TENTING ON THE PLAINS
OR
General Custer in Kansas and Texas
BY
ELIZABETH b’ CUSTER
Author of “Boots and Saddles.”
NEW YORK
Charles L. Webster & Company
Copyrighted, 1887,
CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO.
(All rights reserved.)
PRESS OF
Jenkins & McCowan, Centre St.
DEDICATION TO TENTING ON THE PLAINS. TO HIM WHOSE BRAVE AND BLITHE ENDURANCE MADE THOSE WHO FOLLOWED HIM FORGET, IN HIS SUNSHINY PRESENCE, HALF THE HARDSHIP AND THE DANGER.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Biographical Sketch of Major-General George A. Custer. 1-25
CHAPTER I.
Good-by to the Army of the Potomac— Off for Texas
—Twenty Minutes for Dinner— History of Eliza- Down the Mississippi— A Crevasse— General Custer Meeting Confederate General Hood 27-62
CHAPTER II.
New Orleans after the War— General Winfield Scott— Up Red River— The Skill of the Pilots— Our Romantic Lover— At Alexandria— A Negro Prayer-Meeting— Confederate Forts— Quicksands— Alligator Hunting 63-92
CHAPTER III.
Mutiny— Trial by Court Martial— A Military Execution —Marching Through Texas— Foraging for a Bed- Joy over a Pillow— Every Man has his Price— Four Months in a Wagon— Life Without a Looking-Glass 93-13°
CHAPTER IV.
Marches Through Pine Forests— Officers Attacked with Break-Bone Fever— Promises of Bold-Flowing Streams— Introduction to the Pine-Tree Rattle-Snake —Scorpions, Tarantulas, Centipedes, Chiggers and Seed-ticks— Crossing the Ponton—” I Went A- Fishing ” ‘ 31-149
VIU CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER V.
Out of the Wilderness— Our Camp at Hempstead — Hospitality of Southern Planters — The General’s Deer-Hunting — A Baptism of Gore — Escape from Being Blown up by Powder — Eliza Establishes an Orphan Asylum — The Protecting Care that Officers
Show to Women 1 50-1 78
CHAPTER VI.
A Texas Norther— A School-Girl’s First Impression of
Texas — The Ants as our Thriving Neighbors — Gen-
eral Custer 111 of Break-Bone Fever — Measuring an
Alligator — The March to Austin — Chasing Jack-Rab-
bits—Byron, the Greyhound T 179-208
CHAPTER VII.
Byron as a Thief — An Equestrian Dude — Mexican Horse
Equipage and Blankets — General Custer visits a Deaf
and Dumb Asylum — Tales of Lawlessness — Pistols
Everywhere — Entertainments at our Quarters — Eliza’s
Colored Ball 209-236
CHAPTER VIII.
Letters Home — Extracts— Caught by a Norther — Longing
for a Yankee Wood-Pile — Colonel Groome of 1812 —
Jack Rucker Beaten in a Horse-Race — Ginnieand her
Family — Our Father Custer’s Dog 237-259
CHAPTER IX.
Disturbed Condition of Texas — A Woman’s Horse Edu-
cation at the Stables — Leaving Austin for Hemp-
stead— Sam Houston a Hero among our Offi-
cers— Detention in Galveston — A Texas Norther on
the Gulf of Mexico — Narrow Escape from Ship-
wreck— Return Home on a Mississippi Steamer. . . . 260-290
CHAPTER X.
Father Custer Gives an Account of how he was a Boy with
his Boys on the Mississippi River — A Family Robbery
— General Custer Parts with his Staff at Cairo and
Detroit— The Silent Heroes — Temptations to Induce
General Custer to Resign — Offers from Mexico — One
of his Class-mates Enters the Ministry 291-321
CONTENTS. IX
CHAPTER XI.
Reception by the War Veterans of their Boy General — ,
Appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry 1
— A Raid after a Pretty Girl -Our Family of Horses
and Dogs — Orders to Report at Fort Riley, Kansas —
Jollifications at St. Louis — Friendship for Lawrence
Barrett 322-347
CHAPTER Xn.
Good-by to Civilization — Westward Ho ! — The Prairie-
Schooner as we First Saw It — A few Comments on
the Wisdom of the Army Mule — The Wagon-Master
and Mule-Whacker as Types of Western Eccentricity
— Carrying Supplies to Distant Posts — First Overland
Journey in an Army Ambulance — Arrival at Fort
Riley — Border Warfare Between Quarrelsome Dogs
— The Hospitality of Officers and their Families — Wel-
comed and Housed by one of General Custer’s Old
Friends — Changing of Quarters According to Army
Regulations — Preparing a New-Comer for his Call on
the Commanding Officer’s Family — The New Arrival
Presents Himself in very Full Dress — Diana’s Horse
tells Tales — General Custer Takes his Dogs and gives
run to his Horse over the Plains — His Horses Com-
mune with him after their Dumb Fashion — The
Strength of his Arm Reserved for the Country —
Separated from the Post by the Prairie Divides —
We Trade Horses — Phil Sheridan Tested on a Race-
Track — Fighting Dissipation in the Seventh Cavalry
— General Custer’s Temptations — The Family Teach
him to Appreciate his Sunburned Nose — Men Who
Command the Admiration of Women — The Inde-
structibility of an Army Demijohn 349-403
CHAPTER XIII.
“Good Society” — An Embarrassing Position for an
Officer — The General Extricates Him — A Mock Trial
— Varieties of Character — Lessons in Horsemanship —
A Disgraced Cavalry Woman — Gossip — A Medley of
Officers and Men — War on a Dressing-Gown 404-439
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER XIV.
Ristori, and the Course of True Love — A Proposal on the
House-top— Gideon’s Band — A Letter from Charles
C. Leland — Breitmann in Kansas — Clever Rogues
Escape from the Guard-House — Marketing in Junc-
tion City — Crossing a Swollen River — The Story of
Johnnie — An Expedition Leaves Fort Riley for a
Campaign 440-48/
CHAPTER XV.
A Prairie Fire — Letters from the General— Lending a
Dog for a Bedfellow — Beauty’s Bows and Beaux —
Negro Recruits Turn the Post into a Circus — Ladies
Fired on by a Sentinel — The Sugar Mutiny — Small-
pox in the Garrison — General Gibbs Restores Order —
An Earthquake at Fort Riley 488-514
CHAPTER XVL
Extracts from General Custer’s Letters— The March from
Fort Riley to Fort Harker— Dogs and Horses on their
First Western Campaign— Experiences in Messing in
a Country Void of Supplies— Chasing Jack-rabbits. . 515-530 j
CHAPTER XVII. I
Extracts from Letters to General Custer— Crossing Fox |
River — Account of the Undisciplined Troops — War’s
Alarms — Mourning for Custis Lee 531-549
CHAPTER XVIII.
Gratitude — A Great Snow-Storm — The Sibley Tent —
General Custer Defines his Ambition — The Cook
Devises Strange Additions to the Bill of Fare — Gen-
eral Hancock Holds a Council with the Chiefs of the
Cheyennes — The Indian Nobility Request that their
Supper be Served before the Talk — The Pipe of Peace
— A Hint for Further Refreshments — General Custer
Visits the Villages of Sioux, Apaches and Cheyennes
— A Deputation of Three Hundred Warriors and
Chiefs in Battle Line — The General’s Description of
Them — Civilized and Barbarous Warfare Confronting
Each Other — Flight of the Indians — General Custer
and his Regiment are sent in Pursuit — Extracts from
General Custer’s Letters Written from Fort Larned. . 550-561
1
CONTENTS. XI
PAGE
CHAPTER XIX.
Extracts from General Custer’s Letters from Fort Hays
and Fort Wallace- An Account of Killing his First
BufTalo-Calf-The Death of Custis Lee-Extract from
a Letter Written by General Hancock on the Indian
Depredations-Riding to Meet the Mail-T he Doctor
Eats Indian Soup in the Village-Some Items Regard-
ing a Match Bufialo-Hunt
CHAPTER XX.
Sacrifices and Self-Denial of Pioneer Duty-Poor Water
^nd Alkaline Dust-Vagaries of Western Water-
Ways-Digging in Sunken Stream-Beds for Water
-Rivers Unfringed by Trees or Shrubs-The Allur-
ing Mirage-A Short Tribute to the Western
Pioneers— Their Endurance, Patience and Courage
-The Governor of a Western Territory Shines as a
Cook as well as a Statesman-The General Writes o
his First Buf?alo-Hunt-An Accidental Discharge of
his Pistol Kills my Horse, Custis Lee-General
Sherman as a Special Providence-The Western
Town on a Move-Government makes no Provision
for Army Women to say their Prayers-Journey
to Fort Hays-The Match Hunt of the Regiment-
Supper Given by the Vanquished to the Victors-
Reception Given by the Elements on our Arrival-
The Tent Goes Down-A Scout to Fort McPherson
-A Sentinel Fires on his Friends by Mistake-
General Custer sends Escort to take us to his Camp
-Captain Robbins and Colonel Cook Attacked, and
• Fight for Three Hours ‘4 29
CHAPTER XXI.
Encamped on Big Creek-Preparation for Storms-^
Flood at Fort Hays-Kansas Lightning-Solicitude
about a Clothes-Line-Women to the Rescue-Men
Saved from Drowning-A New Kind of Ferry-Boat
-Gatling Guns as Anchors-Ghastly Lights-Lhza s
Narrative-Flora McFlimsey on the Frontier-The ^^^
Retreat to a Prairie Divide 3^^ 35
xii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXII.
Ordered Back to Fort Harker — A Drunken Escort —
Wild-Flowers — Color without Odor — Game — Wild
Horses — A Dromedary on the Plains — A Woman
Pioneering — A Riddled Stage — Our Bed Running
Away — Cholera — A Contrast — Reckoning Chances of
Promotion — The Addled Mail-Carrier 656-675
CHAPTER XXni.
The First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry — Reinforce-
ments of Black Troops — A Negro’s Manoeuvre — A
Unique Official Report — Peculiar Fortifications —
Indian Attack on a Stage — A Desperate Running
Fight — A Plucky Woman — Cholera at Fort Wallace
— Return of the Seventh There — Swindling Contract-
ors— Desertions — An Ingenious Prison — Fort Wallace
Attacked — A Brave and Skillful Sergeant — The
Worst Days of the Seventh — No Letters — General
Custer’s March to Fort Harker for Supplies — A Day
at Fort Riley — Happiness at Last 67C-702
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Portrait of Major-General George A. Custer Frontispiece.
Maps of Texas in 1866 and in 1886 Page 26
Eliza Cooking Under Fire 43
Sabre Used by General Custer During the War 85
A Mule Lunching From a Pillow ’23
General Custer as a Cadet • 37
Our Bunkies ’71
Measuring an Alligator ^99
General Custer at the Close of the War (Aged 25) 265
“Stand There, Cowards, will you, and See an Old Man
Robbed ? ” -95
General Custer with his Horse “Vic,” Stag-hounds and
Deer-hounds 333
Maps of Kansas in 1866 and Kansas to-day 34^
Conestoga Wagon, or Prairie-schooner 35 1
The Officer’s Dress — A New-comer for a Call 375
A Suspended Equestrienne 3^7
General Custer at His Desk in His Library 409
Gun-stand in General Custer’s Library 45′
Trophies of the Chase in General Custer’s Library 467
Whipping Horses to Keep them from Freezing 497
“Well, You are a Warm-blooded Cuss ! ” 5^3
Smoking The Pipe of Peace 557
A Buflfalo Undecided as to an Attack on General Custer 567
A Buffalo at Bay 573
A Match Buffalo Hunt 607
Gathering and Counting the Tongues 611
The Banquet 613
The Addled Letter-carrier 673
Negroes form their own Picket-line 679
An Attack on a Stage-coach 683
XUl
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
OF
MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GEN-
ERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER.
/^ENERAL GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUS-
^^ TER was born in New Rumley, Harrison
County, O., Decembers, 1839. He was the elaest
of a family of five children, consisting of four
boys and one girl — Thomas, Nevin, Boston and
Margaret. There were three sets of children in the
family, as the father, Emanuel Custer, was a wid-
ower with a son and daughter when he married
Mrs. Kirkpatrick, who also had two sons. There
was such harmony and happiness among them
that outsiders knew no difference between full or
half brothers and sisters, and they themselves al-
most resented the question, saying that it was a sub-
ject they never discussed, nor even thought about.
Armstrong, as he was called at home, became his
father’s and mother’s idol and pride when he first
began to talk, for he was very bright and extremely
affectionate. His father belonged to the militia of
the county, and took the boy out on training days,
or whenever there happened to be any military dis-
play in the town. Almost the first little speech
2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
he learned was a line he picked up from a decla-
mation one of his elder brothers was committing
to memory as a school task. His father was
proud, as well as surprised, to hear the little Arm-
strong lisp out one day, waving his tiny arm in
the air, ” My voice is for war.” How soon this
love for military life became a settled purpose no
one knows, for the boy was reticent as to his
future ; and always tender and considerate of his
invalid mother, he would not hurt her by talking
of leaving home. He only said, as he followed
the plough on his father’s farm, that he would not
choose that life for his future. He loved books,
and when his brothers either slept or played at
the nooning time, he lay in the furrow and pored
over the lives of distinguished men or tales of
travel and adventure, that the thoughtful father
denied himself some comfort in order to buy for
his boys.
General Custer, when asked once in his home how
he came to be able to command a brigade of cav-
alry at the age of twenty-three, attributed a great
deal of the success he had attained to the lesson
of self-control he had learned in teaching school,
and said that the duties of a teacher were an ad-
mirable training for a man who afterward com-
manded troops. The lad Armstrong was deter-
mined to obtain an education, and taught the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER. 3
district school in order to defray his expenses at
an academy at Hopedale. He afterward went
to Monroe, Mich., to avail himself of the ad-
vantages of an excellent academy for boys, and
paid his way by working for his half-sister, with
whom he lived. During this time of work and
study his mmd was fixed on entering the military
academy at West Point. He consulted no one,
but on his return to Ohio he framed such a manly,
earnest letter to the Member of Congress from his
father’s district, the Hon. John A. Bmgham, that,
though opposed in politics, he could not refuse,
and out of eleven applications departed from the
usual rule, and gave the appointment to the son
of one who was not his constituent.
The leaving-taking at home was the first trial
for the boy Armstrong. His choice of profession
was a surprise and a great trial to the devoted
mother, but she was a superior woman, and real-
ized that she had reared a son whose life could
not be circumscribed by the narrow confines of
his father’s farm. Cadet life was a period of al-
most uninterrupted happiness, but, though quick
in mastering his tasks, his buoyant, fun-lovmg
temperament kept Cadet Custer very near the
foot of the class. He was wont to say, laugh-
ingly, in after years, that it required more skill to
graduate next to the foot, as he did, than to be at
4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
the head of the Hst ; as, to keep within one of
going out, and yet escape being dropped, was a
serious problem.
He was graduated in the June of 1861, and was
too eager for active service to take the usual leave
of absence, but reported for duty at Washington
at once. Having had the privilege of choosing
the profession he liked, his enthusiasm at the pros-
pect of entering at once into the field had but one
serious side. He was deeply attached to his
Southern classmates ; and those with whom he had
parted with sadness, as one by one they returned
to their seceding State, were now to be arraigned
before him on an opposite side. But though they
afterward fought one another constantly during
the war, the attachment of cadet days was too
deep-seated to be disturbed. After the surrender
at Appomattox he met and entertained at his
headquarters his Southern classmates, while on the
night of the surrender seven Confederate generals,
whom he had captured, shared his tent and slept
under the same blankets with him.
On the 20th of July, 1861, Lieutenant Custer
reported for duty to the adjutant-general of the
army, and was intrusted with despatches from
General Scott to General McDowell. After deliver-
ing the despatches at 3 o’clock in the morning, at
the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, he
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER. r
reported for duty to the Fifth Cavalry, to which he
had been assigned. He was wont to say, laughingly,
that he “reached the front just in time to run with all
the rest” after the disastrous day at Bull Run. His
comrades represent him as the hardest rider among
them. If the regiment was relieved, and ordered
to turn into .quarters for recuperation, Lieutenant
Custer, after seeing to the feeding of his horse,
obtained permission to be absent from his com-
mand, and was off, as his fellow-soldiers described
it, “smelling out another fight.” He became lean
and haggard, though perfectly well, and his un-
groomed horse was also gaunt from hard service.
On one of these expeditions about the Army of
the Potomac, which stretched for miles over the
country. General Kearney, who was also a hard
rider and an untiring soldier, saw young Custer
and invited him to become a member of his staff.
Lieutenant Custer remained with him until an
order was issued relieving regular officers from
staff duty with volunteer generals. In the win-
ter of 1861-62 he remained with his regiment
and served in the defenses of Washington,
engaging in the Manassas and Peninsula cam-
paigns; and at Cedar Run he led his squadron in a
charge against the Confederate pickets, and forced
them to retire across the stream. He marched
with his regiment when the Army of the Potomac
6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
chanofed its base to the Peninsula; and at Warwick
was selected as assistant to the chief of engineers
on the staff of General (Baldy) Smith, retaining^
that position until the army halted at the Chicka-
hominy River. At the siege of Yorktown he was
engaged in the superintending of the construction
of earthworks, and was also given the duty of
making reconnoissances in a balloon, being among
the first to discover and report the evacuation of
the town. He took part in the battle of Williams-
burg with General Hancock’s brigade, and was
highly commended by that officer after leading
two regiments to an important position near Fort
Magruder. He commanded a company in an
important skirmish at New Bridge, near Cold
Harbor, on May 24, which was the result of a
reconnoissance to secure information concerning
the fords and roads. in that vicinity and to attack
the enemy, who were reported encamped near the
bridge.
General McClellan’s headquarters were about
a mile from the Chickahominy River, and it was
desirous that a safe crossing for the army should
be discovered. Lieutenant Custer, in one of his
customary sallies by himself, in search of any
portion of the army that might be having a
skirmish, met General Barnard, of General McClel-
lan’s staff, and offered to try for the ford for which
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER. 7
the chief engineer of the army was looking. He
not only found a safe and firm crossing to the
opposite bank, but concluded, while over there,
to make a reconnoissance to ascertain what he
could of the position of the enemy. The Gen-
eral in vain attempted, by gestures, to deter him
from this venturesome deed. He reported, on his
return, that the principal picket guard could be
captured by determined men.
General Barnard could not pass such conduct by
unnoticed, and asked the dripping, muddy lieuten-
ant to his headquarters. It was in this predicament
he first met General McClellan, with his brilliant
staff, described then as resembling the glittering tail
of a meteor as they rode behind their chief in full
uniform. Lieutenant Custer was a sorry sight. He
often laughed, in describing himself in after years,
and drew a comical contrast between his Rozi-
nante of a horse, rough, muddy and thin, his own
splashed, weather-worn clothes, and the superbly
equipped men who confronted him. After the chief
engineer had reported what the young lieutenant
had accomplished. General McClellan rode up to
him, and asked if he would like to become one of
his staff. He accepted the appointment at once,
and was made aide-de-camp of volunteers, with
the rank of captain, to date from June 5, 1862.
He immediately asked to be permitted to attack
8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
the picket guard he had discovered that day, and
at dayhght next morning surprised the enemy,
who retreated so hastily that they left their dead
and wounded on the field. He took some prison-
ers, and had also the honor to take the first colors
that were captured by the Army of the Potomac.
While on the staff of General McClellan he par-
ticipated in the battle of Fair Oaks, the seven
days’ fighting, including the battles of Gaines’s
Mill and Malvern Hill, the skirmish in White Oak
Swamp, and the evacuation of the Peninsula.
After General McClellan was relieved from the
command of the army. Captain Custer continued
on his personal staff, and later was engaged in
the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, and
the pursuit of the enemy to Warrenton. At this
time he was promoted in his regiment from second
to first lieutenant, to date from July 17, 1862.
He took part in the brilliant cavalry Engagement
at Barbee’s Cross-roads on November 5, as a
representative of the headquarters staff, and two
days after he followed General McClellan into
retirement. He was devoted to General McClel-
lan, and was grieved and keenly disappointed
when his chief was retired from active service.
The last magazine article he ever wrote, published
after his death, spoke with enthusiasm, affection,
and faith undisturbed after fourteen years. In
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER. 9
like manner General McClellan bore testimony to
his unwavering friendship for his old aide-de-camp
in “McClellan’s Own Story,” pubHshed after his
death by Webster & Co.
While Captam Custer was on waiting orders he
remained in his half-sister’s home, Monroe, Mich.,
among the schoolmates and friends of several
years before. As it was winter, and no active
operations were going on at the front, he was not
impatient, and the time did not drag. It was in
Monroe that he met his wife, the daughter of
Judge Daniel S. Bacon, and, but for the Judge’s
opposition to military life for his only daughter,
they would have then been married. On March
31, 1863, he was discharged from volunteer com-
mission, and joined his company at Capitol Hill,
D. C, on the 3d of April, where he served until
May 15, and was appointed aide-de-camp to Gen-
eral Pleasonton, participated in the closing opera-
tions of the Rappahannock campaign, was en-
gaged in the action at Brandy Station ; and for
daring gallantry in the skirmish at Aldie he was
appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers, to
date from June 29, 1863, and was assigned to the
Michigan brigade, which he soon made famous.
The men of his brigade adored him, and used to
boast to their comrades in other commands, ” Our
boy-general never says ‘ Go in, men !’ he says, with
lO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
that whoop and yell of his, * Come on, boys !’ and
in we go, you bet.”
General Custer was then twenty-three years of
age, the youngest general in the service ; his
golden hair fell in curls on his shoulders, in obey-
ance to a boyish whim and a bet that he would
not cut it till the war was ended. On his lip was
his first downy mustache, but his keen eye marked
the determination and ability to command, while
his valor was, as the soldiers said, of that sort that
asks no man to go where he does not lead. He
joined the Third Cavalry Division on the 29th of
June, at Hanover, Pa., and participated in the
Pennsylvania campaign, and was engaged on the
ist of July in a skirmish with the enemy’s cavalry.
He had a horse killed under him on the 2d of
July, while leading a company of the Sixth Michi-
gan Cavalry in a charge near Hunterstown. He
was conspicuous on the right of the army at the
battle of Gettysburg, in conjunction with the
brigades of Gregg and Mcintosh, in defeating
General Stuart’s effort to turn that flank. He
moved on the morning of the 4th with the Third
Cavalry Division in pursuit of the enemy, and
was engaged in the skirmishes at the Monterey
House and Hagerstown, the actions at Williams-
port (6th and 14th), Boonesboro’, Funkstown
and Falling Waters, and was made a brevet
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER. \ i
major, to date from July 3, 1863, for gallant and
meritorious services at the battle of Gettysburg.
He was then employed in central Virginia till
the end of the year, and was engaged in the
skirmish at King George Court House, and in the
advance toward and skirmish at Culpeper Court
House (September 13), where a piece of shell
wounded him on the inside of the thigh, and
killed his horse. He was disabled for field service
until the 8th of October. Accepting twenty days
leave of absence, he went to Monroe, Mich., to
again petition Judge Bacon for his daughter’s
hand. He was met with great cordiality, offered
the sincerest congratulations, commended as only
one self-made man can commend another, and a
reluctant consent given to the engagement ; re-
luctant because the Judge believed the military
profession too hazardous and uncertain to admit
of matrimony in time of war.
He returned to his command in October, and
was engaged in the action at James City and
Brandy Station (where his determined action pre-
vented the capture of his brigade), the movement
toward Centreville, the actions at Gainesville and
Buckland’s Mills, the skirmish at Stevensburg and
the Mine Run operations.
In the February of ‘1864 he went to Monroe,
and on the 9th was married to Elizabeth Bacon.
12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
They were recalled from the bridal tour by tele-
grams urging the return of the General to the front,
in order that he might take command of a portion of
the Army of the Potomac, which was to be sent in
a certain direction as a feint to attract the Confed-
erate army, while General Kilpatrick, with the
cavalry (General Custer’s brigade with them),
attempted to get into Richmond. Leaving his
bride at a farm-house at Stevensburg.Va., where his
headquarters were established almost in sight of
Confederate pickets, he started at once on his arri-
val, and made so successful a feint that the bulk of
the enemy were turned in pursuit. Soon after his
return his wife went to Washington, to remain as
near as possible during the active operations of
the summer. General Custer took part in the
Wilderness campaign. In the re-organization of
the cavalry — caused by the removal of General
Pleasonton, the death of General Buford, the trans-
fer of General Kilpatrick to the West — he was
transferred, with the Michigan brigade, to the
First Cavalry Division, which crossed the Rapidan
in May, the main army being toward Orange
Court House. He was engaged in the battles of
the Wilderness (where the cavalry was on the
left) and Todd’s Tavern ; in General Sheridan’s
cavalry raid toward Richmond by the way of
Beaver Dam Station and Ashland, during which
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER. i ->
his brigade had the advance, and by a gallant dash
captured at Beaver Dam Station three large trains,
which were conveying rations to the Confederate
army, destroying several miles of railroad, and
releasing four hundred prisoners, who were e}t
route to Richmond. On the next day he assisted
in the destruction of the Ashland Station, and on
the nth of May the command was within four
miles of Richmond, on the Brook pike, with his
brigade again in the advance ; and the action of
Yellow Tavern followed, where he won the brevet
of lieutenant-colonel for gallant and meritorious
services. He was engaged in the actions at
Meadow Bridge, Mechanicsville and Hanovertown,
the battles of Hawes’s Shop and Cold Harbor, and
in General Sheridan’s second raid, during which
was fought the battle of Trevillian Station (where
his brigade was at one time in such great peril that
he tore the colors from the staff and concealed
them in the breast of his coat), and in the skirmish
at Newark. After a brief rest near Petersburg, his
brigade was transferred from the Army of the
Potomac to the Shenandoah Valley, and arrived
at Halltown about the 8th of August, and partici-
pated, with the First Cavalry Division, in the
skirmishes at Stone Chapel and at Newtown, the
brilliant action at Cedarville, near Front Royal,
the combats at Kearneysville, Smithfield, Berry-
14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
ville and Opequan Creek, the battles of Winchester
and Fisher’s Hill (where he rendered conspicuous
service), and the actions at Cedarville and Luray.
