with bows and arrows and primitive firearms on the plains of western Kansas. Stuart survived a bullet wound to the chest, which only added to his mystique as man of indomitable courage.

In the spring of 1860 elements of the 1st Cavalry were ordered to commence “active operations” against the Kiowa and Comanche along the Arkansas River leading to the southwest. Lt. Stuart of Company G was appointed “journalist of the expedition” that lasted throughout the summer.

As the drums of war resounded in the states in April 1861, Stuart was promoted to captain, but with the succession of his home state of Virginia, he resigned his commission to serve in the materializing Confederate States of America. Stuart’s brother-in-law, 2nd Lt.

John Rogers Cooke, also resigned his Union commission to fight for the Confederacy.

Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke’s refusal to resign and join them in the Confederacy split the family. Cooke wrote “I owe Virginia little; my country much. She has entrusted me with a distant command and I shall remain under her flag as long as it waves the sign of the National Constitutional Government.”

Believing that allegiance should remain with their native state of Virginia, Stuart wrote to his brother- in-law, “He will regret it but once and that will be continually.”

Stuart would never speak to his father-in-law again. Flora remained as close to her husband as possible, but the trials of war did not allow her continual presence in the camps. The battle flag that was carried at the head of his troops was sewn and placed in Stuart’s hands by his “cherished wife.”

On May 12, 1864, an urgent message reached Flora stating that her husband was seriously wounded at Yellow Tavern. She rushed to his bedside, but he was gone by the time she arrived.

Flora wore black for the rest of her life. To one and all she was “Mrs. Gen. Stuart,” the cherished wife of Maj. Gen. JEB Stuart. Theirs was an enduring romance that began with long evening rides all those years ago when Kansas Territory was young, on The Way West.

“The Cowboy” Jim Gray can be reached at 220 21st Rd., Geneseo, KS 67444, (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@ kans.com.