He was made a brevet colonel, to date from Sep-
tember 19, 1864, for gallant and meritorious serv-
ices at the battle of Winchester, and brevet
major-general of volunteers, to date from October
19, 1864, for gallant and meritorious services at
the battles of Winchester and Fisher’s Hill.
He was assigned on the 26th of September to
the command of the Second Cavalry Division,
which he attempted to join at Piedmont, but the
enemy appeared in force, and he was compelled to
return to the cavalry headquarters, where he
remained until the 30th, when he was transferred
to the Third Cavalry Division and assumed the
command at Harrisonburg, and started on the 6th
of October with the Army of the Shenandoah, on
the return march through the valley, moving on
the road nearest the Blue Ridge, and repulsed the
army that night at Turkey town. On the next day
his rear guard was frequently engaged with the
enemy during the march toward Columbia Fur-
naces, and the next day they fought his rear guard
with so much persistency that General Sheridan
ordered his chief of cavalry to attack them, and
at daybreak on the 9th of October the brilliant
cavalry action of Woodstock was begun. General
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
15
Custer, having completed the formation for a
charge, rode to the front of his Hne and saluted
his former classmate, General Rosser, who com-
manded the Confederate cavalry, and then moved
his division at a trot, which in a few minutes was
changed to a gallop, and as the advancing line
neared the enemy the charge was sounded, and
the next instant the division enveloped their flanks,
and forced them to retreat for two miles, when
General Rosser made a brilliant effort to recover
the lost ground ; but General Custer rapidly
re-formed his brigades, and again advanced in a
second charge with the other divisions, and drove
the enemy to Mount Jackson, a distance of
twenty-six miles, with the loss of everything on
wheels except one gun.
He was conspicuous at the battle of Cedar
Creek, where he confronted the enemy from the
first attack in the morning until the battle
was ended. After the first surprise he was
recalled from the right, and assigned to the
left, where the enemy were held in check. After
General Sheridan appeared on the field, he was
returned to the extreme right; and at quarter past
4 o’clock, p. M., when the grand advance was
made, leaving three regiments to attend to the
cavalry in his front, he moved into position with
the other regiments of his division to participate
1 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
in the movement. The divisions of cavalry,
sweeping both flanks, crossed Cedar Creek about
the same time, and, breaking the last line the
enemy attempted to form, charged upon their
artillery and trains, and continued the pursuit to
Fisher’s Hill, capturing and retaking a large num-
ber of guns, colors and materials of war. He
won in this battle an enduring fame as a cavalry
leader, and was recommended by General Torbert
for promotion, which, upon several occasions, he
had justly earned. He was sent to Washington at
the end of the campaign, in charge of the captured
battle-flags, and upon his return to the valley, com-
manded, in December, an expedition to Harrison-
burg, and was attacked at Lacey Springs at day-
break of the 2oth by a superior force, and com-
pelled to retire to Winchester, where he remained
during the winter. He was promoted to a cap-
taincy in his regiment, May 8, 1864, and assigned
to duty on his brevet rank as major-general of
volunteers.
He participated in General Sheridan’s last cav-
alry raid during the spring of 1865, marching
from Winchester to Harrisonburg, and thence to
Waynesboro, where, while in the advance, he
engaged and defeated the enemy, and captured
three guns, two hundred wagons, sixteen hundred
prisoners and seventeen battle flags.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
17
He was a conspicuous figure in the brilliant
operations of that dashing movement until the
command (First and Third divisions), having
crossed the Peninsula and the James River, en-
camped on the 26th of March in rear of the
Army of the Potomac, which was then in front of
Petersburg.
On the next day the two divisions were moved
to the rear of the extreme left, and encamped at
Hancock’s Station, where they were joined by the
Second Division, and on the 29th the entire cav-
alry corps moved out to raid in the rear of the
Army of Northern Virginia, cut the South Side Rail-
road, and effect a junction with General Sherman
in North Carolina ; but the plans were changed
during the night, and the cavalry corps was or-
dered to turn the enemy’s right flank, which
brought on the actions at Five Forks and Dinwid-
dle Court House, and the next day General Custer
won the brevet of brigadier-general, to date from
March 13, 1865 (antedated), for gallant and meri-
torious Services at the battle of Five Forks. He
was engaged in the actions at Sailor’s Creek and
Appomattox Station, received the first flag of truce
from the Army of Northern Virginia, and was
present at the surrender at Appomattox Court
House, April 9, 1865, and a few days afterward
participated in the movement to Dan River, N. C.„
l8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
which marks the close of his services during the
War of the RebeUion. He was made a brevet
major-general, to date from March 13, 1865, for
gallant and meritorious services during the cam-
paign ending with the surrender of the Army of
Northern Virginia, and was appointed a major-
general of volunteers, to date from April 15, 1865.
One of his friends has said : ” His perceptive
faculties, decision of character, dash and audacity
won the favor of the peculiar Kearney, the cau-
tious McClellan, the sarcastic Pleasonton and the
impetuous Sheridan ; and these generals, with
wholly different ideas and characters, trusted him
with unlimited confidence.”
In a general order addressed to his troops, dated
at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865, Gen-
eral Custer said : ” During the past six months,
though in most instances confronted by superior
numbers, you have captured from the enemy in
open battle 1 1 1 pieces of field artillery, sixty-five
battle-flags and upward of ten thousand prisoners
of war, including seven general officers. Within
the past ten days, and included in the above, you
have captured forty-six field-pieces of artillery and
thirty-seven battle-flags. You have never lost a
gun, never lost a color, and never been defeated ;
and, notwithstanding the numerous engagements
in which you have borne a prominent part, includ-
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER. ig
ing those memorable battles of the Shenandoah,
you have captured every piece of artillery which
the enemy has dared to open upon you.”
General Custer participated in all but one of the
battles of the Army of the Potomac, had eleven
horses shot under him, received bullet-holes in his
hat, had a lock of his hair cut off by a passing-
shot, was wounded in the thigh by a spent ball,
was crushed by the fall of his wounded horse
until the buttons of his jacket were almost flat-
tened, and at one time charged into the enemy’s
lines, and would have been taken prisoner^ except
that in the melee he escaped, as he wore an over-
coat he had captured from a Confederate officer in
a former engagement. His whole four years of
service during the war was a series of narrow
escapes.
After the first day’s review in Washmgton, he
parted with his beloved Third Cavalry Division,
and started at once for Texas, where he took com-
mand of a division of Western cavalry, whose
term of service had not expired, and marched
from Alexandria, on Red River, La., to Hempstead,
in Texas. In the autumn he was made chief of
cavalry, and marched to Austin, where he sup-
ported the Governor and the new State organiza-
tion in restoring order to the demoralized country.
In March, 1866, he was mustered out of the
20 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
volunteer service, to date from February, 1866. A
proposition was made from President Juarez to
give him command of the Mexican cavalry in the
struggle against Maximilian, but President John-
son declined to give the necessary leave of
absence, and/ General Custer decided to remain at
home, and accepted the lieutenant-colonelcy of the
Seventh Cavalry, his appointment datmg July 28,
1866. He reported for duty at Fort Riley, Kansas,
his regiment’s headquarters, in November, and
remained in Kansas five years, during which time
he was on expeditions in pursuit of Indians in the
Indian Territory, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska
and Wyoming. On the 27th of November, 1868,
he fought the battle of the Wachita, in the Indian
Territory, and inflicted such defeat on the Indians
that the entire tribe of Cheyennes were compelled’
to return to their reservation. From 1 871 to 1873
he was on duty with his regiment in Kentucky.
In the spring of 1873 he was ordered with the
Seventh Cavalry to Dakota, and left Fort Rice on
an expedition to the Yellowstone. On that river,
near the mouth of Tongue River, he fought the
Sioux with his regiment on August 4, and on the
I ith he had another engagement three miles below
the mouth of the Big Horn. General Custer
solicited permission to conduct an expedition into
the Black Hills, at that time unvisited by the white
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER. 2 1
man ; and in July, 1874, he left Fort Lincoln,
Dakota, and opened an unexplored country to
miners and settlers. On May 15 General Custer
left Fort Lincoln in command of his reofiment.
accompanying an expedition against the confeder-
ated Sioux tribes. The pursuit of the Indians was
carried to the Little Big Horn River, a region
almost entirely unknown. It had long been the
favorite spot for their encampments, and there
was afterward ascertained to be nine thousand in
their villages stretched along the river. The Gov-
ernment expedition numbered one thousand one
hundred men. As there were no means of ascer-
taining the strength of the savages. General Custer
was sent with his regiment to pursue a trail. On
June 25 he reached the vicinity of what was sup-
posed by friendly Indian scouts, who accompanied
the column, to be the only Indian village. An
attack by a portion of the regiment, two hundred
troopers in all, was made, and followed by a
repulse, ending in a retreat from the enemy.
General Custer with two hundred and seventy-
seven of his men charged on another part of the
village, and fought against terrible odds, expect-
ing momentarily to be joined by the other portion
of the regiment, that were then in retreat. At the
end of an engagement that is supposed to have
lasted about forty-five minutes, every voice was
2 2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
silenced, and General Custer lay among his
devoted followers (his brothers, Colonel Tom and
Boston Custer ; his brother-in-law. Lieutenant
James Calhoun ; his nephew, Armstrong Reed)
in the ” Bivouac of the Dead.”
He was buried with his comrades on the battle-
field ; but, in accordance with a request made
years previous, to his wife, he was laid with mili-
tary ceremonies at West Point in 1877. In August,
1879, ^^s ^^^^ battle-field was made a National
cemetery, and through the interest of his friend,
Major-General Meigs, then the quartermaster-gen-
eral, a monument was erected by Government to
the memory of General Custer and all who fell in
the battle of the Little Big Horn. The name of
each officer and soldier is carved in the granite,
and its shaft does sentry duty over ground en-
riched by the precious blood of the heroes who
fell there in the year of the nation’s Centennial.
In personal appearance General Custer had
marked individuality. It was not due to the fact that
his dress was a costume he chose during the war,
(and was followed in some of its details by his
Third Division of Cavalry), or that he assumed a
campaigning garb of buckskin on the frontier.
Neither was it the result of the flowing locks that
his boyish freak allowed to grow during the w^ar,
and, though his head was closely cropped in garri-
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER, 23
son life on the plains, he left the hair uncut while
campaigning. There was still an individuality
that marked him — walking, riding, standing; ges-
tures wholly his own ; quick, impulsive move-
ments, entirely unstudied ; and indescribable
peculiarities that were so marked, it was seldom
any one saw a resemblance in any one else to
General Custer. A broad hat, navy blue shirt
with wide collar, and red neck-tie, were distinctive
features of the costume. He was not quite six
feet, though he looked it; broad shouldered, well
proportioned, and weighing as a rule 170 pounds.
His body was so lithe, his motions so quick, there
was no deed of the expert Indian rider that
General Custer could not execute. He was the
strongest man but one while at West Point; and
using neither liquor nor tobacco, he was able to
endure heat, cold, privation of every kind, with
no apparent recognition of the hardships. His
hair and mustache were golden in tint; his blue
eyes were deep set under eyebrows that were
older than his face. His expression was thought-
ful, and but for the sparkle of his ever youthful
eyes, the face might have remained so in conver-
sation. He was studious in his tastes. The
activity of war life interrupted all such pursuits,
but in the quiet of the winters in a frontier
garrison, he resumed his study and reading.
24 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
He contributed articles on hunting to the news-
papers devoted to out – door sports, and wrote
papers for the Galaxy that were afterward
pubhshed in book form, under the title of ” My
Life on the Plains.” He was engaged on a series
of papers on the war, for the Galaxy, when his
last campaign took place. He was an ardent
sportsman, and accounted more than an ordinary
shot. His domestic life, when frontier days at
last gave him a semblance of a home during the
winter months, was one of contentment, which
was rather surprising, when it is known that
fourteen years out of the thirty-seven of his short life
were spent in the active campaigns of the war
and the frontier. He revered religion, and was so
broad that every one’s belief was sacred to him.
He dearly loved the society of children when they
were able to chatter with him; his deference for the
aged was inborn, and intensified by his love for
his aged parents; he honored womankind; and he
loved animals with such devotion that he was
never without having them about him if he could
help it. Impetuous and daring as his life was, he
declared that no step was ever taken without an
instant looking upon all sides of the question. His
actions, quick as they were always, were the result
of an activity of brain that took in a situation
wnth marvelous speed. General Custer’s treat-
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL CUSTER.
25
ment of his enemies was more after the manner
of a man of mature years, but it was the result
of a discipUne of self by that impetuous character,
who endeavored to remember that ” to forgive
is Divine.”
Elizabeth B. Custer,
55 West Tenth Street,
New York City.
Thanks are due Captain George F. Price, Fifth United States
Cavalry, for extracts containing dates and strictly military details,
from the excellent sketch of his comrade in his book “Across the
Continent with the Fifth Cavalry.” D. Van Nostrand, Publisher.
E. B. C.
TEXAS IxN 1866 AND IN 1886.
26
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
CHAPTER I.
GOOD-BY TO THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC OFF FOR
TEXAS — TWENTY MINUTES FOR DINNER HISTORY
OF ELIZA DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI A CREVASSE
GENERAL CUSTER MEETING CONFEDERATE GENERAL
HOOD.
f^ ENERAL CUSTER was given scant time,
^^ after the last gun of the v^ar was fired, to
realize the blessings of peace. While others has-
tened to discard the well-worn uniforms, and don
again the dress of civilians, hurrying to the cars,
and groaning over the slowness of the fast-flying
trains that bore them to their homes, my husband
was almost breathlessly preparing for a long jour-
ney to Texas. He did not even see the last of
that grand review of the 23d and 24th of May,
1865. On the first day he was permitted to doff
his hat and bow low, as he proudly led that superb
body of men, the Third Division of Cavalry, in
28 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
front of the grand stand, where sat the ” powers
that be.” Along the hne of the division, each sol-
dier straightened himself in the saddle, and felt the
proud blood fill his veins, as he realized that he
was one of those who, in six months, had taken 1 1 1
of the enemy’s guns, sixty-five battle-flags, and up-
w^ard of 10,000 prisoners of war, while they had
never lost a flag, or failed to capture a gun for
which they fought.
In the afternoon of that memorable day General
Custer and his staff rode to the outskirts of Wash-
ington, where his beloved Third Cavalry Division
had encamped after returning from taking part in
the review. The trumpet was sounded, and the
call brought these war-worn veterans oat once
more, not for a charge, not for duty, but to say
that word which we who have been compelled to
live in its mournful sound so many years, dread
even to write. Down the line rode their yellow-
haired ” boy general,” waving his hat, but setting
his teeth and trying to hold with iron nerve the
quivering muscles of his speaking face ; keeping
his eyes wide open, that the moisture dimming
their vision might not gather and fall. Cheer af-
ter cheer rose on that soft spring air. Some enthu-
siastic voice started up afresh, before the hurrahs
were done, ” A tiger for old Curley ! ” Off came
the hats again, and up went hundreds of arms,
THE SOLDIERS’ GOOD-BY.
29
waving the good-by and wafting innumerable
blessings after the man who was sending them
home in a blaze of glory, with a record of which
they might boast around their firesides. I began to
realize, as I watched this sad parting, the truth of
what the General had been telling me : he held
that no friendship was like that cemented by mu-
tual danger on the battle-field.
The soldiers, accustomed to suppression through
strict military discipline, now vehemently express-
ed their feelings ; and though it gladdened the
General’s heart, it was still the hardest sort of
work to endure it all without show of emotion.
As he rode up to where I was waiting, he could
not, dared not, trust himself to speak to me. To
those intrepid men he was indebted for his suc-
cess. Their unfailing trust in his judgment,
their willingness to follow where he led — ah ! he
knew well that one looks upon such men but once
in a lifetime. Some of the soldiers called out for
the General’s wife. The staff urged me to ride
forward to the troops, as it was but a little thing
thus to respond to their good-by. I tried to do so,
but after a few steps, I begged those beside whom
I rode to take me back to where we had been stand-
ing. I was too overcome, from having seen the
suffering on my husband’s face, to endure any
more sorrow.
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
As the officers gathered about the General and
wrung his hand in parting, to my surprise the sol-
diers gave me a cheer. Though very grateful for
the tribute to me as their acknowledged comrade,
I did not feel that I deserved it. Hardships such
as they had suffered for a principle, require a far
higher order of character than the same hardships
endured when the motive is affection.
Once more the General leaped into the saddle,
and we rode rapidly out of sight. How glad I
was, as I watched the set features of my husband’s
face, saw his eyes fixed immovably in front of
him, listened in vain for one word from his over-
burdened heart, that I, being a woman, need not
tax every nerve to suppress emotion, but could
let the tears stream down my face, on all our
silent way back to the city.
Then began the gathering of our ” traps,” a
hasty collection of a few suitable things for a
Southern climate, orders about shipping the
horses, a wild tearing around of the improvident,
thoughtless staff — good fighters, but poor pro-
viders for themselves. Most of them were young
men, for whom my husband had applied when he
was made a brigadier. His first step after his
promotion was to write home for his schoolmates,
or select aides from his early friends then in
service. It was a comfort, when I found mvself
ORDERED TO TEXAS. -»!
grieving over the parting with my husband’s Divi-
sion, that our mihtary family were to go with us.
At dark we were on the cars, with our faces turned
southward. To General Custer this move had
been unexpected. General Sheridan knew that
he needed little time to decide, so he sent for him
as soon as we encamped at Arlington, after our
march up from Richmond, and asked if he would
like to take command of a division of cavalry on
the Red River in Louisiana, and march throughout
Texas, with the possibility of eventually entering
Mexico. Our Government was just then thinking
it was high time the French knew that if there
was any invasion of Mexico, with an idea of a
complete ” gobbling up ” of that country, the one
to do the seizure, and gather in the spoils was
Brother Jonathan. Very wisely, General Custer
kept this latter part of the understanding why he
was sent South from the ” weepy ” part of his
family. He preferred transportation by steamer,
rather than to be floated southward by floods of
feminine tears. All I knew was, that Texas, hav-
ing been so outside of the limit where the armies
marched and fought, was unhappily unaware that
the war was over, and continued a career of bush-
whacking and lawlessness that was only tolerated
from necessity before the surrender, and must
now cease. It was considered expedient to fit out
32 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
two detachments of cavalry, and start them on a
march through the northern and southern portions
of Texas, as a means of informing that isolated
State that depredations and raids might come to
an end. In my mind, Texas then seemed the
stepping-off place ; but I was indifferent to the
points of the compass, so long as I was not left
behind.
The train in which we set out was crowded
with a joyous, rollicking, irrepressible throng of
discharged officers and soldiers, going home to
make their swords into ploughshares. Every-
body talked with everybody, and all spoke at once.
The Babel was unceasing night and day; there
was not a vein that was not bursting with joy.
The swift blood rushed into the heart and out
again laden with one glad thought. “The war is
over ! ” At the stations, soldiers tumbled out and
rushed into some woman’s waiting arms, while
bands tooted excited welcomes, no one instrument
according with another, because of throats over-
charged already with bursting notes of patriotism
that would not be set music. The customary train
of street gamins, who imitate all parades and
promptly copy the pomp of the circus and other
processions, stepped off in a mimic march, follow-
ing the conquering heroes as they were lost to
our sight down the street, going home.
WELCOMING WOUNDED HEROES.
33
Sometimes the voices of the hilarious crowd at
the station were stilled, and a hush of reverent
silence preceded the careful lifting from the car
of a stretcher bearing a form broken and bleeding
from wounds, willingly borne, that the home to
which he was coming might be unharmed.
Tender women received and hovered lovingly-
over the precious freight, strong arms carried him
away ; and we contrasted the devoted care, the
love that would teach new ways to heal, with the
condition of the poor fellows we had left in the
crowded Washington hospitals, attended only by
strangers. Some of the broken-to-pieces soldiers
were on our train, so deftly mended that they
stumped their way down the platform, and began
their one-legged tramp through life, amidst the loud
huzzas that a maimed hero then received. They
even joked about their misfortunes. I remember
one undaunted fellow, with the fresh color of
buoyant youth beginning again to dye his cheek,
even after the amputation of a leg, which so
depletes the system. He said some grave words
of wisdom to me in such a roguish way, and fol-
lowed up his counsel by adding, ” You ought to
heed such advice from a man with one foot in the
grave.”
We missed all the home-coming, all the glorifi-
cation awarded to the hero. General Custer said
34 TENTING CN THE PLAINS.
no word of regret. He had accepted the offer for
further active service, and gratefully thanked his
chief for giving him the opportunity. I, however,
should have liked to have him get some of the
celebrations that our country was then showering
on its defenders. I missed the bonfires, the pro-
cessions, the public meeting of distinguished citi-
zens, who eloquently thanked the veterans, the
editorials that lauded each townsman’s deed, the
poetry in the corner of the newspaper that was
dedicated to a hero, the overflow of a woman’s
heart singing praise to her military idol. But the
cannon were fired, the drums beat, the music
sounded for all but us. Offices of trust were
offered at once to men coming home to private
life, and towns and cities felt themselves honored
because some one of their number had gone out
and made himself so glorious a name that his very
home became celebrated. He was made the
mayor, or the Congressman, and given a home
which it would have taken him many years of
hard work to earn. Song, story and history have
long recounted what a hero is to a woman. Imagi-
nation pictured to my eye troops of beautiful
women gathering around each gallant soldier on
his return. The adoring eyes spoke admiration,
while the tongue subtly wove, in many a sentence,
its meed of praise. The General and his staff of
THE ”LADIES’ CAR” OF OTHER DAYS.
35
boys, loving and reverencing women, missed what
men wisely count the sweetest of adulation. One
weather-beaten slip of a girl had to do all their
banqueting, cannonading, bonfiring, brass-band-
ing, and general hallelujahs all the way to Texas,
and — yes, even after we got there ; for the South-
ern women, true to their idea of patriotism, turned
their pretty faces away from our handsome fel-
lows, and resisted, for a long time, even the mildest
flirtation.
The drawing-room car was then unthought of
in the minds of those who plan new luxuries, as
our race demand more ease and elegance. There
was a ladies’ car, to which no men unaccompanied
by women were admitted. It was never so full as
the other coaches, and was much cleaner and bet-
ter ventilated.
This was at first a damper to the enjoyment of
a military family, who lost no opportunity of being
together, for it compelled the men to remain in
the other cars. The scamp among us devised a
plan to outwit the brakemen ; he borrowed my
bag just before we were obliged to change cars,
and after waiting till the General and I were safely
seated, boldly walked up and demanded entrance,
on the plea that he had a lady inside. This scheme
worked so well that the others took up the cue,
and my cloak, bag, umbrella, lunch-basket, and
36 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
parcel of books and papers were distributed among^
the rest before we stopped, and were used to ob-
tain entrance into the better car. Even our faith-
ful servant, Eliza, was unexpectedly overwhelmed
with urgent offers of assistance ; for she always
went with us, and sat by the door. This plan was
a great success, in so far as it kept our party to-
gether, but it proved disastrous to me, as the
scamp forgot my bag at some station, and I was
minus all those hundred and one articles that seem
indispensable to a traveler’s comfort. In that plight
I had to journey until, in some merciful detention,,
we had an hour in which to seek out a shop, and
hastily make the necessary purchases.
At one of our stops for dinner we all made the
usual rush for the dining-hall, as in the confusion
of over-laden trains at that excited time it was
necessary to hurry, and, besides, as there were de-
lays and irregularities in traveling, on account of
the home-coming of the troops, we never knew
how long it might be before the next eating-house
was reached. The General insisted upon Eliza’s
going right with us, as no other table was provided.
The proprietor, already rendered indifferent to
people’s comfort by his extraordinary gains, said
there was no table for servants. Eliza, the best-
bred of maids, begged to go back dinnerless into
the car, but the General insisted on her sitting
TWENTY MINUTES FOR A DISTURBED DINNER.
2>7
down between us at the crowded table. A posi-
tion so unusual, and to her so totally out of place,
made her appetite waver, and it vanished entirely
when the proprietor came, and told the General
that no colored folks could be allowed at his table.
My husband quietly replied that he had been ob-
liged to give the woman that place, as the house
had provided no other. The determined man still
stood threateningly over us, demanding her remov-
al, and Eliza uneasily and nervously tried to go.
I trembled, and the fork failed to carry the food,
owing to a very wobbly arm. The General firmly
refused, the staff rose about us, and all along the
table up sprang men we had supposed to be citi-
zens, as they were in the dress of civilians.
“General, stand your ground; we’ll back yo.u; the
woman shall have food.” How little we realize in
these piping times of peace, how great a flame a
little fire kindled in those agitating days. The
proprietor slunk back to his desk; the General and
his hungry staff went on eating as calmly as ever ;
Eliza hung her embarrassed head, and her mistress
idly twirled her useless fork — while the proprietor
made $1.50 clear gain on two women that were too
frightened to swallow a mouthful. I spread a sand-
wich for Eliza, while the General, mindful of the
returning hunger of the terrified woman, and per-
fectly indifferent as to making himself ridiculous
^8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
with parcels, marched by the infuriated but subdued
bully, with either a whole pie or some such modest
capture in his hand. We had put some hours of
travel between ourselves and the ” twenty-minutes-
for-dinner ” place which came so near being a
battle-ground, before Eliza could eat what we
had brought for her.
I wonder if any one is waiting for me to say
that this incident happened south of the Mason
and Dixon line. It did not. It was in Ohio ; I
don’t remember the place. After all, the memory
over which one complains, when he finds how
little he can recall, has its advantages. It hope-
lessly buries the names of persons and places,,
when one starts to tell tales out of school. It is
like extracting the fangs from a rattlesnake ; the
reptile, like the story, may be very disagreeable,
but I can only hope that a tale unadorned with
names or places is as harmless as a snake with its
poison withdrawn.
I must stop a moment and give our Eliza, on
whom this battle was waged, a little space in this
story, for she occupied no small part in the events
of the six years after ; and when she left us and
took an upward step in life by marrying a colored
lawyer, I could not reconcile myself to the loss ;
and though she has lived through all the grandeur
of a union with a man ” who gets a heap of
ELIZA’S BRONZE TINT. 39
money for his speeches in poUtics, and brass bands
to meet him at the stations, Miss Libbie,” she came
to my little home not long since with tears of joy
illuminating- the bright bronze of her expressive
face. It reminded me so of the first time I knew
that the negro race regarded shades of color as a
distinctive feature, a beauty or a blemish, as it
might be. Eliza stood in front of a bronze
medallion of my husband when it was first sent
from the artist’s in 1865, and amused him hugely,
by saying, in that partnership manner she had in
our affairs, ” Why, Ginnel, it’s jest my color.”
After that, I noticed that she referred to her race
according to the deepness of tint, telling me, with
scorn, of one of her numerous suitors : “Why, Miss
Libbie, he needent think to shine up to me ; he’s
nothing but a black African.” I am thus intro-
ducing Eliza, color and all, that she may not seem
the vague character of other days ; and whoever
chances to meet her will find in her a good war
historian, a modest chronicler of a really self-
denying and courageous life. It was rather a
surprise to me that she was not an old woman
when I saw her again this autumn, after so many
years, but she is not yet fifty. I imagine she did
so much mothering in those days when she com-
forted me in my loneliness, and quieted me in
my frights, that I counted her old even then.
40
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Eliza requests that she be permitted to make
her little bow to the reader, and repeat a wish of
hers that I take great pains in quoting her, and
not represent her as saying, ” like field-hands,
whar and thar!’ She says her people in Virginia,
whom she reverences and loves, always taught
her not to say “them words; and if they should
see what I have told you they’d feel bad to think
I forgot.” If whar and thar appear occasion-
ally in my efforts to transfer her literally to these
pages, it is only a lapsus lingtice on her part.
Besides, she has lived North so long now, there
is not that distinctive dialect peculiar to the
Southern servant. In her excitement, narrating
our scenes of danger or pleasure or merriment,
she occasionally drops into expressions that
belonged to her early life. It is the fault of her
historian if these phrases get into print. To me
they are charming, for they are Eliza in undress
uniform — Eliza without her company manners.
She describes her leaving the old plantation dur-
ing war times. ” I jined the Ginnel at Amosville,
Rappahannock County, in August, 1863. Every-
body was excited over freedom, and I wanted to
see how it was. Everybody keeps asking me why
I left. I can’t see why they can’t recollect what
war was for, and that we was all bound to try
and see for ourselves how it was. After the
A CONTRABAND AS COOK.
41
‘Mancipation, everybody was a standin’ up for
liberty, and I wasent goin’ to stay home when
everybody etse was a-goin’. The day I came
into camp, there was a good many other darkies
from all about our place. We was a standin’
round waitin’ when I first seed the Ginnel.
” He and Captain Lyon cum up to me, and the
Ginnel says, ‘ Well, what’s your name ! ‘ I told
him Eliza ; and he says, looking me all over fust,
‘ Well, Eliza, would you like to cum and live with
me ? ‘ I waited a minute, Miss Libbie. I looked
kim all over, too, and finally I sez, ‘I reckon I
would.’ So the bargain was fixed up. But, oh,
how awful lonesome I was at fust, and I was
afraid of everything in the shape of war. I used
to wish myself back on the old plantation with
my mother. I was mighty glad when you cum,
Miss Libbie. Why, sometimes I never sot eyes
on a woman for weeks at a time.”
Eliza’s story of her war life is too long for these
pages ; but in spite of her confession of being so
” ‘fraid,” she was a marvel of courage. She was cap-
tured by the enemy, escaped, and found her way
back after sunset to the General’s camp. She had
strange and narrow escapes. She says, quaintly:
” Well, Miss Libbie, I set in to see the war, begin-
ning and end. There was many niggers that cut
into the cities and huddled up thar, and laid around
42 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and saw hard times ; but I went to see the end^
and I stuck it out. I alius thought this, that I
didn’t set down to wait to have ’em all free me..
I helped to free myself. I was all ready to step to
the front whenever I was called upon, even if I
didn’t shoulder the musket. Well, I went to the
end, and there’s many folks says that a woman
can’t follow the army without throwing themselves
away, but I know better. I went in, and I cum out
with the respect of the men and the officers.”
Eliza often cooked under fire, and only lately
one of the General’s staff, recounting war days, de-
scribed her as she was preparing the General’s din-
ner in the field. A shell would burst near her; she
would turn her head in anger at being disturbed^
unconscious that she was observed, begin to growl
to herself about being obliged to move, but take
up her kettle and frying-pan, march farther away,,
make a new fire, and begin cooking as unper-
turbed as if it were an ordinary disturbance in-
stead of a sky filled with bits of falling shell. I
do not repeat that polite fiction of having been on
the spot, as neither the artist nor I had Eliza’s grit
or pluck ; but we arranged the camp-kettle, and
Eliza fell into the exact expression, as she volubly
began telling the tale of “how mad those busting
shells used to make her.” It is an excellent like-
ness, even though Eliza objects to the bandanna^
ELIZA COOKING UNDER FIRK.
44 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
which she has abandoned m her new position ;
and I must not forget that I found her one day
turning her head critically from side to side look-
ing at her picture ; and, out of regard to her, will
mention that her nose, of which she is very proud,
is, she fears, a touch too flat in the sketch. She
speaks of her dress as ” completely whittled out
with bullets,” but she would like me to mention
that ” she don’t wear them rags now.”
When Eliza reached New York this past
autumn, she told me, when I asked her to choose
where she would go, as my time was to be entirely
given to her, that she wanted first to go to the
Fifth Avenue Hotel and see if it looked just the
same as it did ” when you was a bride, Miss
Libbie, and the Ginnel took you and me there on
leave of absence.” We went through the halls
and drawing-rooms, narrowly watched by the
major-domo, who stands guard over tramps, but
fortified by my voice, she ” oh’d ” and ” ah’d “
over its grandeur to her heart’s content. One day
I left her in Madison Square, to go on a business
errand, and cautioned her not to stray away.
When I returned, I asked anxiously, “Did any
one speak to you, Eliza ?” ” EveryhoAy, Miss
Libbie,” as nonchalant and as complacent as if it
were her idea of New York hospitality. Then she
begged me to go round the Square, “to hunt a
ELIZA’S DELIGHT OVER THE CITY.
45
lady from Avenue A, who see’d you pass with
me, Miss Libbie, and said she knowed you was a
lady, though I reckon she couldn’t ‘count for me
and you bein’ together.” We found the Avenue
A lady, and I was presented, and to her satisfac-
tion admired the baby that had been brought over
to that blessed breathing-place of our city.
– The Elevated railroad was a surprise to Eliza.
She ” didn’t believe it would be so high.” At that
celebrated curve on the Sixth Avenue line, where
Monsieur de Lesseps even exclaimed, ” Mon Dieu !
but the Americans are a brave people,” the poor
frightened woman clung to me and whispered,
” Miss Libbie, couldn’t we get down any way ?
Miss Libbie, I’se seed enough. I can tell the folks at
home all about it nozu. Oh, I never did ‘spect to
be so near heaven till I went up for good.”
At the Brooklyn Bridge she demurred. She is
so intelligent that I wanted to have her see the
shipping, the wharves, the harbor, and the Statue
of Liberty; but nothing kept her from flight save
her desire to tell her townspeople that she had
seen the place where the crank jumped off. The
policeman, in answer to my inquiry, commanded
us in martial tones to stay still till he said the word ;
and when the wagon crossing passed the spot, and
the maintainer of the peace said ” Now ! ” Eliza
shivered, and whispered, ”Now, let’s go home, Miss
46 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Libbie. I dun took the cullud part of the town fo’
I come ; the white folks hain’t seen what I has,
and they’ll be took when I tell ’em ; ” and off she
toddled, for Eliza is not the slender woman I once
knew her.
Her description of the Wild West exhibition was
most droll. I sent her down because we had lived
through so many of the scenes depicted, and I felt
sure that nothing would recall so vividly the life on
the frontier as that most realistic and faithful rep-
resentation of a western life that has ceased to be,
with advancing civilization. She went to Mr.
Cody’s tent after the exhibition, to present my
card of introduction, for he had served as General
Caster’s scout after Eliza left us, and she was,
therefore, unknown to him except by hearsay.
They had twenty subjects in common ; for Eliza,
in her way, was as deserving of praise as was the
courageous Cody. She was delighted with all
she saw, and on her return, her description of it,
mingled with imitations of the voices of the haw-
kers and the performers, was so incoherent that it
presented only a confused jumble to my ears. The
buffalo were a surprise, a wonderful revival to her
of those hunting-days when our plains were dark-
ened by the herds. “When the buffalo cum in, I
was ready to leap up and holler. Miss Libbie ;
it ‘minded me of ole times. They made me
A VISIT TO THE ‘< WILD WEST.” 47
think of the fifteen the Ginnel fust struck In Kansas.
He jest pushed down his ole hat, and and went
after ’em linkety-cHnk. Well, Miss Libbie, when
Mr. Cody come up, I see at once his back and hips
was built precisely like the Ginnel, and when I
come on to his tent, I jest said to him : ‘ Mr. Buf-
falo Bill, when you cum up to the stand and
wheeled round, I said to myself, ” Well, if he ain’t
the ‘spress image of Ginnel Custer in battle, I never
seed any one that was.” I jest wish he’d come to
my town and give a show ! He could have the
hull fair-ground there. My! he could raise money
so fast t’wouldn’t take him long to pay for a church.
And the shootin’ and ridin’ ! why, Miss Libbie,
when I seed one of them ponies brought out, I
know’d he was one of the hatefullest, sulkiest ponies
that ever lived. He was a-prancin’ and curvin’,
and he just stretched his ole neck and throwed the
men as fast as ever they got on.”
After we had strolled through the streets for
many days, Eliza always amusing me by her droll
comments, she said to me one day: “Miss Libbie,
you don’t take notice, when me and you’s walking
on a-lookin’ into shop-windows, and a-gazin’ at
the new things I never see before, how the folks
does stare at us. But I see ’em a-gazin’, and
I can see ’em a-ponderin’ and sayin’ to theirsel’s,
‘Well, I do declar’! that’s a lady, there ain’t no
48 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
manner of doubt. She’s one of the bong tong ;
but whatever she’s a-doin’ with that old scrub
nigger, I can’t make out.’ ” I can hardly express
what a recreation and delight it was to go about
with this humorous woman and listen to her com-
ments, her unique criticisms, her grateful delight,
when she turned on the street to say: “Oh, what
a good time me and you is having, Miss Libbie,
and Jiow I will ‘stonish them people at home ! ‘^
The best of it all was the manner in which she
brought back our past, and the hundred small events
we recalled, which were made more vivid by the
imitation of voice, walk, gesture, she gave in
speaking of those we followed in the old march-
ing days.
On this journey to Texas some accident hap-
pened to our engine, and detained us all night. We
campaigners, accustomed to all sorts of unexpected
inconveniences, had learned not to mind discom-
forts. Each officer sank out of sight into his
great-coat collar, and slept on by the hour, while I
slumbered till morning, curled up in a heap, thank-
ful to have the luxury of one seat to myself. We
rather gloried over the citizens who tramped up
and down the aisle, groaning and becoming more
emphatic in their language as the night advanced,
indulging in the belief that the women were too-
sound asleep to hear them. I wakened enough ta
A SUBTERFUGE TO OBTAIN COMFORT.
49
hear one old man say, fretfully, and with many ad-
jectives : “Just see how those army folks sleep;
they can tumble down anywhere, while I am so
lame and sore, from the cramped-up place I am in,
I can’t even doze.” As morning came we noticed
our scamp at the other end of the car, with his legs
stretched comfortably on the seat turned over in
front of him. All this unusual luxury he accounted
for afterward, by telling us the trick that his inge-
nuity had suggested to obtain more room. “You
see,” the wag said, “two old codgers sat down in
front of my pal and me, late last night, and went
on counting up their gains in the rise of corn, owing
to the war, which, to say the least, was harrowmg
to us poor devils who had fought the battles that
had made them rich and left us without a ‘ red.’
I concluded, if that was all they had done for their
country, two of its brave defenders had more of a
right to the seat than they had. I just turned
to H and began solemnly to talk about what
store I set by my old army coat, then on the seat
they occupied ; said I couldn’t give it up, though I
had been obliged to cover a comrade who had died
of small-pox, I not being afraid of contagion, having
had varioloid. Well, I got that far when the eyes
of the old galoots started out of their heads, and
they vamoosed the ranche, I can tell you, and I
saw them peering through the window at the end
^O TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
of the next car, the horror still in their faces.” The
General exploded with merriment. How strange
it seems, to contrast those noisy, boisterous times,
when everybody shouted with laughter, called
loudly from one end of the car to the other, told
stories for the whole public to hear, and sang war-
songs, with the quiet, orderly travelers of nowa-
days, who, even in the tremor of meetmg or part-
ing, speak below their breath, and, ashamed of
emotion, quickly wink back to its source the pre-
historic tear.
We bade good-by to railroads at Louisville, and
the journeying south was then made by steamer.
How peculiar it seemed to us, accustomed as we
were to lake craft with deep hulls, to see for the
first time those flat-bottomed boats drawing so lit-
tle water, with several stories, and upper decks
loaded with freight. I could hardly rid myself of
the fear that, being* so top-heavy, we would blow-
over. The tempests of our western lakes were
then my only idea of sailing weather. Then the
long, sloping levees, the preparations for the rise
of water, the strange sensation, when the river was
high, of looking over the embankment, down
upon the earth ! It is a novel feeling to be for the
first time on a great river, with such a current as
the Mississippi flowing on above the level of the
plantations, hemmed in by an embankment ori
”BURYING A DEAD MAN:’
51
either side. Though we saw the manner of its
construction at one point where the levee was be-
ing repaired, and found how firmly and substan-
tially the earth was fortified with stone and logs
against the river, it still seemed to me an un-
natural sort of voyaging to be above the level of
the ground ; and my tremors on the subject, and
other novel experiences, were instantly made use
of as a new and fruitful source of practical jokes.
For instance, the steamer bumped into the shore
anywhere it happened to be wooded, and an army
of negroes appeared, running over the gang-plank
like ants. Sometimes at night the pine torches,
and the resinous knots burning in iron baskets
slung over the side of the boat, made a weird and
gruesome sight, the shadows were so black, the
streams of light so intense, while the hurrying
negroes loaded on the wood, under the brutal voice
of a steamer’s mate. Once a negro fell in. They
made a pretense of rescuing him, gave it up soon,
and up hurried our scamp to the upper deck to
tell me the horrible tale. He had good command
of language, and allowed no scruples to spoil a
story After that I imagined, at every night
wood-lading, some poor soul was swept down
under the boat and off into eternity. The General
was sorry for me, and sometimes, when I imagined
the calls of the crew to be the despairing wail of a
52 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
dying man, he made pilgrimages, for my sake, to
the lower deck to make sure that no one was
drowned. My imaginings were not always so re-
spected, for the occasion gave too good an oppor-
tunity for a joke, to be passed quietly by. The
scamp and my husband put their heads together
soon after this, and prepared a tale for the ” old
lady,” as they called me. As we were about to
make a landing, they ran to me and said, ” Come,
Libbie, hurry up ! hurry up ! You’ll miss the fun
if you don’t scrabble.” “Miss what?” was my
very natural question, and exactly the reply they
wanted me to make. “Why, they’re going to
bury a dead man when we land.” I exclaimed in
horror, ” Another man drowned ? how can you
speak so irreverently of death?” With a ” do you
suppose the mate cares for one nigger more or
less ?” they dragged me to the deck. There I saw
the great cable which was used to tie us up, fast-
ened to a strong spar, the two ends of which were
buried in the bank. The ground was hollowed
out underneath the centre, and the rope slipped
under to fasten it around the log. After I had
watched this process of securing our boat to the
shore, these irrepressibles said, solemnly, ” The
sad ceremony is now ended, and no other will take
place till we tie up at the next stop.” When it
dawned upon me that ” tying up ” was called, in
A MISSISSIPPI STEAMER.
53
steamer vernacular, ” burying- a dead man.” my
eyes returned to their proper place in the sockets,
breath came back, and indignation filled my soul.
Language deserts us at such moments, and I re-
sorted to force. As there was no one near, a few
well-deserved thumps were rained down on the
yellow head of the commanding officer, who bore
this merited punishment quite meekly, only sug-
gesting that the next time the avenger felt called
upon to administer such telling whacks, it might
be done with the hand on which there were no
rings.
The Ruth was accounted one of the largest and
most beautiful steamers that had ever been on the
Mississippi River, her expenses being $i,ooo a day.
The decorations were sumptuous, and we enjoyed
every luxury. We ate our dinners to very good
music, which the boat furnished. We had been on
plain fare too long not to watch with eagerness
the arrival of the procession of white-coated negro
waiters, who each day came in from the pastry-
cook with some new device in cake, ices, or con-
fectionery. There was a beautiful Ruth gleaning
in a field, in the painting that filled the semicircle
over the entrance of the cabin. Ruths with
sheaves held up the branches of the chandeliers,
while the pretty gleaner looked out from the glass
of the stateroom doors. The captain being very
54
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
patient as well as polite, we pervaded every cor-
ner of the great boat. The General and his boy-
soldiers were too accustomed to activity to be
quiet in the cabin. Even that unapproachable
man at the wheel yielded to our longing eyes, and
let us into his round tower. Oh, how good he was
to me ! The General took me up there, and the
pilot made a place for us, where, with my bit of
work, I listened for hours to his stories. My hus-
band made fifty trips up and down, sometimes de-
tained when we were nearingan interesting point,
to hear the story of the crevasse. Such tales were
thrilling enough even for him, accustomed as he
then was to the most exciting scenes. The pilot
pointed out places where the river, wild with the
rush and fury of spring freshets, had burst its way
through the levees, and, sweeping over a penin-
sula, returned to the channel beyond, utterly an-
nihilating and sinking out of sight forever the
ground where happy people had lived on their
plantations. It was a sad time to take that jour-
ney, and even in the midst of our intense enjoy-
ment of the novelty of the trip, the freedom from
anxiety, and the absence of responsibility of any
kind, I recall how the General grieved over the
destruction of plantations by the breaks in the
levee. The work on these embankments was done
by assessment, I think. They were cared for as
BREAKING OF A LEVEE, 55
our roads and bridges are kept in order, and when
men were absent in the war, only the negroes were
left to attend to the repairing. But the inunda-
tions then were slight, compared with many from
which the State has since suffered. In 1874 thirty
parishes were either wholly or partly overflowed
by an extraordinary rise in the river. On our trip
we saw one plantation after another submerged,
the grand old houses abandoned, and standing in
lakes of water, while the negro quarters and barns
were almost out of sight. Sometimes the cattle
huddled on a little rise of ground, helpless and
pitiful. We wished, as we used to do in that
beautiful Shenandoah Valley, that if wars must
come, the devastation of homes might be avoided.
And I usually added, with one of the totally im-
practicable suggestions conjured up by a woman,
that battles might be fought in desert places.
A Southern woman who afterward entertained
us, described, in the graphic and varied language
which is their gift, the breaking of the levee on
their own plantation. How stealthily the small
stream of water crept on and on, until their first
warning was its serpent-like progress past their
house. Then the excitement and rush of all the
household to the crevasse, the hasty gathering in
of the field -hands, and the homely devices for
stopping the break until more substantial materials
56 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
could be gathered. It was a race for life on all
sides. Each one, old or young, knew that his
safety depended on the superhuman effort of the
first hour of danger. In our safe homes we scarcely
realize what it would be to look out from our win-
dows upon, what seemed to me, a small and insuf-
ficient mound of earth stretching along the front-
age of an estate, and know that it was our only
rampart against a rushing flood, which seemed
human in its revengeful desire to engulf us.
The General was intensely interested in those
portions of the country where both naval and land
warfare had been carried on. At Island No. 10
and Fort Pillow especially, there seemed, even then,
no evidence that fighting had gone on so lately.
The luxuriant vegetation of the South had covered
the fortifications ; nature seemed hastening to
throw a mantle over soil that had so lately been
reddened with such a precious dye. The fighting
had been so desperate at the latter point, it is
reported the Confederate General Forrest said :
” The river was dyed with the blood of the
slaughtered for two hundred yards.”
At one of our stops on the route, the Confederate
General Hood came on board, to go to a town a
short distance below, and my husband, hearing he
was on the boat, hastened to seek him out and in-
troduce himself. Such reunions have now become
A FEDERAL AATD COMFEDERA TE GEiVERAL MEET.
57
common, I am thankful to say, but I confess to
watching curiously every expression of those men,
as it seemed very early, in those times of excited
and vehement conduct, to begin such overtures.
And yet I did not forget that my husband sent
messages of friendship to his classmates on the
other side, throughout the war. As I watched this
meeting, they looked, while they grasped each
other’s hand, as if they were old-time friends
happily united. After they had carried on an ani-
mated conversation for a while, my husband,
always thinking how to share his enjoyment, hur-
ried to bring me into the group. General Custer
had already taught me, even in those bitter times,
that he knew his classmates fought from their con-
victions of right, and that, now the war was over,
I must not be adding fuel to a fire that both sides
should strive to smother.
General Hood was tall, fair, dignified and sol-
dierly. He used his crutch with difficulty, and it
was an effort for him to rise when I was presented.
We three instantly resumed the war-talk that my
coming had interrupted. The men plied each
other with questions as to the situation of troops at
certain engagements, and the General fairly bom-
barded General Hood with inquiries about the
action on their side in different campaigns. At
that time nothing had been written for Northern
5^ TENTim ON THE PLAINS.
papers and magazines by the South. All we knew
was from the brief accounts in the Southern news-
papers that our pickets exchanged, and from papers
captured or received from Europe by way of
blockade-runners. We were greatly amused by
the comical manner in which General Hood de-
scribed his efforts to suit himself to an artificial leg,
after he had contributed his own to his beloved
cause. In his campaigns he was obliged to carry
an extra one, in case of accident to the one he
wore, which was strapped to his led horse. He
asked me to picture the surprise of the troops who
captured all the reserve horses at one time, and
found this false leg of his suspended from the
saddle. He said he had tried five, at different
times, to see which of the inventions was lightest
and easiest to wear; ” and I am obliged to confess,
Mrs. Custer, much as you may imagine it goes
against me to do so, that of the five — English,
German, French, Yankee and Confederate — the
Yankee leg was the best of all.” When General
Custer carefully helped the maimed hero down
the cabin stairs and over the gangway, we bade
him good-by with real regret — so quickly do sol-
diers make and cement a friendship when both
find the same qualities to admire in each other.
The novelty of Mississippi travel kept even our
active, restless party interested. One of our
CROSSIA’G SAND BARS.
59
number played guitar accompaniments, and we
sang choruses on deck at night, forgetting that the
war-songs might grate on the ears of some of the
people about us. The captain and steamer’s crew
allowed us to roam up and down the boat at will,
and when we found, by the map or crew, that we
were about to touch the bank in a hitherto un-
visited State, we were the first to run over the
gang-plank and caper up and down the soil, to add
a new State to our fast-swelling list of those in
which we had been. We rather wondered, though,
what we would do if asked questions by our
elders at home as to what we thought of Arkansas,
Mississippi and Tennessee, as we had only scam-
pered on and off the river-bank of those States
while the wooding went on. We were like chil-
dren let out of school, and everything interested us.
Even the low water was an event. The sudden
stop of our great steamer, which, large as it was,
drew but a few feet of water, made the timbers
groan and the machinery creak. Then we took
ourselves to the bow, where the captain, mate and
deck-hands were preparing for a siege, as the force
of the engines had ploughed us deep into a sand-
bar. There was wrenching, veering and strug-
gling of the huge boat ; and at last a resort to
those two spars which seem to be so uselessly at-
tached to each side of the forward deck of the
6o TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
river steamers. These were swung- out and
plunged into the bank, the rope and tackle put
into use, and with the aid of these stilts we were
skipped over the sand-bar into the deeper water.
It was on that journey that I first heard the
name Mr. Clemens took as his noni deplume.
The droning voice of the sailor taking soundings,
as we slowly crept through low water, called out,
” Mark twain !” and the pilot answered by steer-
ing the boat according to the story of the plumb-
line.
The trip on a Mississippi steamer, as we knew
it, is now one of the things of the past. It was
accounted then, and before the war, our most luxu-
rious mode of travel. Every one was sociable,
and in the constant association of the long trip,
some warm friendships sprung up. We had then
our first acquaintance with Bostonians as well as
with Southerners. Of course, it was too soon for
Southern women, robbed of home, and even the
necessities of life, by the cruelty of war, to be
wholly cordial. We were more and more amazed
at the ignorance in the South concerning the
North. A young girl, otherwise intelligent, thawed
out enough to confess to me that she had really no
idea that Yankee soldiers were like their own
physically. She imagined they would be as
widely different as black from white, and a sort
RIVER SCENERY 6 1
of combination of gorilla and chimpanzee. Gun-
boats had but a short time before moored at the
levee that bounded her grandmother’s plantation,
and the negroes ran into the house crying the ter-
rible news of the approach of the enemy. The
very thought of a Yankee was abhorrent ; but the
girl, more absorbed with curiosity than fear, slip-
ped out of the house to where a view of the walk
from the landing was to be had, and, seeing a
naval officer approaching, raced back to her grand-
mother, crying out in surprise at finding a being
like unto her own people, “Why, it’s a man.”
As we approached New Orleans, the plantations
grew richer. The palmetto and the orange, by
which we are ” twice blessed ” in its simultaneous
blossom and fruit ; the oleander, treasured in con-
servatories at home, here growing to tree size
along the country roads, all charmed us. The wide
galleries around the two stories of the houses were
a delight. The course of our boat was often near
enough the shore for us to see the family gathered
around the supper-table spread on the upper gal-
lery, which was protected from the sun by blinds,
or shades of matting.
We left the steamer at New Orleans with
regret. It seems, even now, that it is rather too
bad we have grown into so hurried a race that
we cannot spare the time to travel as leisurely
62 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
or luxuriously as we then did. Even pleasure-
seekers going off for a tour, when they are
not restricted by time nor mode of journeying,
study the time-tables closely, to see by which
route the quickest passage can be made.
CHAPTER II.
NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE WAR GENERAL WINFIELD
SCOTT UP RED RIVER — ^THE SKILL OF THE PILOTS
OUR ROMANTIC LOVER AT ALEXANDRIA A
NEGRO PRAYER-MEETING CONFEDERATE FORTS
QUICKSANDS ALLIGATOR HUNTING.
A^T’E v^^ere detained, by orders, for a little time
in New Orleans, and the General was enthu-
siastic over the city. All day we strolled through
the streets, visiting the French quarter, contrasting
the foreign shop-keepers, who were never too
hurried to be polite with our brusque business-like
Northern clerk, dined in the charming French
restaurants, where we saw eating made a fine art.
The sea-food was then new to me, and I hovered
over the crabs, lobsters and shrimps, but remem-
ber how amused the General was by my quick re-
treat from a huge green live turtle, whose locomo-
tion was suspended by his being turned upon his
back. He was unconsciously bearing his own
epitaph fastened upon his shell : ” I will be served
up for dinner at 5 p. m. We of course spent hours,
even matutinal hours, at the market, and the Gen^
63
64 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
eral drank so much coffee that the old mammy
who served him said many a ” Mon Dieu !” in sur-
prise at his capacity, and volubly described in
French to her neighbors what marvels a Yankee
man could do in coffee-sipping. For years after,
when very good coffee was praised, or even Eliza’s
strongly commended, his ne plus tdtra was,
” Almost equal to the French market.” We here
learned what artistic effects could be produced
with prosaic carrots, beets, onions and turnips.
The General looked with wonder upon the leis-
urely Creole grandee who came to order his own
dinner. After his epicurean selection, he showed
the interest and skill that a Northern man might
in the buying of a picture or a horse, when the
servant bearing the basket was entrusted with
what was to be enjoyed at night. We had never
known men that took time to market, except as
our hurried Northern fathers of families sometimes
made sudden raids upon the butcher, on the way
to business, and called off an order as they ran
for a car.
The wide-terraced Canal Street, with its throng
of leisurely promenaders, was our daily resort.
The stands of Parma violets on the street corners
perfumed the whole block, and the war seemed
not even to have cast a cloud over the first
foreign pleasure-loving people we had seen. The
DE TENTION AT NEW ORLEANS. 6 5
General was so pleased with the picturesque cos-
tumes of the servants, that Eliza was put into a
turban at his entreaty. In vain we tried for a
glimpse of the Creole beauties. The duenna that
guarded them in their rare promenades, as they
glided by, wearing gracefully the lace mantilla,
bonnetless, and shaded by a French parasol,
whisked the pretty things out of sight, quick as
we were to discover and respectfully follow them
The effects of General Butler’s reign were still
visible in the marvelous cleanliness of the city.
We drove on the shell road, spent hours in the
horse-cars, went to the theatres, and even pene-
trated the rooms of the most exclusive milliners,
for General Custer liked the shops as much as I
did. Indeed, we had a grand play-day, and were
not in the least troubled at our detention.
General Scott was then in our hotel, about to set
out for the North. He remembered Lieutenant
Custer, who had reported to him in 1861, and was
the bearer of despatches sent by him to the front;
and he congratulated my husband on his career m
terms that, coming from such a veteran, made his
boy-heart leap for joy. General Scott was then
very infirm, and, expressing a wish to see me, with
old-time gallantry begged my husband to explain
to me that he would be compelled to claim the
privilege of sitting. But it was too much for his
66 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
etiquettical instincts, and, weak as he was, he fee-
bly drew his tall form to a half-standing position,
leaning against the lounge as I entered. Pictures
of General Scott, in my father’s home, belonged
to my earliest recollections. He was a colossal
figure on a fiery steed, whose prancing fore feet
never touched the earth. The Mexican War had
hung a halo about him, and my childish explana-
tion of the clouds of dust that the artist sought to
represent was the smoke of battle, in which I sup-
posed the hero lived perpetually. And now this
decrepit, tottering man — I was almost sorry to
have seen him at all, except for the praise that he
bestowed upon my husband, which, coming from
so old a soldier, I deeply appreciated.
General Sheridan had assumed command of the
Department of the Mississippi, and the Govern-
ment had hired a beautiful mansion for headquar-
ters, where he was at last living handsomely after
all his rough campaigning. When we dined with
him, we could but contrast the food prepared over
a Virginia camp-fire, with the dainty French cook-
ery of the old colored Mary, who served him after-
ward so many years. General Custer was, of
course, glad to be under his chief again, and after
dinner, while I was given over to some of the
military family to entertain, the two men, sitting
on the wide gallery, talked of what, it was then
THE END OF A CITY HOLIDAY. 67
believed, would be a campaign across the border.
I was left in complete ignorance, and did not even
know that an army of 70,000 men was being or-
ganized under General Sheridan’s masterly hand.
My husband read the Eastern papers to me, and
took the liberty of reserving such articles as might
prove incendiary in his family. If our incorrigible
scamp spoke of the expected wealth he intended
to acquire from the sacking of palaces and the
spoils of churches, he was frowned upon, not only
because the General tried to teach him that there
were some subjects too sacred tp be touched by
his irreverent tongue, but because he did not wish
my anxieties to be aroused by the prospect of an-
other campaign. As much of my story must be
of the hardships my husband endured, I have here
lingered a little over the holiday that our journey
and the detention in New Orleans gave him. I
hardly think any one can recall a complaint of his
in those fourteen years of tent-life ; but he was
taught, through deprivations, how to enjoy every
moment of such days as that charming journey
and city experience gave us.
The steamer chartered to take troops up the Red
River was finally ready, and we sailed the last
week in June. There were horses and Government
freight on board. The captain was well named
Greathouse, as he greeted us with hospitality and
68 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
put his little steamer at our disposal. Besides
the fact that this contract for transportation would
line his pockets well, he really seemed glad to
have us. He was a Yankee, and gave us his na-
tive State (Indiana) in copious and inexhaustible
supplies, as his contribution to the talks on deck.
Long residence in the South had not dimmed his
patriotism ; and in the rapid transits from deck to
pilot-house, of this tall Hoosier, I almost saw the
straps fastening down the trousers of Brother
Jonathan, as well as the coat-tails cut from the
American flag, so entirely did he personate in his
figure our emblematic Uncle Sam, It is customary
for the Government to defray the expenses of offi-
cers and soldiers when traveling under orders ;
but so much red-tape is involved that they often
pay their own way at the time, and the quarter-
master reimburses them at the journey’s end.
The captain knew this, and thought he would
give himself the pleasure of having us as his
guests. Accordingly, he took the General one
side, and imparted this very pleasing information.
Even with the provident ones this would be a
relief; while we had come on board almost wrecked
in our finances by the theatre, the tempting flow-
ers, the fascinating restaurants, and finally, a dis-
astrous lingering one day in the beguiling shop of
Madam Olympe, the reigning milliner. The Gen-
HOSPITALITY OF CAPTAIN GREATIIOUSE. 69
eral had boug-ht some folly for me, in spite of the
heroic protest that I made about its inappropriate-
ness for Texas, and it left us just enough to pay for
our food on our journey, provided we ordered
nothing extra, and had no delays. Captain Great-
house little knew to what paupers he was extend-
ing his hospitality. No one can comprehend how
carelessly and enjoyably army people can walk
about with empty pockets, knowing that it is but
a matter of thirty days’ waiting till Richard shall
be himself again. My husband made haste to
impart the news quietly to the staff, that the
captain was going to invite them all to be his
guests, and so relieve their anxiety about financial
embarrassment. The scamp saw a chance for a
joke, and when the captain again appeared he
knew that he was going to receive the invitation,
and anticipated it. In our presence he jingled
the last twenty-six cents he had in the world
against the knife in his almost empty pockets,
assumed a Croesus-like air, and begged to know
the cost of the journey, as he loftily said he made
it a rule always to pay in advance. At this, the
General, unable to smother his laughter, precipitat-
ed himself out of the cabin-door, nearly over the
narrow guard, to avoid having his merriment
seen. When the captain said blandly that he was
about to invite our party to partake of his hospital-
JO
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ity, our scamp bowed, and accepted the courtesy
as if it were condescension on his part, and pro-
ceeded to take possession, and almost command,
of the steamer.
It was a curious trip, that journey up the Red
River. We saw the dull brownish-red water from
the clay bed and banks mingling with the clearer
current of the Mississippi long before we entered
the mouth of the Red River. We had a delight-
ful journey ; but I don’t know why, except that
youth, health and buoyant spirits rise superior to
everything. The river was ugliness itself. The
tree trunks, far up, were gray and slimy with the
late freshet, the hanging moss adding a dismal
feature to the scene. The waters still covered the
low, muddy banks strewn with fallen trees and
underbrush. The river was very narrow in places,
and in our way there were precursors of the Red
River raft above. At one time, before Govern-
ment work was begun, the raft extended forty-
five miles beyond Shreveport, and closed the
channel to steamers. Sometimes the pilot wound
us round just such obstructions — logs and drift-
wood jammed in so firmly, and so immovable,
they looked like solid ground, while rank vegeta-
tion sprung up through the thick moss that cov-
ered the decaying tree trunks. The river was
very crooked, The whistle screeched when ap-
RED RIVER OF THE SOUTH. 71
preaching a turn ; but so sudden were some of
these, that a steamer coming down, not slacken-
ing speed, almost ran into us at one sharp bend.
It shaved our sides and set our boat a-quivering,
while the vituperations of the boat’s crew, and the
loud, angry voices of the captain and pilot, with
a prompt return of such civilities from the other
steamer, made us aware that emergencies brought
forth a special and extensive set of invectives, re-
served for careless navigation on the Red River
of the South. We grew to have an increasing
respect for the skill of the pilot, as he steered us
around sharp turns, across low water filled with
branching upturned tree trunks, and skillfully
took a narrow path between the shore and a snag
that menacingly ran its black point out of the
water. A steamer in advance of us, carrying
troops, had encountered a snag, while going at
great speed, and the obstructing tree ran entirely
through the boat, coming out at the pilot-house.
The troops were unloaded and taken up after-
ward by another steamer. Sometimes the roots
of great forest trees, swept down by a freshet,
become imbedded in the river, and the whole
length of the trunk is under water, swaying up
and down, but not visible below the turbid sur-
face. The forest is dense at some points, and we
could see but a short distance as we made our
circuitous, dangerous way.
72
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
The sand-bars, and the soft red clay of the river-
banks, were a fitting home for the alligators that
lay sunning themselves, or sluggishly crawled into
the stream as the General popped away at them
with his rifle from the steamer’s guards. They
were new game, and gave some fresh excitement
to the long, idle days. He never gave up trying,
in his determined way, for the vulnerable spot in
their hide just behind the eye. I thought the
sand-hill crane must have first acquired its tiresome
habit of standing on one leg, from its disgust at
letting down the reserve foot into such thick,
noisome water. It seemed a pity that some of
those shots from the steamer’s deck had not
ended its melancholy existence. Through all this
mournful river-way the guitar twanged, and the
dense forest resounded to war choruses or old
college glees that we sent out in happy notes as
we sat on deck. I believe Captain Greathouse
bade us good-by with regret, as he seemed to
enjoy the jolly party, and when we landed at
Alexandria he gave us a hogshead of ice, the last
we were to see for a year.
A house abandoned by its owners, and used by
General Banks for headquarters during the war,
was selected for our temporary home. As we
stepped upon the levee, a tall Southerner came
toward me and extended his hand. At that time
MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD REVIVED. 73
the citizens were not wont to welcome the Yankee
in that manner. He had to tell me who he was,
as unfortunately I had forgotten, and I began
to realize the truth of the saying, that ” there are
but two hundred and fifty people in the world,”
when I found an acquaintance in this isolated town.
He proved to be the only Southerner I had ever
known in my native town in Michigan, who came
there when a lad to visit kinsfolk. In those days
his long black hair, large dark eyes and languish-
ing manner, added to the smooth, soft-flowing,
flattering speeches, made sad havoc in our school-
girl ranks. I suppose the youthful and probably
susceptible hearts of our circle were all set flutter-
ing, for the boy seemed to find pleasure in a chat
with any one of us that fell to him in our walks
to and from school. The captivating part of it all
was the lines written on the pages of my arith-
metic, otherwise so odious to me — ” Come with
me to my distant home, where, under soft South-
ern skies, we’ll breathe the odor of orange groves.”
None of us had answered to his ” Come,” possibly
because of the infantile state of our existence,
possibly because the invitation was too general.
And here stood our youthful hero, worn prema-
turely old and shabby after his four years of
fighting for ” the cause.” The boasted ” halls of
his ancestors,” the same to which we had been so
74 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ardently invited, were a plain white cottage. No
orange groves, but a few lime-trees sparsely scat-
tered over the prescribed lawn. In the pleasant
visit that we all had, there was discreet avoidance
of the poetic license he had taken in early years,
when describing his home under the southern sky.
Alexandria had been partly burned during
the war, and was built up mostly with one-story
cottages. Indeed, it was always the popular
mode of building there. We found everything
a hundred years behind the times. The houses of
our mechanics at home had more conveniences
and modern improvements. I suppose the retinue
of servants before the war rendered the inhabi-
tants indifferent to what we think absolutely
necessary for comfort. The house we used as
headquarters had large, lofty rooms separated by a
wide hall, while in addition there were two wings.
A family occupied one-half of the house, caring
for it in the absence of the owners. In the six
weeks we were there, we never saw them, and
naturally concluded they were not filled with joy
at our presence. The house was delightfully airy ;
but we took up the Southern custom of living on
the gallery. The library was still intact, in spite
of its having been headquarters for our army; and
evidently the people had lived in what was
considered luxury for the South in its former
A WATER FAMINE.
75
days, yet everything” was primitive enough.
This great house, filled as it once was with serv-
ants, had its sole water-supply from two tanks
or cisterns above-ground at the rear. The rich
and the poor were alike dependent upon these
receptacles, for water; and it was not a result
of the war, for this was the only kind of res-
ervoir provided, even in prosperous times. But
one well was dug in Alexandria, as the water was
brackish and impure. Each house, no matter how
small, had cisterns, sometimes as high as the
smaller cottages themselves. The water in those
where we lived was very low, the tops were
uncovered, and dust, leaves, bugs and flies were
blown in, while the cats strolled around the upper
rim during their midnight orchestral overtures.
We found it necessary to husband the fast lower-
ing water, as the rains were over for the summer.
The servants were enjoined to draw out the
home-made plug (there was not even a Yankee
faucet) with the utmost care, while some one was
to keep vigilant watch on a cow, very advanced
in cunning, that used to come and hook at the
plug till it was loosened and fell out. The sound
of flowing water was our first warning of the
precious wasting. No one could drink the river-
water, and even in our ablutions we turned our
eyes away as we poured the water from the pitcher
76 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
into the bowl. Our rain-water Vv-as so full of
gallinippers and poUywogs, that a glass stood by
the plate untouched until the sediment and nat-
ural history united at the bottom, while heaven
knows what a microscope, had we possessed one,
would have revealed !
Eliza was well primed with stories of alligators
by the negroes and soldiers, who loved to frighten
her. One measuring thirteen feet eight inches was
killed on the river-bank, they said, as he was about
to partake of his favorite supper, a negro sleep-
ing on the sand. It was enough for Eliza when
she heard of this preference for those of her
color, and she duly stampeded. She was not well
up in the habits of animals, and having seen the
alligators crawling over the mud of the river banks,
she believed they were so constituted that at night
they could take long tramps over the country.
She used to assure me that she nightly heard them
crawling around the house. One night, when some
fearful sounds issued from the cavernous depths
of the old cistern, she ran to one of the old negroes
of the place, her carefully braided wool rising from
her head in consternation, and called out, “Jest
listen ! jest listen!” The old mammy quieted her
by, ” Oh la, honey, don’t you be skeart ; nothin’s
goin’ to hurt you ; them’s only bull-toads.” This
information, though it quieted Eliza’s fears, did
THE SOTTTITERiV CALLLVTPPER.
77
not make the cistern-water any more enjoyable
to us.
The houses along Red River were raised from
the ground on piles, as the soil was too soft and
porous for cellars. Before the fences were de-
stroyed and the place fell into dilapidation, there
might hav6 been a lattice around the base of the
building, but now it was gone. Though this open
space under the house gave vent for what air was
stirring, it also offered free circulation to pigs, that
ran grunting and squealing back and forth, and
even the calves sought its grateful shelter from
the sun and flies. And, oh, the mosquitoes! Others
have exhausted adjectives in trying to describe
them, and until I came to know those of the Mis-
souri River at Fort Lincoln, Dakota, I joined in
the general testimony, that the Red River of the
South could not be outdone. The bayous about
us, filled with decaying vegetable matter, and
surrounded with marshy ground, and the frequent
rapid fall of the river, leaving banks of mud, all
bred mosquitoes, or gallinippers, as the darkies
called them. Eliza took counsel as to the best
mode of extermination, and brought old kettles
with raw cotton into our room, from which pro-
ceeded such smudges and such odors as would
soon have wilted a Northern mosquito ; but it only
resulted in making us feel like a piece of dried
78
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
meat hanging in a smoke-house, while the undis-
turbed insect winged its way about our heads,
singing as it swirled and dipped and plunged its
javelin into our defenseless flesh. There were days
there, as at Fort Lincoln, when the wind, blowing
in a certain direction, brought such myriads of
them that I was obliged to beat a retreat under
the netting that enveloped the high, broad bed,
which is a specialty of the extreme South, and
with my book, writing or sewing listened triumph-
antly to the clamoring army beating on the out-
side of the bars. The General made fun of me
thus enthroned, when he returned from office
work ; but I used to reply that he could afford fo
remain unprotected, if the greedy creatures could
draw their sustenance from his veins without leav-
ing a sting.
At the rear of our house were two rows of
negro quarters, which Eliza soon penetrated, and
afterward begged me to visit. Only the very old
and worthless servants remained. The owners of
the place on which we were living had three other
sugar plantations in the valley, from one of which
alone 2,300 hogsheads of sugar were shipped in
one season, and at the approach of the army 500
able-bodied negroes were sent into Texas. Eliza
described the decamping of the owner of the plan-
tation thus, ” Oh, Miss Libbie, the war made a
NEGRO REMINISCENCES.
79
mighty scatter.” The poor creatures left were in
desperate straits. One, a bed-ridden woman,
having been a house-servant, was intelhgent for
one of her race. After Ehza had taken me the
rounds, I piloted the General, and he found that,
though the very old woman did not know her exact
age, she could tell him of events that she remem-
bered when she was in New Orleans with her mis-
tress, which enabled him to calculate her years to
be almost a hundred. Three old people claimed
to remember ” Washington’s war.” I look back
to our visit to her little cabin, where we sat beside
her bed, as one of vivid interest. The old woman
knew little of the war, and no one had told her
of the proclamation until our arrival. We were
both much moved when, after asking us ques-
tions, she said to me, ” And, Missey, is it really
true that I is free ?” Then she raised her eyes to
heaven, and blessed the Lord for letting her live
to see the day. The General, who had to expostu-
late with Eliza sometimes for her habit of feeding
every one out of our supplies, whether needy or
not, had no word to say now. Our kitchen could
be full of grizzly, tottering old wrecks, and he only
smiled on the generous dispenser of her master’s
substance. Indeed, he had them fed all the time
we stayed there, and they dragged their tattered
caps from their old heads, and blessed him as we
8o TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
left, for what he had done, and for the food that
he provided for them after we were gone.
It was at Alexandria that I first visited a negro
prayer-meeting. As we sat on the gallery one
evening, we heard the shouting and singing, and
quietly crept round to the cabin where the exhort-
ing and groaning were going on. My husband
stood with uncovered head, reverencing their sin-
cerity, and not a muscle of his face moved,
though it was rather difficult to keep back a smile
at the grotesqueness of the scene. The language,
and the absorbed manner in which these old
slaves held communion with their Lord, as if He
were there in person, and told Him in simple but
powerful language their thanks that the day of
Jubilee had come, that their lives had been spared
to see freedom come to His people, made us sure
that a faith that brought their Saviour down in
their midst was superior to that of the more civil-
ized, who send petitions to a throne that they
themselves surround with clouds of doctrine and
doubt. Though they were so poor and helpless,
and seemingly without anything to inspire grati-
tude, evidently there were reasons in their own
minds for heartfelt thanks, as there was no mistak-
ing the genuineness of feeling when they sang :
** Bless the Lord that I can rise and tell
That Jesus has done all things well.”
COLORED PR A YER-MEE TING. 8 1
Old as some of these people were, their reUgion
took a very energetic form. They swayed back
and forth as they sat about the dimly lighted
cabin, clapped their hands spasmodically, and
raised their eyes to heaven in moments of absorp-
tion. There were those among the younger peo-
ple who jumped up and down as the ” power “
possessed them, and the very feeblest uttered
groans, and quavered out the chorus of the old
tunes, in place of the more active demonstrations
for which their rheumatic old limbs now unfitted
them. When, afterward, my husband read to me
newspaper accounts of negro camp-meetings or
prayer-meetings graphically written, no descrip-
tion seemed exaggerated to us ; and he used to
say that nothing compared with that night when
we first listened to those serious, earnest old cen-
tenarians, whose feeble voices still quavered out a
tune of gratitude, as, with bent forms and bowed
heads, they stood leaning on their canes and
crutches.
As the heat became more overpowering, I be-
gan to make excuses for the slip-shod manner of
living of the Red River people. Active as was
my temperament, climatic influences told, and I
felt that I should have merited the denunciation
of the antique woman in ” Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”
of ” Heow shiftless ! ” It was hard to move about
82 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
in the heat of the day, but at evening we all went
for a ride. It seemed to me a land of enchant-
ment. We had never known such luxuriance of
vegetation. The valley of the river extended
several miles inland, the foliage was varied and
abundant, and the sunsets had deeper, richer
colors than any at the North. The General, get
ting such constant pleasure out of nature, and not
in the least minding to express it, was glad to
hear even the prosaic one of our number, who
rarely cared for color or scenery, go into raptures
over the gorgeous orange and red of that Southern
sky. We sometimes rode for miles along the
country roads, between hedges of osage-orange
on one side, and a double white rose on the other,
growing fifteen feet high. The dew enhanced
the fragrance, and a lavish profusion was dis-
played by nature in that valley, which was a con-
stant delight to us. Sometimes my husband and
I remained out very late, loth to come back to
the prosy, uninteresting town, with its streets
flecked with bits of cotton, evidences of the traffic
of the world, as the levee was now piled up with
bales ready for shipment. Once the staif crossed
with us to the other side of the river, and rode
out through more beautiful country roads, to
what was still called Sherman Institute. General
Sherman had been at the head of this military
CONFEDERATE ENGINEERING. 83
school before the war, but it was subsequently
converted into a hospital. It was in a lonely and
deserted district, and the great empty stone
building, with its turreted corners and modern
architecture, seemed utterly incongruous in the
wild pine forest that surrounded it. We returned
to the river, and visited two forts on the bank
opposite Alexandria. They were built by a Con-
federate officer who used his Federal prisoners
for workmen. The General took in at once the
admirable situation selected, which commanded
the river for many miles. He thoroughly appre-
ciated, and endeavored carefully to explain to me,
how cleverly the few materials at the disposal of
the impoverished South had been utilized. The
moat about the forts was the deepest our officers
had ever seen. Closely as my husband studied
the plan and formation, he said it would have
added greatly to his appreciation, had he then
known, what he afterward learned, that the Con-
federate engineer who planned this admirable
fortification was one of his classmates at West
Point, of whom he was very fond. In 1864 an
immense expedition of our forces was sent up the
Red River, to capture Shreveport and open up the
great cotton districts of Texas. It was unsuccess-
ful, and the retreat was rendered impossible by
low water, while much damage was done to our
84 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
fleet by the very Confederate forts we were now
visiting-. A dam was constructed near Alexan-
dria, and the squadron was saved from capture
or annihilation by this timely conception of a
quick-witted Western man, Colonel Joseph Bailey,
The dam was visible from the walls of the forts,
where we climbed for a view.
As we resumed our ride to the steamer, the
General, who was usually an admirable path-
finder, proposed a new and shorter road; and lik-
ing variety too much to wish to travel the same
country twice over, all gladly assented. Every-
thing went very well for a time. We were ab-
sorbed in talking, noting new scenes on the route,
or, as was our custom when riding off from the
public highway, we sang some chorus ; and thus
laughing, singing, joking, we galloped over the
ground thoughtlessly into the very midst of seri-
ous danger. Apparently, nothing before us im-
peded our way. We knew very little of the
nature of the soil in that country, but had become
somewhat accustomed to the bayous that either
start from the river or appear suddenly inland,
quite disconnected from any stream. On that
day we dashed heedlessly to the bank of a wide
bayou that poured its waters into the Red River.
Instead of thinking twice, and taking the precau-
tion to follow its course farther up into the coun-
S ti
•S ‘5
5:5
.is J3
a a
o o
Q Q
86 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
try, where the mud was dryer and the space to
cross much narrower, we determined not to de-
lay, and prepared to go over. The most venture-
some dashed first on to this bit of dried slough,
and though the crust swayed and sunk under
the horse’s flying feet, it still seemed caked hard
enough to bear every weight. There were seams
and fissures in portions of the bayou, through
which the moist mud oozed ; but these were not
sufficient warning to impetuous people. Another
and another sprang over the undulating soiL
Having reached the other side, they rode up and
down the opposite bank, shouting to us where
they thought it the safest to cross, and of course
interlarded their directions with good-natured
scoffing about hesitation, timidity, and so on.
The General, never second in anything when he
could help it, remained behind to fortify my sink-
ing heart, and urge me to undertake the crossing
with him. He reminded me how carefully Custis
Lee had learned to follow and to trust to him,
and he would doubtless plant his hoofs in the
very tracks of his own horse. Another of our
party tried to bolster up my courage, assuring me
that if the heavy one among us was safely on the
other bank, my light weight might be trusted. I
dreaded making the party wait until we had
gone farther up the bayou, and might have mus-
ADVENTURE ON A BAYOU. 87
tered up the required pluck had I not met with
trepidation on the part of my horse. His fine,
delicate ears told me, as plainly as if he could
speak, that I was asking a great deal of him. We
had encountered quicksands together in the bed
of a Virginia stream, and both horse and rider
were recalling the fearful sensation, when the
animal’s hind legs sank, leaving his body en-
gulfed in the soil. With powerful struggles
with his fore feet and muscular shoulders, we
plunged to the right and left, and found at last
firm soil on which to escape. With such a recol-
lection still fresh, as memory is sure to retain ter-
rors like that, it was hardly a wonder that we
shrank from the next step. His trembling flanks
shook as much as the unsteady hand that held his
bridle. He quivered from head to foot, and held
back. I urged, and patted his neck, while we
both continued to shiver on the brink. The Gen-
eral laughed at the two cowards we really were,
but still gave us time to get our courage up to
the mark. The officer remaining with us con-
tinued to encourage me with assurances that there
was ” not an atom of danger,” and finally, with a
bound, shouting out, ” Look how well I shall go
over ! ” sprang upon the vibrating crust. In an in-
stant, with a crack like a pistol, the thin layer of
solid mud broke, and down went the gay, hand-
88 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
somely caparisoned fellow, engulfed to his waist
in the foul black crust. There was at once a com-
motion. With no ropes, it was hard to effect his
release. His horse helped him most, struggling
frantically for the bank, while the officers, having
flung themselves off from their animals to rush to
his rescue, brought poles and tree branches, which
the imbedded man was not slow to grasp and
drag himself from the perilous spot when only
superhuman strength could deliver him, as the
mud of a bayou sucks under its surface with
great rapidity anything with which it comes in
contact. As soon as the officer was dragged
safely on to firm earth, a shout went up that rent
the air with its merriment. Scarcely any one
spoke while they labored to save the man’s life,
but once he was out of peril, the rescuers felt
their hour had come. They called out to him, in
tones of derision, the vaunting air with which he
said just before his engulfment, ” Look at me;
see how I go over ! ” He was indeed a sorry
sight, plastered from head to foot with black mud.
Frightened as I was — for the trembling had ad-
vanced to shivering, and my chattering teeth and
breathless voice were past my control — I still felt
that little internal tremor of laughter that some-
how pervades one who has a sense of the ludicrous
in very dangerous surroundings.
A LOUISIANA BAYOU.
89
I had certainly made a very narrow escape, for
it would have been doubly hard to extricate me.
The riding habits in those days were very long,
and loaded so with lead to keep them down in
high winds — and, I may add, in furious riding —
that it was about all I could do to lift my skirt
when I put it on.
I held my horse with a snaffle, to get good,
smooth going out of him, and my wrists became
pretty strong ; but in that slough I would have
found them of little avail, I fear. There remained
no opposition to seeking a narrower part of the
bayou, above where I had made such an escape,
and there was still another good result of this
severe lesson after that : when we came to such
ominous looking soil, Custis Lee and his mistress
were allowed all the shivering on the brink that
their cowardice produced, while the party scattered
to investigate the sort of foundation we were
likely to find, before we attempted to plunge over
a Louisiana quagmire.
The bayous were a strange feature of that coun-
try. Often without inlet or outlet, a strip of water
appeared, black and sluggish, filled with logs, snags,
masses of underbrush and leaves. The banks, cov-
ered with weeds, noisome plants and rank tangled
vegetation, seemed the dankest, darkest, most
weird and mournful spots imaginable, a fit home for
90
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ghouls and bogies. There could be no more appro-
priate place for a sensational novelist to locate a
murder. After a time, I became accustomed to
these frequently occurring water ways, but it took
me a good while to enjoy going fishing on them.
The men were glad to vary their days by dropping
a line in that vile water, and I could not escape
their urging to go, though I was excused from
fishing.
On one occasion we went down the river on a
steamer, the sailors dragging the small boats over
the strip of land between the river and the bayou,
and all went fishing or hunting. This excursion
was one that I am likely to remember forever.
The officers, intent on their fishing, were rowed
slowly through the thick water, while I was won-
dering to myself if there could be, anywhere, such
a wild jungle of vines and moss as hung from the
trees and entangled itself in the mass of weeds
and water-plants below. We followed little in-
dentations of the stream, and the boat was rowed
into small bays and near dark pools, where the
fish are known to stay, and finally we floated.
The very limbs of the trees and the gnarled
trunks took on human shape, while the drooping
moss swayed as if it might be the drapery of a
lamia, evolved out of the noisome vapors and
floating above us. These fears and imaginings,
ALLIGA TORS. g I
which would have been put to flight by the assur-
ances of the General, had he not been so intent on
his line, proved to be not wholly spectres of the
imagination. A mass of logs in front of us seemed
to move. They did move, and the alligator, that
looked so like a tree-trunk, established his identity
by separating himself from the floating timber and
making off. It was my scream, for the officers
themselves did not enjoy the proximity of the
beast, that caused the instant use of the oars and
a quick retreat.
I went fishing after that, of course ; I couldn’t
get out of it ; indeed, I was supported through my
tremors by a pleasure to which a woman cannot
be indifferent ; that of being wanted on all sorts
of excursions. But logs in the water never looked
like logs after that ; to my distended vision they
appeared to writhe with the slow contortions of
loathsome animals.
A soldier captured a baby-alligator one day,
and the General, thinking to quiet my terror of
them by letting me see the reptile ” close to,” as
the children say, took me down to camp, where
the delighted soldier told me how he had caught
it, holding on to the tail, which is its weapon.
The animal was all head and tail ; there seemed
to be no intermediate anatomy. He flung the
latter member at a hat in so vicious and violent a
92
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
way, that I believed instantly the story, which I
had first received with doubt, of his rapping- over
a puppy and swallowing him before rescue could
come. This pet was in a long tank of water the
owner had built, and it gave the soldiers much
amusement.
The General was greatly interested in alligator-
huntino^. It was said that the scales were as thick
as a china plate, except on the head, and he began
to believe so when he found his balls glancing off
the impenetrable hide as if from the side of an
iron-clad. I suppose it was very exciting, after
the officers had yelped and barked like a dog, to
to see the great monster decoyed from some dark
retreat by the sound of his favorite tid-bit The
wary game came slowly down the bayou, under
fire of the kneeling huntsmen concealed in the
underbrush, and was soon despatched. For my-
self, I should have preferred, had I been consulted,
a post of observation in the top of some tree, in-
stead of the boat in which I was being rowed.
CHAPTER III.
MUTINY TRIAL BY COURT-MARTIAL A MILITARY EXE-
CUTION MARCHING THROUGH TEXAS FORAGING
FOR A BED JOY OVER A PILLOW EVERY MAN
HAS HIS PRICE FOUR MONTHS IN A WAGON
LIFE WITHOUT A LOOKING-GLASS.
‘^HERE w^as a great deal to do in those v^eeks
of our detention at Alexandria, during the
working hours of the day, in organizing the
division of cavalry for the march. Troops that
had been serving in the West during the w^ar
were brought together at that point from all
directions, and an effort was made to form them
into a disciplined body. This herculean task
gave my husband great perplexity. He wrote
to my father that he did not entirely blame the
men for the restlessness and insubordination they
exhibited, as their comrades, who had enlisted only
for the war, had gone home, and, of course, wrote
back letters to their friends of the pleasures of
reunion with their families and kindred, and the
welcome given them by their townspeople. The
troops with us had not served out the time of
94
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
their enlistment, and the Government, according
to the strict letter of the law, had a right to the
unexpired time for which the men were pledged.
Some of the regiments had not known the smell
of gunpowder during the entire vv^ar, having been
stationed in and near Southern cities, and that
duty is generally demoralizing. In the reorgan-
izing of this material, every order issued was met
with growls and grumbling. It seemed that it
had been the custom with some of their officers to
issue an order, and then go out and make a speech,
explaining the whys and wherefores. One of the
colonels came to the General one day at his own
quarters, thinking it a better place than the office
to make his request. He was a spectacle, and
though General Custer was never in after years
incautious enough to mention his name, he could
not, with his keen sense of the ludicrous, resist a
laughing description of the interview. The man
was large and bulky in build. Over the breast of
a long, loose, untidy linen duster he had spread
the crimson sash, as he was officer of the day. A
military sword-belt gathered in the voluminous
folds of the coat, and from his side hung a parade
sword. A slouch hat was crowded down on a
shock of bushy hair. One trouser-leg was tucked
into his boot, as if to represent one foot in the
cavalry; the other, true to the infantry, was down
MILITAR Y SELF-GO VERNMENT.
95
in its proper place. He began his interview by
praising his regiment, gave an account of the suc-
cess with which he was drilling his men, and,
leaning confidentially on the General’s knee, told
him he ” would make them so near like reg-
glers you couldn’t tell ’em apart.” Two officers
of the regular army were then in command of
the two brigades, to one of which this man’s
regiment was assigned. But the object of the
visit was not solely to praise his regiment ; he
went on to say that an order had been issued
which the men did not like, and he had come up to
expostulate. He did not ask to have the order
rescinded, but told the General he would like to
have him come down and give the reasons to the
troops. He added that this was what they ex-
pected, and when he issued any command he
went out and got upon a barrel and explained it
to the boys. My husband listened patiently, but
declined, as that manner of issuing orders was
hardly in accordance with his ideas of discipline.
The soldiers did not confine their maledictions
to the regular officers in command ; they openly
refused to obey their own officers. One of the
colonels (I am glad I have forgotten his name)
made ^ social call at our house. He was in great
perturbation of mind, and evidently terrified, as
in the preceding night his dissatisfied soldiers had
96
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
riddled his tent with bullets, and, but for his ” lying”
low ” he would have been perforated like a sieve.
The men supposed they had ended his military
career ; but at daylight he crept out. The sol-
diers were punished ; but there seemed to be
little to expect in the way of obedience if, after
four years, they ignored their superiors and took
affairs into their own hands. Threats began to
make their way to our house. The staff had their
tents on the lawn in front of us, and even they
tried to persuade the General to lock the doors
and bolt the windows, which were left wide open
day and night. Failing to gain his consent to
take any precautions, they asked me to use my
influence ; but in such affairs I had little success
in persuasion. The servants, and even the order-
lies, came to me and solemnly warned me of the
threats and the danger that menaced the General.
Thoroughly frightened in his behalf, they prefaced
their warnings with the old-fashioned sensational
language: “This night, at 12 o’clock,” etc. The
fixing of the hour for the arrival of the assas-
sin completely unnerved me, as I had not then
escaped from the influence that the melodramatic
has upon youth. I ran to the General the mo-
ment he came from his office duties, to tell him,
with tears and agitation, of his peril. As usual,
he soothed my fears, but, on this occasion, only
THREATS AND A PiSTOL. q7
temporarily. Still, seeing what I suffered from
anxiety, he made one concession, and consented,
after much imploring, to put a pistol under his
pillow. A complete battery of artillery round our
house could not have secured to me more peace
of mind than that pistol ; for I knew the accuracy
of his aim, and I had known too much of his cool,
resolute action, in moments of peril, not to be sure
that the small weapon would do its work. Peace
was restored to the head of our house ; he had a
respite from the whimpering and begging. I even
grew so courageous as to be able to repeat to
Eliza, when she came next morning to put the
room in order, what the General had said to me,
that ” barking dogs do not bite.” The mattress
was proudly lifted, and the pistol, of which I stood
in awe, in spite of my faith in its efficacy, was ex-
hibited to her in triumph. I made wide detours
around that side of the bed the rest of the time we
remained at Alexandria, afraid of the very weapon
to which I was indebted for tranquil hours. The
cats, pigs and calves might charge at will under
the house. If I mistook them for the approaching
adversary I remembered the revolver and was
calmed.
Long afterward, during our winter in Texas, my
husband began one day to appear mysterious, and
assume the suppressed air that invariably prefaced
98
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
a season of tormenting, when a siege of questions
only brought out deeper and obscurer answers
to me. Pouting, tossing of the head, and reiter-
ated announcements that I didn’t care a rap, I
didn’t want to know, etc., were met by chuckles
of triumph and wild juba patting and dancing
around the victim ; unrestrained by my saying that
such was the custom of the savage while torturing
his prisoner. Still, he persisted that he had such
a good joke on me. And it certainly was : there
had not been a round of ammunition in the house
that we occupied at Alexandria, neither had that
old pistol been loaded during the entire summer.
The soldiers became bolder in their rebellion,
insubordination reached a point where it was al-
most uncontrollable. Reports were sent to Gen-
eral Sheridan, in command of the Department,
and he replied to my husband, ” Use such sum-
mary measures as you deem proper to overcome
the mutinous disposition of the individuals in
your command.” A Western officer, a stranger
to us up to that time, published an account of one
of the regiments, which explains what was not
clear to us then, as we had come directly from
the Army of the Potomac:
” One regiment had suffered somewhat from
indifferent field-officers, but more from the bad
fortune that overtook so many Western regiments
JNSUBORDINA TION.
99
in the shape of garrison duty in small squads or
squadrons, so scattered as to make each a sort of
independent command, which in the end resulted
in a loss of discipline, and the ruin of those bonds
of sympathy that bound most regiments together.
To lead such a regiment into a hotly contested
fight would be a blessing, and would effectually
set at rest all such trouble; but their fighting had
been altogether of the guerrilla kind, and there
was no regimental pride of character, simply be-
cause there had been no regimental deed of valor.
Tired out with the long service, weary with an
uncomfortable journey by river from Memphis,
sweltering under a Gulf-coast sun, under orders
to go farther and farther from home when the
war was over, the one desire was, to be mustered
out and released from a service that became irk-
some and baleful when a prospect of crushing the
enemy no longer existed. All these, added to
the dissatisfaction among the officers, rendered
the situation truly deplorable. The command
had hardly pitched their tents at Alexandria be-
fore the spirit of reckless disregard of authority
began to manifest itself. The men, singly or in
squads, began to go on extemporaneous raids
through the adjoining country, robbing and
plundering indiscriminately in every direction.
They seemed to have no idea that a conquered
lOO TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and subdued people could possibly have any
rights that the conquerors were bound to respect.
But General Custer was under orders to treat the
people kindly and considerately, and he obeyed
orders with the same punctiliousness with which
he exacted obedience from his command.”
The anger and hatred of these troops toward
one especial officer culminated in their peremp-
tory demand that he should resign. They drew
up a paper, and signed their names. He had not
a friend, and sought the commanding officer for
protection. This was too pronounced a case of
mutiny to be treated with any but the promptest,
severest measures, and all who had put their
names to the document were placed under arrest.
The paper was in reality but a small part of the
incessant persecution, which included threats of
all kinds against the life of the hated man ; but
it was written proof that ‘ * tements regarding
his danger were true.
All but one of those that were implicated apol-
ogized, and were restored to duty. A sergeant
held out, and refused to acknowledge himself in
the wrong. A court-martial tried him, and he
was sentenced to death. Those who had been
associated in the rebellion against their officer
were thoroughly frightened, and seriously grieved
at the fate to which their comrade had been con-
JUSTICE AND MERCY. lOI
signed by their uncontrollable rage, and began to
speak among themselves of the wife and children
at home. The wife was unconscious that the
heartbreaking revelations were on their way, that
the saddest of woman’s sorrows, widowhood, was
hers to endure, and that her children must bear a
tainted name. It came to be whispered about that
the doomed man wore on his heart a curl of
baby’s hair, that had been cut from his child’s head
when he went out to serve his imperiled country.
Finally, the wretched, conscience-stricken soldiers
sued for pardon for their condemned companion,
and the very man against whom the enmity had
been cherished, and who owed his life to an
accident, busied himself in collecting the name of
every man in the command, begging clemency
for the imperiled sergeant. Six days passed, and
there was increased misery among the men, who
felt themselves responsible for their comrade’s
life. The prayer for pardon, with its long roll of
names, had been met by the General with the
reply that the matter would be considered.
The men now prepared for vengeance. They
lay around the camp-fires, or grouped themselves
in tents, saying that the commanding officer
would not dare to execute the sentence of the
court-martial, while messages of this kind
reached my husband in cowardly, roundabout
102 TENTTNC, ON’ THE PLAINS.
ways, and threats and menaces seemed to fill
the air. The preparation for the serg-eant’s exe-
cution was ordered, and directions given that a
deserter, tried by court-martial and condemned,
should be shot on the same day. This man, a
vagabond and criminal before his enlistment, had
deserted three or four times, and his sentence
drew little pity from his comrades. At last
dawned in the lovely valley that dreadful day,
which I recall now with a shudder. It was im-
possible to keep me from knowing that an execu-
tion was to occur. There was no place to send
me. The subterfuges by which my husband had
kept me frorfi knowing the tragic or the sorrowful
in our military life heretofore, were of no avail
now. Fortunately, I knew nothing of the peti-
tion for pardon ; nothing, thank God ! of the wife
at her home, or of the curl of baby’s hair that
was rising and falling over the throbbing, ago-
nized heart of the condemned father. And how
the capacity we may have for embracing the sor-
rows of the whole world disappears, when our
selfish terrors concentrate on the safety of our
own loved ones !
The sergeant’s life was precious as a life ; but
the threats, the ominous and quiet watching, the
malignant, revengeful faces of the troops about
us, told me plainly that another day might darken
COOLNESS UNDER DANGER. 103
my life forever, and I was consumed by my own
torturing suspense. Rumors of the proposed
murder of my husband reached me through the
kitchen, the orderUes about our quarters, and at
last through the staff. They had fallen into the
fashion of my husband, and spared me anything
that was agitating or alarming ; but this was a
time, they felt, when all possible measures should
be taken to protect the General, and they im-
plored me to induce him to take precautions for
his safety. My pleading was of no avail. He
had ordered the staff to follow him unarmed to
the execution. They begged him to wear his
side-arms, or at least permit them the privilege,
in order that they might defend him ; but he
resolutely refused. How trivial seem all attempts
to describe the agonies of mind that jfilled that
black hour when the General and his staff rode
from our lawn toward the dreaded field !
Eliza, ever thoughtful of me, hovered round
the bed, where I had buried my head in the pil-
lows, to deaden the sound of the expected volley.
With terms of endearment, and soothino^, she
sought to assure me that nothing would happen
to the General. ” Nothin’ ever does, you know.
Miss Libbie,” she said, her voice full of the
mother in us all when we seek to console. And
yet that woman knew all the plans for the Gen-
I04 TENTIh’G ON- THE PLAINS.
eral’s death, all the venom in the hearts of those
who surrounded us, and she felt no hope for
his safety.
Pomp and circumstance are not alone for
” glorious war,” but in army life must also be ob-
served in times of peace. There are good
reasons for it, I suppose. The more form and
solemnity, the deeper the impression ; and as this
day was to be a crucial one, in proving to the in-
subordinate that order must eventually prevail,
nothing was hurried, none of the usual customs
were omitted. Five thousand soldiers formed a hol-
low square in a field near the town. The staff, ac-
customed to take a position and remain with their
General near the opening left by the division, fol-
lowed with wonder and alarm as he rode slowly
around the entire square, so near the troops that
a hand might have been stretched out to deal a
fatal blow. The wagon, drawn by four horses,
bearing the criminals sitting on their coffins, was
driven at a slow pace around the square, escorted
by the guard and the firing-party, with reversed
arms. The coffins were placed in the centre of
the square, and the men seated upon them at the
foot of their open graves. Eight men, with livid
countenances and vehemently beating hearts, took
their places in front of their comrades, and looked
upon the blanched, despairing faces of those
A REPRIEVE, 105
whom they were ordered to kill. The provost-
marshal carried their carbines off to a distance,
loaded seven, and placed a blank cartridge in the
eighth, thus giving the merciful boon of per-
manent uncertainty as to whose was the fatal shot.
The eyes of the poor victims were then bandaged,
while thousands of men held their breath as the
tragedy went on. The still, Southern air of that
garden on earth was unmoved by any sound, save
the unceasing notes of the mocking-birds that
sang night and day in the hedges. Preparations
had been so accurately made that there was but
one word to be spoken, after the reading of the
warrant for execution, and that the last that those
most miserable and hopeless of God’s creatures
should hear on earth.
There was still one more duty for the provost-
marshal before the fatal word, ” Fire !” was sound-
ed. But one person understood his movements as
he stealthily drew near the sergeant, took his arm,
and led him aside. In an instant his voice rang out
the fatal word, and the deserter fell back dead, in
blessed ignorance that he went into eternity alone ;
while the sergeant swooned in the arms of the
provost-marshal. When he was revived, it was
explained to him that the General believed him to
have been the victim of undue influence, and had
long since determined upon the pardon ; but some
I06 TENTINC ON THE PLAINS.
punishment he thought necessary, and he was also
determined that the soldiers should not feel that
he had been intimidated from performing his duty
because his own life was in peril. It was ascer-
tained afterward that the sergeant’s regiment had
gone out that day with loaded carbines and forty
rounds besides ; but the knowledge of this would
have altered no plan, nor would it have induced
the commanding officer to reveal to any but his
provost-marshal the final decision.
Let us hope that in these blessed days of peace
some other tiny curls are nestling in a grand-
father’s neck, instead of lying over his heart as
did the son’s in those days, when memories and
mementoes were all we had of those we loved.
General Custer not only had his own Division
to organize and discipline, but was constantly
occupied in trying to establish some sort of har-
mony between the Confederate soldiers, the citi-
zens, and his command. The blood of everyone
was at boiling-point then. The soldiers had not
the grief of returning to homes desolated by war,
because Louisiana escaped much and Texas all of
the devastation of campaigns ; but they came
home obliged to begin the world again. The
negroes of the Red-River country were not an
easy class to manage in days of slavery. We
heard that all desperate characters in the border
PERPLEXITIES 01^ DISCIPLINE. 1 07
States had been sold into Louisiana, because of
its comparative isolation, and that the most ungov-
ernable cases were congregated in the valley of
the Red River. However that may have been, it
certainly was difficult to make them conform to
the new state of affairs. The master, unaccus-
tomed to freedom, still treated the negro as a
slave. The colored man, inflated with freedom
and reveling in idleness, would not accept com-
mon directions in labor. How even the South
tolerates a name that it once hated, in the pros-
perity of the new regime, and in the prospect of
their splendid future ! How fresh the enthusiasm
in the present day, at any mention of the liberator
of the slaves !
But when we consider through what bungling
errors we groped blindly in those early days of
emancipation, we might well wish that Abraham
Lincoln could have been spared to bring his jus-
tice and gentle humanity to bear upon the ad-
justing of that great transition from slavery to
freedom.
At the least intimation of a ” show ” or a funeral
— which is a festivity to them, on account of the
crowds that congregate — off went the entire body
of men, even if the crops were in danger of spoil-
ing for want of harvesting. It was a time in our
history that one does not like to look back upon.
Io8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
The excitement into which the land was thrown,
not only by war, but by the puzzhng question of
how to reconcile master to servant and servant to
master — for the colored people were an element
most difficult to manage, owing to their ignorance
and the sudden change of relations to their former
owners — all this created new and perplexing
problems, which were the order of each day.
The Confederate soldiers had to get their blood
down from fever heat. Some took advantage of
the fact that the war was over and the Govern-
ment was ordering its soldiers into the State, not
as invaders but as pacifiers, to drag their sabres
through the street and talk loudly on the corners
in belligerent language, without fear of the im-
prisonment that in war-times had so quickly
followed.
The General was obliged to issue simultaneous
orders to his own men, demanding their observ-
ance of every right of the citizen, and to the re-
turned Confederate soldiers, assuring them that
the Government had not sent troops into their
country as belligerents, but insisting upon certain
obligations, as citizens, from them.
In an order to the Division, he said : ” Numer-
ous complaints having reached these headquarters,
of depredations having been committed by per-
sons belonging to this command, all officers and
AN ORDER TO THE DIVISION. 109
soldiers are hereby urged to use every exertion to
prevent the committal of acts of lawlessness,
which, if permitted to pass unpunished, will bring
discredit upon the command. Now that the war
is virtually ended, the rebellion put down, and
peace about to be restored to our entire country,
let not the lustre of the past four years be dim-
med by a single act of misconduct toward the
persons or property of those with whom we
may be brought in contact. In the future,
and particularly on the march, the utmost
care will be exercised to save the inhabitants
of the country in which we may be located
from any molestation whatever. Every violation
of the order regarding foraging will be punished.
The Commanding-General is well aware that the
number of those upon whom the enforcement of
this order will be necessary will be small, and he
trusts that in no case will it be necessary. All
officers and soldiers of this command are ear-
nestly reminded to treat the inhabitants of this De-
partment with conciliation and kindness, and par-
ticularly is this injunction necessary when we are
brought in contact with those who lately were in
arms against us. You can well afford to be gen-
erous and magnanimous.”
In another order, addressed to the Confederate
soldiers, he said : ” It is expected, and it will be
I lo TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
required, that those who were once our enemies,
but are now to be treated as friends, will in return
refrain from idle boasts, which can only result in
harm to themselves. If there still be any who,
blind to the events of the past four years, con-
tinue to indulge in seditious harangues, all such
disturbers of the peace will be arrested, and
brought to these headquarters.”
Between the troublesome negroes, the unsub-
dued Confederates, and the lawless among our
own soldiers, life was by no means an easy prob-
lem to solve. A boy of twenty-five was then ex-
pected to act the subtle part of statesman and
patriot, and conciliate and soothe the citizen ; the
part of stern and unrelenting soldier, punish-
ing evidences of unsuppressed rebellion on the
part of the conquered ; and at the same time the
vigilant commanding officer, exacting obedience
from his own disaffected soldiery.
As for the positions he filled toward the negro,
they were varied — counseling these duties to
those who employed them, warning them from
idleness, and urging them to work, feeding and
clothing the impoverished and the old. It seems
to me it was a position combining in one man
doctor, lawyer, task-master, father and provider.
The town and camp swarmed with the colored
people, lazily lying around waiting for the Gov-
AN ORDER TO THE NEGROES. I I I
ernment to take care of them, and it was neces-
sary to issue a long order to the negroes, from
which I make an extract :
” Since the recent advent of the United States
forces into this vicinity, many of the freedmen of
the surrounding country seem to have imbibed
the idea that they will no longer be required to
labor for their own support and the support of
those depending upon them. Such ideas cannot
be tolerated, being alike injurious to the interests
and welfare of the freedmen and their employers.
Freedmen must not look upon military posts as
places of idle resort, from which they can draw
their means of support. Their proper course is
to obtain employment, if possible, upon the same
plantations where they were previously employed.
General Order No. 23, Headquarters Department
of the Gulf, March 11, 1865, prescribes the rules
of contract in the case of these persons. The com-
ing crops, already maturing, require cultivation,
and will furnish employment for all who are dis-
posed to be industrious. Hereafter, no freedman
will be permitted to remain in the vicinity of the
camps who are not engaged in some proper em-
ployment.”
Standing alone in the midst of all this confu-
sion, and endeavoring to administer justice on all
sides, General Custer had by no means an envia-
I I 2 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ble task. I do not wonder now that he kept his
perplexities as much as possible from me. He
wished to spare me anxiety, and the romp or the
gallop over the fragrant field, which he asked for
as soon as office-hours were over, was probably
much more enjoyable with a woman with uncor-
rugated brow. Still, I see now the puzzled shake
of the head as he said, ” A man may do every-
thing to keep a woman from knowledge of offi-
cial matters, and then she gets so confounded
keen in putting little trifles together, the first
thing you know she is reading a man’s very
thoughts.” Yet it does not strike me as remark-
able keenness on the part of a woman if, after the
experience she gains in following the bugle a
time, and with her wits sharpened by aff”ection,
she decides that a move is about to take place.
The General used to turn quickly, almost suspici-
ously, to me and say, as if I had been told by the
staff, ” How did you find out we were ordered to
move ? ” — when he had been sending for the
quartermaster and the commissary, and looking
at his maps, for ever so long before ! It was not
much of a mystery to solve when the quarter-
master meant transportation, the commissary
food, and the maps a new route.
After determined efforts to establish discipline,
order began to be evolved out of the chaos, and
AN A TTACK ON THE AGED I 1 3
the men resigned themselves to their hard fate.
Much as I feared them, and greatly as I had resent-
ed their attempt to lay all their present detention
and compulsory service to my husband, I could
not but agree with him when he argued for them,
that it was pretty hard not to be allowed to go
home, when the other soldiers had returned to
receive the rewards of the victorious. They
wrote home abusive newspaper articles, which
were promptly mailed to the General by unknown
hands, but of which he took no notice. I recol-
lect only once, after that, knowing of an abso-
lutely disagreable encounter. During the follow-
ing winter in Texas, my husband came quickly
into our room one morning, took my riding-whip,
and returned across the hall to his office. In a
short time he as quickly returned, and restored it
to its place, and I extracted from him an explana-
tion. Among the newspaper articles sent him
from the North, there was an attack on his dear,
quiet, unoffending father and mother. He sent
for the officer who was credited with the author-
ship, and, after his denial of the article, told him
what he had intended to do had he been guilty
of such an assault; that he was prepared for any at-
tack on himself, but nothing would make him sub-
mit to seeing his gray-haired parents assailed. Then
he bade him good-morning, and bowed him out.
I 1 4 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
The effect of the weeks of discipUne on the
Division was visible on our march into Texas. The
General had believed that the men would eventual-
ly conform to the restrictions, and he was heartily
relieved and glad to find that they did. The Texans
were amazed at the absence of the lawlessness
they had expected from our army, and thankful
to find that the Yankee column was neither de-
vastating nor even injuring their hitherto unmo-
lested State, for the war on land had not reached
Texas. The troops were not permitted to live on
the country, as is the usage of war, and only one
instance occurred during the entire march, of a
soldier’s simply helping himself to a farmer’s
grain. Every pound of food and forage was
bought by the quartermaster. It was hard to
realize that the column marching in a methodical
and orderly manner was, so short a time before,
a lawless and mutinous command.
They hated us, I suppose. That is the penalty
the commanding officer generally pays for what
still seems to me the questionable privilege of
rank and power. Whatever they thought, it did
not deter us from commending, among ourselves,
the good material in those Western men, which so
soon made them orderly and obedient soldiers.
But I have anticipated somewhat and must go
back and say good-by to that rich, flower-scented
PRIVILEGES OUTNLMBER HARDSHIPS.
115
valley. It had been a strange experience to me.
I had no woman but Eliza to whom I could speak.
The country and all its customs seemed like an-
other world, into which I had unexpectedly
entered. I had spent many hours of anxiety about
my husband’s safety. But the anxiety, heat, mos-
quitoes, poor water, alligators, mutiny, all com-
bined, failed to extract a complaint. There was
not an atom of heroism in this ; it was undeniably
the shrewd cunning of which women are accused,
for I lived in hourly dread of being sent to Texas
by the other route, via New Orleans and the Gulf
of Mexico. The General had been advised by
letters from home to send me that way, on the
ground that I could not endure a march at that
season. Officers took on a tone of superiority, and
said that they would not think of taking theh’
wives into such a wilderness. My fate hung in
the balance, and under such circumstances it was
not strange that the inconveniences of our stay
on Red River were not even so much as ac-
knowledged. It is true that I was not then a
veteran campaigner, and the very newness of the
hardships would, doubtless, have called forth a
few sighs, had not the fear of another separation
haunted me. It is astonishing how much grum-
bling is suppressed by the fear of something worse
awaiting you. In the decision which direction I
1 1 6 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
was to take, I won ; my husband’s scruples were
overcome by my unanswerable arguments and his
own inclination.
I prepared to leave Alexandria with regret, for
the pleasures of our stay had outnumbered the
drawbacks. It was our first knowledge that the
earth could be so lovely and so lavishly laden
with what began to be tropical luxuriance. I do
not recall the names of all the birds, but the
throats of all of them seemed to be filled with song.
In a semicircle on the lawn in front of our house,,
grew a thick hedge of crape myrtle, covered with
fragrant blossoms. Here the mocking-birds fear-
lessly built their nests, and the stillest hour of the
night was made melodious with the song that twi-
light had been too short to complete. Really, the
summer day there was too brief to tell all that
these birds had to say to their mates.
To the General, who would have had an aviary
had it been just the thing for a mounted regiment^
lall this song, day and night, was enchanting. In
after years he never forgot those midnight sere-
nades, and in 1873 he took a mocking-bird into
the bleak climate of Dakota. Eliza mildly growled
at “sich nonsense” as “toting round a bird, when
’twas all folks like us could do to get transporta-
tion for a cooking-kit.” Nevertheless, she took
excellent care of the feathered tribe that we owned.
A LUXURIANT VALLEY. I i 7
Among the fruits we first ate in Louisiana were
fresh figs, which we picked from the tree. It was
something to write home about, but at the same
time we wished that instead we might have a
Northern apple.
The time came to bid farewell to birds, fruits,
jasmine and rose, and prepare for a plunge into the
wilderness — much talked of with foreboding pro-
phecies by the citizens, but a hundred times worse
in reality than the gloomiest predictions.
It was known that the country through which
we were to travel, having been inaccessible to
merchants, and being even then infested with
guerillas, had large accumulations of cotton
stored at intervals along the route that was
marked out for our journey. Speculators arrived
from New Orleans, and solicited the privilege of
following with wagons that they intended to load
with cotton. They asked no favors, desiring only
the protection that the cavalry column would
afford, and expected to make their way in our
wake until the seaboard was reached and they
could ship their purchases by the Gulf of Mexico.
But their request was refused, as the General
hardly thought it a fitting use to which to put the
army. Then they assailed the quartermaster,
offering twenty-five thousand dollars to the Gen-
eral and him, as a bribe. But both men laughed
I I 8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
to scorn that manner of gretting- rich, and returned
to their homes the year after as poor as when they
had left there five years before. As I think of the
instances that came under my knowledge, when
quartermasters could have made fortunes, it is a
marvel to me that they so often resisted all man-
ner of temptation. The old tale, perhaps dating
back to the War of 1812, still applies, as it is a
constantly recurring experience. There was once
a wag in the quartermaster’s department, and
even when weighted down with the grave respon-
sibility of a portion of the Government treasury,
he still retained a glimmer of fun. Contractors
lay in wait for him with bribes, which his spirit of
humor allowed to increase, even though the offers
were insults to his honor. Finally, reaching a
very large sum, in sheer desperation he wrote to
the War Department : ” In the name of all the
gods, relieve me from this Department ; they’ve
almost got up to my price.” Civilians hardly
realize that, even in times of peace like this, when
the disbursements will not compare with the
money spent in years of war, between eight and
nine millions of dollars^are yearly paid out by the
quartermaster’s department alone. Since the war
the embezzlements have been hardly worthy of so
serious a name, amounting to but a few hundred
dollars, all told.
A SOLDIER’S COURTESY.
119
The General had an ambulance fitted up as a
traveling-wagon for me ; the seats so arranged
that the leather backs could be unstrapped at the
sides and laid down so as to form a bed, if I
wished to rest during the march. There was a
pocket for my needlework and book, and a box
for luncheon, while my traveling-bag and shawl
were strapped at the side, convenient, but out of
the way. It was quite a complete little house of
itself. One of the soldiers, who was interested in
the preparations for my comfort, covered a can-
teen with leather, adding of his own accord, in
fine stitchery in the yellow silk used by the sad-
dlers, ” Lady Custer.” Each day of our journey
this lofty distinction became more and more in-
congruous and amusinor, as I realized the increas-
ing ugliness, for which the rough life was, in a
measure, responsible. By the time we reached
the end of our march there was a yawning gulf
between the soldier’s title and the appearance of
the owner of the canteen. The pfuide that had
been employed was well up in all the devices for
securing what little measure of comfort was to
be found in overland travel. I followed his suor-
gestion, and after the canteen was filled in the
morning, it was covered with a piece of wet
blanket and hung, with the cork left out, to the
roof of the wag-on, in order to catch all the air
I 20 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
that might be stirring. Under this damp treat-
ment the yellow letters of “Lady Custer” faded
out as effectually as did all semblance of what-
ever delicacy of coloring the owner once pos-
sessed.
A short time after we set out, we left the valley
of the Red River, with its fertile plantations, and
entered a pine forest on the table-land, through
which our route lay for a hundred and fifty miles.
A great portion of the higher ground was sterile,
and the forest much of the way was thinly in-
habited. We had expected to hire a room in any
farm-house at which we halted at the end of
each day’s journey, and have the privilege of
sleeping in a bed. Camping on the ground was
an old story to me after our long march in Vir-
ginia ; but, with the prospect of using the bosom
of mother Earth as a resting-place for the coming
thirty years, we were willing to improve any
opportunity to be comfortable when we could.
The cabins that we passed on the first day dis-
couraged us. Small, low, log huts, consisting of
one room each, entirely separated and having a
floored open space between them, were the cus-
tomary architecture. The windows and doors
were filled with the vacant faces of the filthy
children of the poor white trash and negroes.
The men and women slouched and skulked
”PORE WHITE TRASH.” 121
around the cabins out of sight, and every sign of
abject, loathsome poverty was visible, even in
the gaunt and famished pigs that rooted around
the doorway. I determined to camp out until we
came to more inviting habitations, which, I regret
to say, we did not find on that march. We had
not brought the thin mattress and pillows that
had been made for our traveling-wagon in Vir-
ginia ; but the hardest sort of resting-place was
preferable to braving the squalor of the huts
along our way.
My husband rolled his overcoat for my pillow,
telling me that a soldier slept like a top with such
an one, and it was much better than a saddle, in
the hollow of which he had often laid his flaxen
top-knot. But a woman cannot make herself into
a good soldier all in a minute. If one takes hold
of the thick, unwieldy material that Uncle Sam
puts into the army overcoat, some idea can be
gained of the rocky roll it makes when doing
duty as a resting-place ; and anyone whose neck
has made the steep incline from head to shoulder
that this substitute for a pillow necessitates, is apt
to waken less patriotic than when he retired.
After repeated efforts to get accustomed to this,
buoyed up by my husband’s praise of my veteran-
like behavior, I confided to Eliza that I should not
be ungrateful for any device she might think out
122 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
for my relief, if she would promise not to tell that
I had spoken to her. The next day she gathered
moss from the trees along the stream, and I felt
that I could serve my country just as well by rest-
ing on this soft bed. I had begged off from using
a tent in that country, as there seemed to be no
insect that was not poisonous, and even many of
the vines and underbrush were dangerous to
touch. My husband had the wagon placed in
front of the tent every night when our march was
ended, and lifted me in and out of the high bed-
room, where I felt that nothing venomous could
climb up and sting. The moss, though very com-
fortable, often held in its meshes the horned toad,
a harmless little mottled creature that had two
tiny horns, which it turned from side to side in the
gravest, most knowing sort of way. The officers
sent these little creatures home by mail as curiosi-
ties, and, true to their well-known indifference to
air, they jumped out of the box at the journey’s end
in just the same active manner that they had hop-
ped about under our feet. Still, harmless as they
were held to be, they were not exactly my choice
as bed-fellows, any more than the lizards the
Texans call swifts, which also haunted the tangles
of the moss. Eliza tried to shake out and beat it
thoroughly, in order \.o dislodge any inhabitants,
before making my bed. One night I found that
124 TENTING ON THE PLAINS,
I
hay had been substituted, and felt myself rich in
luxury. I remembered gladly that hay was so
clean, so free from all natural history, and closed
my eyes in gratitude. And then it smelt so good,
so much better than the damp, vegetable odor of
the moss. A smudge at the end of the wagon
was rising about me to drive away mosquitoes,
and though the smoke scalds the eyes in this
heroic remedy, I still comforted myself with the
fresh odor of the hay, and quietly thought that
life in a manger was not the worst fate that could
come to one. All this pervading sense of comfort
was slightly disturbed in the night, when I was
awakened by a munching and crunching at my
ear. Wisps of hay were lying over the side of the
wagon, as it was too warm to leave the curtains
down, and the attraction proved too much for a
stray mule, which was quietly eating the pillow
from under my head. It was well our tent and
wagon were placed to one side, quite off by them-
selves, for the General would have waked the
camp with his peals of laughter at my indignation
and momentary fright. It did not need much
persuasion to rout the mule after all the hubbub
my husband made with his merriment, but I found
that I inclined to the moss bed after that.
As we advanced farther into the forest, Eliza
received further whispered confidences about my
THE LUXURY OF A PILLOW.
125
neck, stiff and sore from the roll of patriotic blue
that was still the rest for my tired head, and she re-
solved to make an attempt to get a feather pillow.
One day she discovered, near our camp, a house
that was cleaner than the rest we had seen, and
began negotiations with the mistress. She offered
a ” greenback,” as we had no silver then ; but they
had never seen one, and would not believe that it
was legal money. Finally, the woman said that,
if we had any calico or muslin for sale, she would
exchange her pillows for either the one or the
other. Eliza forgot her diplomacy, and rather in-
dignantly explained that we were not traveling
pedlers. At last, after several trips to and from
our camp, in which I was secretly interested, she
made what she thought a successful trade by
exchanging some blankets. Like the wag’s de-
scription of the first Pullman-car pillows, which he
said he lost in his ear, they were diminutive ex-
cuses for our idea of what one should be, but I
cannot remember anything that ever impressed
me as such a luxury; and I was glad to see that,
when the pillows were installed in their place, the
faith in my patriotism and in my willingness to
endure privations was not shaken.
The General was satisfied with his soldiers, and
admired the manner in which they endured the
trials of that hard experience. His perplexities
126 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
departed when they took everything so bravely.
He tried to arrange our marches every day so that
w^e might not travel over fifteen miles. So far as
I can remember, there was no one whose temper
and strength was not tried to the uttermost, except
my husband. His seeming indifference to excessive
heat, his having long before conquered thirst, his
apparent unconsciousness of the stings or bites of
insects, were powerful aids in encountering those
suffocating days. Frequently after a long march,
when we all gasped for breath, and in our exhaus-
tion flung ourselves down ” anywhere to die,” as
we laughingly said, a fresh horse was saddled, and
off went the General for a hunt, or to look up the
prospects for water in our next day’s journey. If
this stifling atmosphere, to which we were daily
subjected, disturbed him, we did not know it. He
held that grumbling did not mend matters ; but I
differed with him. I still think a little complain-
ing, when the patience is sorely taxed, eases the
troubled soul, though at that time I took good care
not to put my theory into practice, for reasons I
have explained, when the question of my joining
the march hung in the balance.
My life in a wagon soon became such an old
story that I could hardly believe I had ever had a
room. It constantly reminded me of my father.
He had opposed my marrying in the army, as I sup-
A HOME IN A WAGON. I 2 7
pose most fond fathers do. His opposition caused
me great suspense, and I thought, as all the very
young are apt to, that it was hopeless misery. Now
that the struggle was ended, I began to recall the
arguments of my parents. Father’s principal one,
mindful of the deprivations he had seen officers’
wives endure in Michigan’s early days, was that,
after the charm and dazzle of the epaulet had
passed, I might have to travel “in a covered
wagon like an emigrant.” I told this reason of
my father’s to my husband, and he often laughed
over it. When I was lifted from my rather lofty
apartment, and set down in the tent in the dark —
and before dawn in a pine forest it is dark — the
candle revealed a twinkle in the eye of a man who
could joke before breakfast. ” I wonder what
your father would say now,” was the oft-repeated
remark, while the silent partner scrabbled around
to get ready for the day. There was always a
pervading terror of being late, and I could not
believe but that it might happen, some day, that
thousands of men would be kept waiting because
a woman had lost her hair-pins. Imagine the
ignominy of any of the little trifles that delay us
in getting ourselves together, being the cause of
detaining an expedition in its morning start on
the march. Fortunately, the soldiers would have
been kept in merciful ignorance of the cause of
I 28 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the detention, as a commanding officer is not
obliged to explain why he orders the trumpeter to
delay the call of ” boots and saddles;” but the
chagrin would have been just as great on the part
of the ” camp-follower,” and it would have given
the color of truth to the General’s occasional
declaration that ” it is easier to command a
whole division of cavalry than one woman.” I
made no protest to this declaration, as I had ob-
served, even in those early days of my married
life, that, in matrimonial experiences, the men that
make open statements of their wrongs in rather a
pompous, boastful way, are not the real sufferers.
Pride teaches subtlety in hiding genuine injuries^
Though I had a continued succession of frights,
while prowling around the tent before day hunting
my things, believing them lost sometimes, and thus
being thrown into wild stampedes, I escaped the
mortification of detaining the command. The
Frenchman’s weariness of a life that was given
over to buttoning and unbuttoning, was mine, and
in the short time between reveille and breakfast, I
lived through much perturbation of mind, fearing
I was behind time, and devoutly wished that
women who followed the drum could have been
clothed like the feathered tribe, and ready for the
wing at a moment’s notice. On this expedition I
brought down the art of dressing in a hurry to so
RECOMMENDA TION FOR A ^’CAMP FOLLOWERS \ 2g
fine a point that I could take my bath and dress
entirely in seven minutes. My husband timed me
one day, without my knowledge, and I had the
honor of having this added to a very brief list of
my attributes as a soldier. There was a second
recommendation, which did duty as a mild plaudit
for years afterward. When faithful soldiers are
discharged after their term of service has expired,
they have papers given them by the Government,
with statements of their ability and trustworthi-
ness. Mine consisted in the words usually used
in presenting me to a friend. Instead of referring
to a few meagre accomplishments which my
teachers had struggled to implant, as is the fash-
ion of some exuberant husbands, w^ho proudly
introduce their wives to intimate friends, the Gen-
eral usually said, ” Oh, I want you to know my
wife ; she slept four months in a wagon.’
Perhaps some people m the States may not
realize that army women have a hard time even
in saying their prayers. The closet that the New
Testament tells us to frequent is seldom ours, for
rarely does our frugal Government allow us one in
army quarters large enough to crowd in our few
gowns, much less to ” enter in and shut the door”;
while on a march like that in Texas, devotions
would be somewhat disturbed when one kneeled
down in a tent, uncertain whether it would be on
I30
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
a centipede or a horned toad. To say a prayer
undisturbed, it was necessary to wait until one
went to bed. Fortunately, mine were brief, since
I had nothing to ask for, as I believed the best of
everything on earth had already been given to
me. If I was tired, and fell asleep in the midst
of my thanks, I could only hope the Heavenly
Father would forgive me. I was often so ex-
hausted at night, that it was hard to keep my eyes
open after my head had touched the pillow, espe-
cially after the acquisition of the blessed feather
pillow. An army woman I love, the most con-
sistent and honorable of her sex, was once so worn
out after a day of danger and fatigue on a march,
that she fell asleep while kneeling beside the bed
in the room she occupied, saying her prayers ; and
there she found herself, still on her knees, when
the sun wakened her in the morning.
CHAPTER IV.
MARCHES THROUGH PINE FORESTS OFFICERS ATTACKED
WITH BREAK-BONE FEVER PROMISES OF BOLD FLOW-
ING STREAMS INTRODUCTION TO THE PINE-TREE
RATTLESNAKE SCORPIONS, TARANTULAS, CENTI-
PEDES, CHIGGERS AND SEED-TICKS CROSSING THE
77
PONTON ” I WENT A-FISHING.
F
‘OR exasperating heat, recommend me to a
pine forest. Those tall and almost branch-
less Southern pines were simply smothering-. In
the fringed tops the wind swayed the delicate
limbs, while not a breath descended to us below.
We fumed and fussed, but not ill-naturedly, when
trying to find a spot in which to take a nap. If we
put ourselves in a narrow strip of shadow made by
the slender trunk of a tree, remorseless Sol followed
persistently, and we drowsily dragged ourselves
to another, to be pursued in the same determined
manner and stared into instant wakefulness by the
burning rays.
The General had reveille sounded at 2 o’clock
in the morning, causing our scamp to remark, sotto
voce, that if we were to be routed out in the night, he
132 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
thought he would eat his breakfast the evenhigr
before, in order to save time. It was absolutely
necessary to move before dawn, as the moment
the sun came in sight the heat was suffocating. It
was so dark when we set out that it was with diffi-
culty we reached the main road, from our
night’s camp, in safety. My husband tossed me
into the saddle, and cautioned me to follow as
close as my horse could walk, as we picked our
way over logs and through ditches or underbrush.
Custis Lee * was dog-like in his behavior at these
times. He seemed to aim to put his hoof exactly
in the foot-print of the General’s horse. In
times of difficulty or moments of peril, he evident-
ly considered that he was following the command-
ing officer, rather than carrying me. I scarcely
blamed him, much as I liked to control my own
horse, and gladly let the bridle slacken on his neck
as he cautiously picked his circuitous way ; but
once on the main road, the intelligent animal al-
lowed me to take control again. Out of the dark
my husband’s voice came cheerily, as if he were
riding in a path of sunshine : ” Are you all right ? “
” Give Lee his head.” ” Trust that old plug of yours
to bring you out ship-shape.” This insult to my
* My horse was captured from a staff-offieer of General Custis
Lee during the war, purchased by my husband from the Govern-
ment, and named for the Confederate general.
THE DEWS OF THE SOUTH.
13:
Splendid, spirited, high-stepping F. F. V. — for he
was that among horses, as well as by birth — was
received calmly by his owner, especially as the
sagacious animal was taking better care of me than
I could possibly take of myself, and I spent a brief
time in calling out a defense of him through the
gloom of the forest. This little diversion was in-
dulged in now and again by the General, to pro-
voke an argument, and thus assure himself that I
was safe and closely following ; and so it went on,
before day and after dark ; there was no hour or
circumstance out of which we did not extract
some amusement.
The nights, fortunately, were cool ; but such
dews fell, and it was so chilly, that we were obliged
to begin our morning march in thick coats, which
were tossed off as soon as the sun rose. The dews
drenched the bedding. I was sometimes sure that
it was raining in the night, and woke my husband
to ask to have the ambulance curtains of our bed
lowered ; but it was always a false alarm; not a
drop of rain fell in that blistering August. I soon
learned to shut our clothes in a little valise at
night, after undressing in the tent, to ensure dry
linen in the penetrating dampness of the morning.
My husband lifted me out of the wagon bedroom
when reveille sounded, into the tent, and by the
light of a tallow candle I had my bath and got
134
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
into my clothes, combing my hair straight back, as
it was too dark to part it. Then, to keep my shoes
from being soaked with the wet grass, I was
carried to the dining-tent, and Ufted upon my
horse afterward.
One of my hurried toilets was stopped short one
morning, by the loss of the waist of my riding-
habit. In vain I tossed our few traps about to
find it, and finally remembered that I had ex-
changed the waist for a jacket, and left it under a
tree where we had been taking a siesta the day
before. Eliza had brought in the blanket, books^
and hats, but alas for my dress body ! it was hope-
lessly lost. In a pine forest, dark and thick with
fallen trees, what good did one tallow dip do in
the hasty search we made ? A column of thou-
sands of men could not be detained for a woman’s
gown. My husband had asked me to braid the
sleeves like his own velvet jacket. Five rows of
gilt braid in five loops made a dash of color that
he liked, which, though entirely out of place in a
thoroughfare, was admissible in our frontier life.
He regretted the loss, but insisted on sending for
more gilt braid as soon as we were out of the
wilderness, and then began to laugh to himself
and wonder if the traveler that came after us, not
knowing who had preceded him, might not think
he had come upon a part of the wardrobe of a cir-
THE GUIDE AND HIS MULE. \ -> –
•JO
cus troupe. It would have been rather serious
joking”, if in the small outfit in my valise I had not
brought a jacket, for which, though it rendered me
more of a fright than sun and wind had made me,
I still was very thankful ; for without the happy
accident that brought it along, I should have been
huddled inside the closed ambulance, waistless
and alone. Our looks did not enter into the
question very much. All we thought of was, how
to keep from being prostrated by the heat, and
how to get rested after the march, for the next
day’s task.
We had a unique character for a guide. He
was a citizen of Texas, who boasted that not a
road or a trail in the State was unfamiliar to him.
His mule Betty was a trial ; she walked so fast
that no one could keep up with her, but not faster
did she travel than her master’s tongue. As we
rode at the head of the column, the sun pouring
down upon our heads, we would call out to him,
” In heaven’s name, Stillman, how much longer is
this to keep up ?” meaning. When shall we find a
creek on which to camp ? ” Oh, three miles
further you’re sure to find a bold-flowin’ stream,”
was his confident reply ; and, sure enough, the
grass began to look greener, the moss hung from
the trees, the pines were varied by beautiful
cypress, or some low-branched tree, and hope
136 TEXTING ON THE PLAINS.
Sprang up in our hearts. The very horses showed,
by quickening step, they knew what awaited us.
Our scorched and parched throats began to taste,
in imagination, what w^as our idea of a bold-flow^-
ing stream ; it was cool and Hmpid, dancing over
pebbles on its merry way. We found ourselves in
reality in the bed of a dried creek, nothing but
pools of muddy water, with a coating of green
mold on the surface. The Custers made use of
this expression the rest of their lives. If ever we
came to a puny, crawling driblet of water, they
said, ” This must be one of Stillman’s bold-flow-
ing streams.” On we went again, w4th that fabri-
cator calling out from Betty’s back, ” Sho’ to find
finest water in the land five miles on !” Whenever
he had ” been in these parts afore, he had ahvays
found at all seasons a roaring torrent.” One day
we dragged through forty miles of arid land, and
after passing the dried beds of three streams, the
General was obliged to camp at last, on account
of the exhausted horses, on a creek with pools of
muddy, standing water, which StiUman, comingc^
back to the column, described as ” rather low.”
This was our worst day, and we felt the heat in-
tensely, as we usually finished our march and
were in camp before the sun was very high. I do
not remember one good drink of w ater on that
march. When it w^as not muddy or stagnant, it
GENERAL CUSTER AS A CADET.
137
138 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
tasted of the roots of the trees. Some one had
given my husband some claret for me when we
set out, and but for that, I don’t really know how
the thirst of the midsummer days could have been
endured. The General had already taught him-
self not to drink between meals, and I was trying”
to do so. All he drank was his mug of coffee
in the early morning and at dinner, and cold
tea or coffee, which Eliza kept in a bottle for
luncheon.
The privations did not quench the buoyancy of
those gay young fellows. The General and his
staff told stories and sang, and a man with good
descriptive powers recounted the bills of fare of
good dinners and choice viands he had enjoyed,
while we knew we had nothing to anticipate in
this wilderness but army fare. Sometimes, as we
marched along, almost melted with heat, and our
throats parched for water, the odor of cucumbers
was wafted toward us. Stillman, the guide, being
called on for an explanation, as we wondered if
we were nearing a farm, slackened Betty, waited
for us, and took down our hopes by explaining
that it was a certain species of snake, which in-
fested that part of the country. The scorpions,
centipedes and tarantulas were daily encountered.
I not only grew more and more unwilling to take
my nap, after the march was over, under a tree.
ANIMA TED NA TURE.
139
but made life a burden to my husband, till he
gave up flinging” himself down anywhere to sleep,
and induced him to take his rest in the traveling
wagon. I had been indolently lying outstretched
in a little grateful shade one day, when I was hur-
riedly roused by some one, and moved to avoid
what seemed to me a small, dried twig. It was
the most venomous of snakes, called the pine-tree
rattlesnake. It was very strange that we all
escaped being stung or bitten, in the midst of
thousands of those poisonous reptiles and insects.
One teamster died from a scorpion’s bite, and, un-
fortunately, I saw his bloated, disfigured body as
we marched by. It lay on a wagon, ready for
burial, without even a coffin, as we had no lumber.
What was most aggravating were two pests of
that region, the seed-tick and the chigger. The
latter bury their heads under the skin, and when
they are swollen with blood, it is almost impossible
to extract them without leaving the head imbedded.
This festers, and the irritation is almost unbear-
able. If they see fit to locate on neck, face or
arms, it is possible to outwit them in their prog-
ress ; but they generally choose that unattainable
spot between the shoulders, and the surgical opera-
tion of taking them out with a needle or knife-
point, must devolve upon some one else. To ride
thus with the skin on fire, and know that it must
140 TENTIXG ON THE PLAINS.
be endured till the march was ended, caused some
grumbling, but it did not last long”. The enemy
being routed, out trilled a song or laugh from
young and happy throats. If we came to a sandy
stretch of ground, loud groans from the staff be-
gan, and a cry, ” We’re in for the chiggers !” was
an immediate warning. We all grew very wary
of lying down to rest in such a locality, but were
thankful that the little pests were not venomous.
There’s nothing like being where something dan-
gerous lies in w^ait for you, to teach submission to
what is only an irritating inconvenience.
One of the small incidents out of which we in-
variably extracted fun, was our march at dawn
past the cabins of the few inhabitants. On the
open platform, sometimes covered, but often with
no roof, which connects the two log huts, the
family are wont to sleep in hot weather. There
they lay on rude cots, and were only wakened by
the actual presence of the cavalry, of whose ap-
proach they were unaware. The children sat up
in bed, in wide-gaping wonder ; the grown people
raised their heads, but instantly ducked under the
covers again, thinking they would get up in a mo-
ment, as soon as the cavalcade had passed. From
time to time a head was cautiously raised, hoping
to see the end of the column. Then such a shout
from the soldiers, a fusillade of the wittiest com-
AN A TTA CK OF FE VER. 1 4 1
ments, such as only soldiers can make — for I never
expect to hear brighter speeches than issue from
a marching column — and down went the venture-
some head, compelled to obey an unspoken mili-
tary mandate and remain ” under cover.” There
these people lay till the sun was scorching them,
imprisoned under their bed-clothes by modesty,
while the several thousand men filed by, two by
two, and the long wagon-train in the rear had
passed the house.
There came a day when I could not laugh and
joke with the rest. I was mortified to find myself ill
— I, who had been pluming myself on being such
a good campaigner, my desire to keep well being
heightened by overhearing the General boasting
to Tom that ” nothing makes the old lady sick.”
We did not know that sleeping in the sun in that
climate brings on a chill, and I had been fright-
ened away from the snake-infested ground, where
there might be shade, to the wagon for my after-
noon sleep. It was embarrassing in the extreme.
I could neither be sent back, nor remain in that
wilderness, which was infested by guerillas. The
surgeon compelled me to lie down on the march.
It was very lonely, for I missed the laughter and
story at the head of the column, which had light-
ened the privations of the journey. The soil was so
shallow that the wagon was kept on a continual
142
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
joggle by the roots of the trees over which we
passed. This unevenness was of course not notice-
able on horseback, but now it was painfully so at
every revolution of the wheels. , The General and
Tom came back to comfort me every now and
asrain, while Eliza “■ mammied ” and nursed me,
and rode in the seat by the driver. It was
” break-bone fever.” No one knowing about it
can read these words and not feel a shudder. I
believe it is not dangerous, but the patient is intro-
duced, in the most painful manner, to every bone
in his body. Incredible as it used to seem when in
school we repeated the number of bones, it now be-
came no longer a wonder, and the only marvel was,
how some of the smallest on the list could con-
tain so large an ache. I used to lie and speculate
how one slender woman could possibly conceal
so many bones under the skin. Anatomy had
been on the list of hated books in school ; but I
began then to study it from life, in a manner that
made it likely to be remembered. The surgeon, as
is the custom of the admirable men of that profes-
sion in the army, paid me the strictest attention,
and I swallowed quinine, it seemed to me, by the
spoonful. As I had never taken any medicine to
speak of, it did its duty quickly, and in a few days
I was lifted into the saddle, tottering and light-
headed, but partly relieved from the pain, and
QUININE AS A DIET. 1 43
very glad to get back to our military family, who
welcomed me so warmly that I was aglow with
gratitude. I wished to ignore the fact that I had
fallen by the way, and was kept in lively fear that
they would all vote me a bother. After that, my
husband had the soldiers who were detailed for
duty at headquarters, when they cut the wood for
camp-fires, build a rough shade of pine branches
over the wagon, when we reached camp. Even
that troubled me, though the kind-hearted fellows
did not seem to mind it ; but the General quieted
me by explaining that the men, being excused from
night duty as sentinels, would not mind building
the shade as much as losing their sleep, and, be-
sides, we were soon afterward out of the pine for-
est and on the prairie.
Our officers suffered dreadfully on that march,
though they made light of it, and were soon merry
after a trial or hardship was over. The drenching
dews chilled the air that was encountered just at
daybreak. They were then plunged into a steam
bath from the overpowering sun, and the impure
water told frightfully on their health. I have seen
them turn pale and almost reel in the saddle, as
we marched on. They kept quinine in their vest-
pockets, and horrified me by taking large quanti-
ties at any hour when they began to feel a chill
coming on, or were especially faint. Our brother
I 44 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Tom did not become quite strong, after nis attacli
of fever, for a long time, and had inflammatory
rheumatism at Fort Riley a year or more after-
ward, which the surgeons attributed to his Texas
exposure. I used to see the haggard face of the
adjutant-general, Colonel Jacob Greene, grow
drawn and gray with the inward fever that filled
his veins and racked his bones with pain. The
very hue of his skin comes back to me after all
these years, for we grieved over his suffering,
as_we had all just welcomed him back from the
starvation of Libby Prison.
I rode in their midst, month after month, ever
revolving in my mind the question, whence came
the inexhaustible supply of pluck that seemed
at their command, to meet all trials and privations,
just as their unfaltering courage had enabled them
to go through the battles of the war ? And yet,
how much harder it was to face such trials, unsup-
ported by the excitement of the trumpet-call and
the charge. There was no wild clamor of war to
enable them to forget the absence of the common-
est necessities of existence. In Texas and Kansas,
the life was often for months unattended by ex-
citement of any description. It was only to be
endured by a grim shutting of the teeth, and an
iron will. The mother of one of the fallen heroes of
the Seventh Cavalry, who passed uncomplainingly
FORTITUDE OF SOLDIERS. 145
through the privations of the frontier, and gave up
his Ufe at last, writes to me in a recent letter that
she considers ” those late experiences of hardship
and suffering, so gallantly borne, by far the most
interesting of General Custer’s life, and the least
known.” For my part, I was constantly mystified
as I considered how our officers, coming from all
the wild enthusiasm of their Virginia Ufe, could, as
they expressed it, “buckle down” to the dull, ex-
hausting days of a monotonous march.
Young as I then was, I thought that to endure,
to fight for and inflexibly pursue, a purpose or
general principle like patriotism, seemed to require
far more patience and courage than when it is
individualized. I did not venture to put my
thoughts into words, for two reasons : I was too
wary to let them think I acknowledged there were
hardships, lest they might think I repented having
come ; for I knew then, as I know now, but feared
they did not, that I would go through it all a hun-
dred times over, if inspired by the reasons that
actuated me. In the second place, I had already
found what a habit it is to ridicule and make light
of misfortune or vicissitude. It cut me to the
quick at first, and I thought the officers and sol-
diers lacking in sympathy. But I learned to know
what splendid, loyal friends they really were, if
misfortune came and help was needed ; how they
146 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
denied themselves to loan money, if it is the finan-
cial difficulty of a friend ; how they nursed one
another in illness or accident ; how they quietly
fought the battles of the absent ; and one occasion
I remember, that an officer, being ill, was unable
to help himself when a soldier behaved in a
most insolent manner, and his brother officer
knocked him down, but immediately apologized
to the captain for taking the matter out of his
hands. A hundred ways of showing the most
unswerving fidelity taught me, as years went on,
to submit to what I still think the deplorable habit,
if not of ridicule, of suppressed sympathy. I used
to think that even if a misfortune was not serious,
it ought to be recognized, and none were afraid of
showing that they possessed truly tender, gen-
tle, sympathetic natures, with me or with any
woman that came among them.
The rivers, and even the small streams, in Texas
have high banks. It is a land of freshets, and the
most innocent little rill can rise to a roaring tor-
rent in no time. Anticipating these crossings, we
had in our train a ponton bridge. We had to make
long halts while this bridge was being laid, and
then, oh ! the getting down to it. If the sun was
high, and the surgeon had consigned me to the
traveling-wagon, I looked down the deep gulley
with more than inward quaking. My trembling
DESCENT TO A RIVER. 1 . 7
hands clutched wildly at the seat, and my head
was out at the side to see my husband’s face, as
he directed the descent, cautioned the driver, and
encouraged me. The brake was frequently not
enough, and the soldiers had to man the wheels,
for the soil was wet and slippery from the constant
passing of the pioneer force, who had laid the
bridge. The heavy wagons, carrying the boats
and lumber for the bridge, had made the side-hill
a difficult bit of ground to traverse. The four
faithful mules apparently sat down and slid to the
water’s edge ; but the driver, so patient with my
quiet imploring to go slowly, kept his strong foot
on the brake and knotted the reins in his power-
ful hands. I blessed him for his caution, and
then at every turn of the wheel I implored him
again to be careful. Finally, when I poured out my
thanks at the safe transit, the color mounted in his
brown face, as if he had led a successful charge.
In talking at night to Eliza, of my tremors as we
plunged down the bank and were bounced upon
the ponton, which descended to the water’s edge
under the sudden rush with which we came, I
added my praise of the driver’s skill, which she
carefully repeated as she slipped him, on the sly,
the mug of coffee and hot biscuits with which she
invariably rewarded merit, whether in officers or
men. When I could, I made these descents on
1 48 TEA’TIXG Oy THE PLAINS.
horseback, and climbed up the opposite bank with
my hands wound in Custis Lee’s abundant mane.
Ehza, in spite of her constant lookout for some
variety for our table, could seldom find any vege-
tables, even at the huts we passed. Corn pone
and chine were the principal food of these shift-
less citizens, butternut colored in clothing and
complexion, indifferent alike to food and to drink.
At the Sabine River the water was somewhat
clearer. The soldiers, leading their horses, crossed
carefully, as it was dangerous to stop here, lest the
weight should carry the bridge under ; but they
are too quick-witted not to watch every chance to
procure a comfort, and they tied strings to their
canteens and dragged them beside the bridge,
getting, even in that short progress, one tolerably
good drink. The wagon-train was of course a
long time in crossing, and dinner looked dubious
to our staff. Our faithful Eliza, as we talk over
that march, will prove in her own language, better
than I can portray, how she constantly bore our
comfort on her mind.
” Miss Libbie, do you mind, after we crossed the
Sabine River, we went into camp ? Well, we
hadn’t much supplies, and the wagons wasn’t up ;
so, as I was awaitin’ for you all, I says to the
boys, ‘ Now, you make a fire, and I’ll go a-fishin’.’
The first thing, I got a fish — well, as long as my
ELIZA’S FISH STORY.
149
arm. It was big, and jumped so it scart me, and I
let the line go, but one of the men caught hold and
jumped for me and I had him, and went to work
on him right away. I cleaned him, salted him,
rolled him in flour, and fried him ; and. Miss
Libbie, we had a nice platter of fish, and the Gen-
eral was just delighted when he came up, and he
was surprised, too, and he found his dinner — for I
had some cold biscuit and a bottle of tea in the
lunch-box — while the rest was awaitin’ for the
supplies to come up. For while all the rest was
awaitin’, I went fishin’, mind you !”
CHAPTER V.
OUT OF THE WILDERNESS OUR CAMP AT HEMPSTEAD
HOSPITALITY OF SOUTHERN PLANTERS THE
general’s DEER-HUNTING A BAPTISM OF GORE
ESCAPE FROM BEING BLOWN UP BY POWDER
ELIZA ESTABLISHES AN ORPHAN ASYLUM THE
PROTECTING CARE THAT OFFICERS SHOW TO
WOMEN.
A S we came out of the forest, the country im-
proved somewhat. The farm-houses began
to show a httle look of comfort, and it occurred to
us that we might now vary the monotony of our
fare by marketing. My husband and I sometimes
rode on in advance of the command, and ap-
proached the houses with our best manners,
sohciting the privilege of buying butter and eggs.
The farmer’s wife was taking her first look at
Yankees, but she found that we neither wore
horns nor were cloven-footed, and she even so far
unbent as to apologize for not having butter, add-
ing, what seemed then so flimsy an excuse, that
” I don’t make more than enough butter for our
own use, as we are only milking seven cows
I
our OF THE WILDERNESS. i r j
now.” We had yet to learn that what makes a
respectable dairy at home, was nothing in a coun-
try where the cows give a cupful of milk and all
run to horns. It was a great relief to get out of
the wilderness, but though our hardships were
great, I do not want them to appear to outnumber
the pleasures. The absence of creature comforts
is easily itemized. We are either too warm or too
cold, we sleep uncomfortably, we have poor food,
we are wet by storms, we are made ill by ex-
posure. Happiness cannot be itemized so readily;
it is hard to define what goes to round and com-
plete a perfect day. We remember hours of pleas-
ure as bathed in a mist that blends all colors into
a roseate hue ; but it is impossible to take one tint
from colors so perfectly mingled, and define how
it adds to theperfect whole.
. The days now seemed to grow shorter and
brighter. In place of the monotonous pines, we
had magnolia, mulberry, pecan, persimmon and
Hve-oak, as well as many of our own Northern
trees, that grew along the streams. The cactus,
often four feet high, was covered with rich red
blossoms, and made spots of gorgeous color in the
prairie grass. I had not then seen the enormous
cacti of old Mexico, and four feet of that plant
seemed immense, as at home we labored to get
one to grow six inches. The wild-flowers were
152
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
charming in color, variety and luxuriance. The
air, even then beginning to taste of the sea, blew
softly about us. Stillman no longer blackened his
soul with prophecies about the streams on which
we nightly pitched our tents. The water did flow
in them, and though they were then low, so that
the thousands of horses were scattered far up and
down when watering-time came, the green scum
of sluggish pools was a thing of the past.
A few days before we reached what was to be
a permanent camp, a staff-officer rode out to meet
us, and brought some mail. It was a strange sen-
sation to feel ourselves restored by these letters to
the outside world. General Custer received a
great surprise. He was brevetted major, lieuten-
ant-colonel and brigadier-general in the regular
army. The officers went off one side to read their
sweethearts’ letters ; and some of our number re-
newed their youth, sacrificed in that dreadful for-
est to fever, when they read the good news of the
coming of their wives by sea. At Hempstead we
halted, and the General made a permanent camp,
in order to recruit men and horses after their ex-
hausting march. Here General Sheridan and some
of his staff came, by way of Galveston, and
brought with them our father Custer, whom the
General had sent for to pay us a visit. General
Sheridan expressed great pleasure at the appear-
COMMEND A TION FROM THE CHIEF. \ c ->
ance of the men and horses, and heard with rehef
and satisfaction of the orderly manner in which
they had marched through the enemy’s country,
of how few horses had perished from the heat,
and how seldom sunstroke had occurred. He
commended the General — as he knew how to do so
splendidly — and placed him in command of all the
cavalry in the State. Our own Division then
numbered four thousand men.
I was again mortified to have to be compelled to
lie down for a day or two, as so many weeks in the
saddle had brought me to the first discovery of a
spinal column. It was nothing- but sheer fatigue,
for I was perfectly well, and could laugh and talk
with the rest, though not quite equal to the effort
of sitting upright, especially as we had nothing
but camp-stools, on which it is impossible to rest.
Indisposition, or even actual illness, has less ter-
rors in army life than in the States. We were not
condemned to a gloomy upper chamber in a house,
and shut in alone with a nurse whom we had never
before seen. In our old life, ailing people lay on a
lounge in the midst of all the garrison, who were
coming and going a dozen times a day, asking,
” How does it go now?” and if you had studied up
anything that they could do for you ! I princi-
pally recall being laid up by fatigue, because of the
impetuous assault that my vehement father Custer
1^4 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
made on his son for allowing me to share the dis-
comforts ; and when I defended my husband by
explaining how I had insisted upon coming, he
only replied, ” Can’t help it if you did. Arm-
strong, you had no right to put her through such
a jaunt.” It was amusing to see the old man’s
horror when our staff told him what we had been
through. It would have appeared that I was his
own daughter, and the General a son-in-law, by
the manner in which he renewed his attack on the
innocent man. Several years afterward it cost
Lieutenant James Calhoun long pleading, and a
probationary state of two years, before the old
man would consent to his taking his daughter
Margaret into the army. He shook his gray head
determinedly, and said, ” Oh, no ; you don’t get
me to say she shall go through what Libbie has.”
But the old gentleman was soon too busy with his
own affairs, defending himself against not only
the ingenious attacks of his two incorrigible boys,
but the staff, some of whom had known him in
Monroe. His eyes twinkled, and his face wrinkled
itself into comical smiles, as he came every morn-
ing with fresh tales of what a ” night of it he had
put in.” He had a collection of mild vituperations
for the boyc^ .gathered from Maryland, Ohio and
Mklifgan, where he had lived, which, extensive as
the list was, did not, in my mind, half meet the
situation.
CAMP A T HEMPSTEAD. 1 c r
The stream on which we had encamped was
wide and deep, and had a current. Our tents
were on the bank, which gently sloped to the
water. We had one open at both ends, over which
was built a shade of pine boughs, which was ex-
tended in front far enough for a porch. Some lum-
ber from a ponton bridge was made into the un-
usual luxury of a jfloor. My husband still indulged
my desire to have the traveling-wagon at the rear,
so that I might take up a safe position at night,
when sleep interrupted my vigils, over the insects
and reptiles that were about us constantly. The
cook-tent, with another shade over it, was near us,
where Eliza flourished a skillet as usual. The staff
were at some distance down the bank, while the
Division was stretched along the stream, having, at
last, plenty of water. Beyond us, fifty miles of
prairie stretched out to the sea. We encamped on
an unused part of the plantation of the oldest
resident of Texas, who came forth with a welcome
and offers of hospitality, which we declined, as
our camp was comfortable. His wife sent me over
a few things to make our tent habitable, as I sup-
pose her husband told her that our furniture con-
sisted of a bucket and two camp-stools. There’s
no denying that I sank down into one of the chairs,
which had a back, with a sense of enjoyment of
what seemed to me the greatest luxury I had ever
156
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
known. The milk, vegetables, roast of mutton,
jelly, and other things which she also sent, were
not enough to tempt me out of the delightful hol-
low, from which I thought I never could emerge
again. But military despots pick up their families
and carry them out to their dinner, if they refuse
to walk. The new neighbors offered us a room
with them, but the General never left his men.
and it is superfluous to say that I thought our
clean, new hospital tent, as large again as a wall-
tent, and much higher, was palatial after the trials
of the pine forest.
The old neighbor continued his kindness, which
was returned by sending him game after the Gen-
eral’s hunt, and protecting his estate. He had owned
130 slaves, with forty in his house. He gave us
dogs and sent us vegetables, and spent many hours
under our shade. He had lived under eight govern-
ments in his Texas experience, and, possibly, the
habit of ” speeding the parting and welcoming the
coming guest ” had something to do with his hos-
pitality. I did not realize how Texas had been
tossed about in a game of battle-door and shuttle-
cock till he told me of his life under Mexican rule,
the Confederacy, and the United States.
I find mention, in an old letter to my parents, of
a great luxury that here appeared, and quote the
words of the exuberant and much underlined girl
ELIZA’S LAUNDRY. I57
missive : ” I rejoice to tell you that I am the happy
possessor of a mattress. It is made of the moss
which festoons the branches of all the trees at the
South. The moss is prepared by boiling it, then
burying it in the ground for a long time, till only
the small thread inside is left, and this looks like
horse-hair. An old darkey furnished the moss for
three dollars, and the whole thing only cost seven
dollars — very cheap for this country. We are
living finely now; we get plenty of eggs, butter,
lard and chickens. Eliza cooks better than ever,
by a few logs, with camp-kettles and stew-pans.
She has been washing this past week, and drying
her things on a line tied to the tent-poles and on
bushes, and ironing on the ground, with her iron-
ing-sheet held down by a stone on each corner.
To-day we are dressed up in white. She invites
us to mark Sunday by the luxury of wearing white.
‘ Her ole miss used to.’ We are regulated by the
doings of that ‘ ole miss,’ and I am glad that
among the characteristics of my venerable pre-
decessor, which we are expected to follow, wear-
ing white gowns is included.”
Eliza, sitting here beside me to-day, has just
reminded me of that week, as it was marked in her
memory by a catastrophe. Eliza’s misfortunes were
usually within the confines of domestic routine. I
quote her words: ” It was on the Gros Creek, Miss
I q;8 • TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Libbie, that I had out that big wash, and all your
lace-trimmed things, and all the Ginnel’s white
linen pants and coats. I didn’t know nothin’ ’bout
the high winds then, but I ain’t like to forget ’em
ever again. The first thing I knew, the line was
jest lifted up, and the clothes jest spread in every
direction, and I jest stood still and looked at ’em,
and I says, * Is this Texas ? How long am I to con-
tend with this ? ‘ [With hands uplifted and a camp-
meeting roll in her eyes.] But I had to go to
work and pick ’em all up. Some fell in the sand,
and some on the grass. I gathered ’em all, with
the sun boiling down hot enough to cook an ^^%.
While I was a-pickin’ ’em up, the Ginnel was
a-standin’ in the tent entrance, wipin’ down his
moustache, like he did when he didn’t want us to
see him laughin’. Well, Miss Libbie, I was that mad
when he hollered out to me, ‘ Well, Eliza, you’ve
got a spread-eagle thar.’ Oh, I was so mad and
hot, but he jest bust right out laughin’. But there
wasn’t anything to do but rinse and hang ’em up
again.”
We had been in camp but a short time, when the
daughter of the newly appointed collector of the
port came from their plantation near to see us.
She invited me to make my home with them while
we remained, but I was quite sure there was noth-
ing on earth equal to our camp. The girl’s father
SOUTHERN SWEETff EAR TING.
159
had been a Union man during the war, and was
hopelessly invalided by a long political imprison-
ment. I remember nothing bitter, or even gloomy,
about that hospitable, delightful family. The
young girl’s visit was the precursor of many more,
and our young officers were in clover. There
were three young women in the family, and they
came to our camp, and rode and drove with us,
while we made our first acquaintance with South-
ern home life. The house was always full of
guests. The large dining-table was not long
enough, however, unless placed diagonally across
the dining-room, and it was sometimes laid three
times before all had dined. The upper part of the
house was divided by a hall running the length of
the house. On one side the women and their
guests, usually a lot of rollicking girls, were quar-
tered, while the men visitors had rooms opposite ;
and then I first saw the manner in which a South-
ern gallant comes courting or flirting. He rode up
to the house, with his servant, on another horse,
carrying a portmanteau. They came to stay sev-
eral weeks. I wondered that there was ever an un-
congenial marriage at the South, when a man had
such a chance to see his sweetheart. This was
one of the usages of the country that our North-
ern men adopted when they could get leave to be
absent from camp, and delightful visits we all had.
l6o TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
It seemed a great privilege to be again with
women, after the long season in which I had only
Eliza to represent the sex. But I lost my presence
of mind when I went into a room for the first time
and caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. The
only glass I had brought from the East was broken
early in the march, and I had made my toilet by
feeling. The shock of the apparition comes back
to me afresh, and the memory is emphasized by
my fastidious mother’s horror when she saw me
afterward. I had nothing but a narrow-brimmed
hat with which to contend against a Texas sun.
My face was almost parboiled, and swollen with
sunburn, while my hair was faded and rough. Of
course, when I caught the first glimpse of myself
in the glass, I instantly hurried to the General and
Tom, and cried out indignantly, ” Why didn’t
you tell me how horridly I looked ?” — the incon-
sistent woman in me forgetting that it would not
have made my ugliness any easier to endure. My
husband hung his head in assumed humility
when he returned me to my mother, six
months later ; my complexion seemingly hope-
lessly thickened and darkened, for, though
happily it improved after living in a house, it
never again looked as it did before the Texas
life. My indignant mother looked as if her
son-in-law was guilty of an unpardonable crime.
HOSPITALITY OF PLANTERS. ‘ 1 6 I
I told her, rather flippantly, that it had been
offered up on the altar of my country, and she
ought to be glad to have so patriotic a family,
but she withered the General with a look that
spoke volumes. He took the first opportunity to
whisper condescendingly that, though my mother
was ready to disown me, and quite prepared to
annihilate him, he would endeavor not to cast me
off if I was black, and would try to like me ” not-
withstanding all.”
The planters about the country began to seek
out the General, and invite him to go hunting ; and,
as there was but little to do while the command
was recruiting from the march, he took his father
and the staff and went to the different plantations
where the meet was planned. The start was made
long before day, and breakfast was served at the
house where the hunters assembled ; dinner being
enjoyed at the same hospitable board on the re-
turn at night. Each planter brought his hounds,
and I remember the General’s delight at his first
sight of the different packs— thirty-seven dogs in
all— and his enthusiasm at finding that every dog
responded to his master’s horn. He thereupon
purchased a horn, and practiced in camp until he
nearly split his cheeks in twain, not to mention the
spasms into which we were driven ; for his five
hounds, presents from the farmers, ranged them-
I 62 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
selves in an admiring and sympathetic semicircle,
accompanying all his practicing by tuning their
voices until they reached the same key. I had no
idea it was such a difficult thing to learn to sound
notes on a horn. When we begged off sometimes
from the impromptu serenades of the hunter and
his dogs, the answer was, ” I am obliged to prac-
tice, for if anyone thinks it is an easy thing to blow
on a horn, just let him try it.” Of course Tom
caught the fever, and came in one day with the
polished horn of a Texas steer ready for action.
The two were impervious to ridicule. No detailed
description of their red, distended cheeks, bulging
eyes, bent and laborious forms, as they strug-
gled, suspended the operation. The early stages
of this horn music gave little idea of the gay pict-
ure of these debonair and spirited athletes, as
they afterward appeared. When their musical
education was completed, they were wont to leap
into the saddle, lift the horn in unconscious grace
to their lips, curbing their excited and rearing
horses with the free hand, and dash away amidst
the frantic leaping, barking and joyous demon-
stration of their dogs.
At the first hunt, when one of our number killed
a deer, the farmers made known to our officers, on
the sly, the old-established custom of the chase.
While Captain Lyon stood over his game, volubly
A BAPTISM OF GORE. I 63
narrating, in excited tones, how the shot had been
sent and where it had entered, a signal, which he
was too absorbed to notice, was given, and the
crowd rushed upon him and so plastered him
with blood from the deer that scarcely an inch of
his hair, hands and face was spared, while his gar-
ments were red from neck to toes. After this
baptism of gore, they dragged him to our tent on
their return to exhibit him, and it was well that he
was one of the finest-hearted fellows in the world,
for day and night these pestering fellows kept up
the joke. Notwithstandmg he had been subjected
to the custom of the country, which demands that
the blood of the first deer killed in the chase shall
anoint the hunter, he had glory enough through
his success to enable him to submit to the penalty.
Tom also shot a deer that day, but his glory was
dimmed by a misfortune, of which he seemed fated
never to hear the last. The custom was to place one
or two men at stated intervals in different parts
of the country where the deer were pretty sure to
run, and Tom was on stand watching through the
woods in the direction from which the sound of
the dogs came. As the deer bounded toward
him, he was so excited that when he fired, the shot
went harmlessly by the buck and landed in one
of the General’s dogs, killing the poor hound in-
stantly. Though this was a loss keenly felt, there
164 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
was no resisting the chance to guy the hunter.
Even after Tom had come to be one of the best
shots in the Seventh Cavalry, and when the Gen-
eral never went hunting without him, if he could
help it, he continued to say, ” Oh, Tom’s a good
shot, a sure aim — he’s sure to hit something ! “
Tom was very apt, also, to find newspaper clippings
laid around, with apparent carelessness by his
brother, where he would see them. For example,
like this one, which I have kept among some old
letters, as a reminder of those merry days : ” An
editor went hunting the other day, for the first
time in twenty-two years, and he was lucky enough
to bring down an old farmer by a shot in the leg.
The distance was sixty-six yards.”
We had long and delightful rides over the level
country. Sometimes, my husband and I, riding
quietly along at twilight, for the days were still too
warm for much exercise at noon-time, came upon
as many as three coveys of quail scurrying to the
underbrush. In a short walk from camp he could
bag a dozen birds, and we had plenty of duck in
the creek near us. The bird dog was a perpetual
pleasure. She was the dearest, chummiest sort of
house-doof, and when we took her out she still
visited with us perpetually, running to us every
now and again to utter a little whine, or to have
us witness her tail, which, in her excitement in
RIDING AS A PASTIME. 1 65
rushing through the underbrush, cacti and weeds,
was usually scratched, torn and bleeding. The
country was so dry that we could roam at will, re-
gardless of roads. Our horses were accustomed
to fording streams, pushing their way through
thickets and brambles, and becoming so interested
in making a route through them that my habit
sometimes caught in the briars, and my hat was
lifted off by the low-hanging moss and branches;
and if I was not very watchful, the horse would
go through a passage between two trees just wide
enough for himself, and wipe me off, unless I
scrambled to the pommel. The greater the ob-
stacles my husband encountered, even in his sports,
the more pleasure it was to him. His own horses
were so trained that he shot from their backs with-
out their moving. Mine would also stand fire, and
at the report of a gun, behaved much better than
his mistress.
Eliza, instead of finding the General wearing
his white linen to celebrate Sunday, according to
her observances, was apt to get it on week-days
after office-hours, far too often to suit her. On
the Sabbath, she was immensely puffed up to see
him emerge from the tent, speckless and spotless,
because she said to me, “Whilst the rest of the
officers is only too glad to get a white shirt, the
Ginnel walks out among ’em all, in linen from
1 66 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
top to toe.” She has been sitting beside me, talk-
ing- over a day at that time. ” Do you mind, Miss
Libbie, that while we was down in Texas the
Ginnel was startin’ off on a deer-hunt, I jest went
up to him and tole him, ‘ Now, Ginnel, you go take
off them there white pants.’ He said so quiet,
sassy, cool, roguish-like, ‘The deer always like
something white ‘ — telling me that jest ’cause he
wanted to keep ’em on. Well, he went, all the
same, and when he came back, I says, ‘ I don’t
think the deer saw you in those pants.’ He was
covered with grass-stains and mud, and a young
fawn swinging across the saddle. But them pants
was mud and blood, and green and yellow blotches,
from hem to bindin’. But he jest laughed at me
because I was a-scoldin’, and brought the deer
out to me, and I skinned it the fust time I ever
did, and cooked it next day, and we had a nice
dinner.”
At that time Eliza was a famous belle. Our color-
ed coachman, Henry, was a permanent fixture at the
foot of her throne, while the darkies on the neigh-
boring plantations came nightly to worship. She
bore her honors becomingly, as well as the fact
that she was the proud possessor of a showy out-
fit, including silk dresses. The soldiers to whom
Eliza had been kind in Virginia, had given her
clothes that they had found m the caches where
ESC A PE FROM AN EXPLOSION. 1 6 /
the farmers endeavored to hide their valuables
during the war. Eliza had made one of these
very receptacles for her ” ole miss ” before she left
the plantation, and while her conscience allowed
her to take the silken finery of some other woman
whom she did not know, she kept the secret of the
hiding-place of her own people’s valuables until
after the war, when the General sent her home in
charge of one of his sergeants to pay a visit.
Even the old mistress did not know the spot that
Eliza had chosen, which had been for years a
secret, and she describes the joy at sight of her,
and her going to the place in the field and dig-
ging up the property ” with right smart of money,
too, Miss Libbie— enough, with that the Ginnel
gave me to take home, to keep ’em till the crops
could be harvested.”
This finery of Eliza’s drove a woman servant at
the next place to plan a miserable revenge, which
came near sending us all into another world. We
were taking our breakfast one morning, with the
table spread under the awning in front of our tent.
The air, not yet heated by the sun, came over the
prairie from the sea. The little green swift and
the chameleon, which the General had found in
the arbor roof and tamed as pets, looked down
upon as reposeful and pretty a scene as one could
wish, when we suddenly discovered a blaze in the
1 68 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
cook-tent, where we had now a stove — but EHza
shall tell the story : ” When I fust saw the fire,
Miss Libbie, I was a-waitin’ on you at breakfast.
Then the first thought was the Ginnel’s powdfer-
can, and I jest dropped everythin’ and ran and
found the blaze was a-runnin’ up the canvas of
my tent, nearly reachin’ the powder. The can
had two handles, and I ketched it up and ran out-
side. When I first got in the tent, it had burnt
clar up to the ridge-pole on one side. Some things
in my trunk was scorched mightily, and one side
of it was pretty well burnt. The fire was started
right behind my trunk, not very near the cook-stove.
The Ginnel said to me how cool and deliberate I
was, and he told me right away that if my things
had been destroyed, I would have everythin’ re-
placed, for he was bound I wasn’t going to lose
nothin’.”
My husband, in this emergency, was as cool
as he always was. He followed Eliza as she ran
for the powder-can, and saved the tent and its con-
tents from destruction, and, without doubt, saved
our lives. The noble part that I bore in the
moment of peril was to take a safe position m
our tent, wring my hands and cry. If there
was no one else to rush forward in moments of dan-
ger, courage came unexpectedly, but I do not recall
much brave volunteering on my part.
HOSPITALITY OF THE KITCHEN. j 6q
Eliza put such a broad interpretation upon the
General’s oft-repeated instruction not to let any
needy person go away from our tent or quarters
hungry, that occasionally we had to protest. She
describes to me now his telling her she was carry-
ing her benevolence rather too far, and her reply-
ing, ” Yes, Ginnel, I do take in some one once and
a while, of and on.” ” Yes,” he replied to me, ” more
on than off, I should say.” ” One chile I had to hide
in the weeds a week. Miss Libbie. The Ginnel
used to come out to the cook-tent and stand there
kinder careless like, and he would spy a Httle path
running out into the weeds. Well, he used to carry
me high and dry about them httle roads leading
off to folks he said I was a-feedin’. I would say,
when I saw him lookin’ at the little path in the
weeds, ‘Well, what is it, Ginnel ?’ He would look
at me so keen-like out of his eyes, and say, ‘ That’s
what /say.’ Then he’d say he was goin’ to get a
couple of bloodhounds, and run ’em through the
bushes to find out just how many I was a-feedin’.
Then, Miss Libbie, we never did come to a brush
or a thicket but that he would look around at me
so kinder sly like, and tell me that would be a fust-
rate ranch for me. Then I would say, ‘ Well, it’s
a good thing I do have somebody sometimes,
’cause my cook-tent is alius’ stuck way off by itself,
and its lonesome, and sometimes I’m so scart.’
170
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
” But you know, Miss Libbie,” she added, afraid
that I might think she reflected on one whose
memory she reveres, ” my tent was obhged to be a
good bit off, ’cause the smell of the cookin’ took
away the Ginnel’s appetite ; he was so uncertain
like in his eatin’, you remember.”
In Texas, two wretched little ragamuffins – one
of the poor white trash and another a negro— -were
kept skulking about the cook-tent, making long,
circuitous detours to the creek for water, for fear
we would see them, as they said ” Miss Lize
tole us you’d make a scatter if you knew ‘ no
count ‘ chillern was a-bein’ fed at the cook-tent.”
They slipped into the underbrush at our approach,
and lay low in the grass at the rear of the tent if
they heard our voices. The General at first thought
that, after Eliza had thoroughly stuffed them and
made them fetch and carry for her, they would
disappear, and so chose to ignore their presence,
pretending he had not seen them. But at last they
appeared to be a permanent addition, and we con-
cluded that the best plan would be to acknowledge
their presence and make the best of the infliction ;
so we named one Texas, and the other Jeff. Eliza
beamed, and told the orphans, who capered out
boldly in sight for the first time, and ran after
Miss ” Lize ” to do her bidding. Both of them,
from being starved, wretched, and dull, grew quite
OUR BUNKIES.
171
” peart ” under her good care. The first evidence
of gratitude I had was the creeping into the tent of
the little saffron-colored
white boy, with downcast
eyes, mumbling that ” Miss
Lize said that I could pick
the scorpions out of your
shoes.” I asked, in wonder
-one spark of generosity
blazing up before its final
obliteration — ” And how in
the name of mercy do you
get on with the things your-
self ?” He lifted up a di-
minutive heel, and proudly showed me a scar.
The boy had probably never had on a pair
172 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
of shoes ; consequently this part of his pedal
extremity was absolutely so callous, so evidently
obdurate to any object less penetrating than a
sharpened spike driven in with a hammer, I found
myself wondering- how a scorpion’s little spear
could have effected an entrance through the
seemingly impervious outer cuticle. Finally, I
concluded that at a more tender age that ” too
solid flesh ” may have been susceptible to an ” hon-
orable wound.” It turned out that this cowed and
apparently lifeless little midget was perfectly in-
difi”erent to scorpions. By this time, I no longer
pretended to courage of any sort ; I had found
one in my trunk, and if, after that, I was com-
pelled to go to it, I flung up the lid, ran to the
other side of the tent, and ” shoo-shooed ” with that
eminently senseless feminine call which is used
alike for cows, geese, or any of these acknowledged
foes. Doubtless a bear would be greeted with
the same word, until the supposed occupants had
run off. Night and morning my husband shook
and beat my clothes while he helped me to dress.
The officers daily came in with stories of the
trick, so common to the venomous reptiles, of hid-
ing between the sheets, and the General then even
shook the bedding in our eyrie bedroom. Of all
this he was relieved by the boy that Eliza called
^’ poor little picked sparrow,” who was appointed
THE BITE OF A CENTIPEDE. j -i-y
as my maid. Night and morning the yellow dot
ran his hands into shoes, stockings, night-gown,
and dress-sleeves, in all the places where the scor-
pions love to lurk ; and I bravely and generously
gathered myself into the armchair while the
search went on.
Eliza has been reminding me of our daily terror
of the creeping, venomous enemy of those hot
lands. She says, ” One day. Miss Libbie, I got a
bite, and I squalled out to the Ginnel, ‘ Somethin’s
bit me ! ‘ The Ginnel, he said, ‘ Bit you ! bit you
whar ? ‘ I says ‘ On my arm; ‘ and, Miss Libbie, it
was pizen, for my arm it just swelled enormous
and got all up in lumps. Then it pained me so
the Ginnel stopped a-laughin’ and sent for the
doctor, and he giv’ me a drink of whisky. Then
what do you think ! when I got better, didn’t he go
and say I was playin’ off on him, just to get a
big drink of whisky. But I clar’ to you, Miss
Libbie, I was bad off that night. The centipede
had crept into my bedclothes, and got a good
chance at me, I can tell you.”
Our surgeon was a naturalist, and studied up
the vipers and venomous insects of that almost
tropical land. He showed me a captured scorpion
one day, and, to make me more vigilant, infuriated
the loathsome creature till it flung its javelin of
a tail over on its back and stung itself to death.
174
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Legends of what had happened to army women
who had disregarded the injunctions for safety
were handed down from elder to subaltern, and a
plebe fell heir to these stories as much as to the
tactics imparted by his superiors, or the campaign-
ing lore. I hardly know when I first heard of the
unfortunate woman who lingered too far behind
the cavalcade, in riding for pleasure or marching,
and was captured by the Indians, but for ten years
her story was related to me by officers of all
ages and all branches of the service as a warning.
In Texas, the lady who had been frightfully stung
by a centipede pointed every moral. The sting
was inflicted before the war, and in the far back
days of ” angel sleeves,” which fell away from the
arm to the shoulder. Though this misfortune
dated back from such a distant period, the young
officers, in citing her as a warning to us to be
careful, described the red marks all the way up
the arm, with as much fidelity as if they had seen
them. No one would have dreamed that the
story had filtered through so many channels. But
surely one needed little warning of the centipede.
Once seen, it made as red stains on the memory
as on the beautiful historic arm that was used to
friofhten us. The Arabs call it the mother of
forty-four, alluding to the legs; and the swift man-
ner in which it propels itself over the ground, aid-
WARFARE ON THE TARANTULA. i yc
ed by eight or nine times as many feet as are al-
lotted to ordinary reptiles, makes one habitually
place himself in a position for a quick jump or
flight, while campaigning in Texas. We had to be
watchful all the time we were in the South. Even
in winter, when wood was brought in and laid
down beside the fire-place, the scorpions, torpid
with cold at first, crawled out of knots and crevices,
and made a scattering till they were captured.
One of my friends was stationed at a post where
the quarters were old and of adobe, and had been
used during the war for stables by the Confed-
erates. It was of no use to try to exterminate
these reptiles ; they run so swiftly it takes a deft
hand and a sure stroke to finish them up. Our
officers grew expert in devising means to protect
themselves, and, in this instance, a box of moist
mud, with a shingle all ready, was kept in the quar-
ters. When a tarantula showed himself, he was
plastered on the wall. It is impossible to describe
how loathsome that great spider is. The round
body and long, far-reaching legs are covered with
hairs, each particular hair visible; and the satanic
eyes bulge out as they come on in your direction,
making a feature of every nightmare for a long
time after they are first seen. The wife of an
officer, to keep these horrors from dropping on her
bed as they ran over the ceiling, had a sheet fas-
I 76 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
tened at the four corners and let down from the
rough rafters to catch all invaders, and thus en-
sured herself undisturbed sleep.
Officers all watch and guard the women who
share their hardships. Even the young, unmarried
men — the bachelor officers, as they are called —
patterning after their elders, soon fall into a sort of
fatherly fashion of looking out for the comfort and
safety of the women they are with, whether old
or young, pretty or ugly. It often happens that a
comrade, going on a scout, gives his wife into
their charge. I think of a hundred kindly deeds
shown to all of us on the frontier; and I have
known of acts so delicate that I can hardly refer
to them with sufficient tact, and wish 1 might
write with a tuft of thistle-down. In the instance
of some very young women — with hearts so pure
and souls so spotless they could not for one
moment imagine there lived on earth people de-
praved enough to question all acts, no matter how
harmless in themselves — I have known a little word
of caution to be spoken regarding some exuber-
ance of conduct that arose from the excess of a
thoughtless, joyous heart. The husband who re-
turned to his wife could thank the friend who had
watched over his interests no more deeply than
the wife who owed her escape from criticism to
his timely word. And sometimes, when we went
TR UE FRIENDSHIP. I 7 7
into the States, or were at a post with strange
officers, it would not occur to us, gay and thought-
less as we were, that we must consider that we
were not among those with whom we had
“summered and wintered;” and the freedom and
absolute naturalness of manner that arose from
our long and intimate relationship in isolated
posts, ought perhaps to give way to more formal
conduct. If the women said to the men, ” Now we
are among strangers, do you not think they would
misunderstand our dancing or driving or walking
together just as fearlessly as at home ?” that was
sufficient. The men said, ” Sure enough ! It never
occurred to me. By jove ! I wish we were back
where a fellow need not be hampered by having
every act questioned;” and then no one sought
harder or more carefully so to act that we might
satisfy the exactions of that censorious group of
elderly women who sat in hotel parlors, looking
on and remarking, ” We did not do so when we
were girls,” or even some old frump in a gar-
rison we visited, who, having squeezed dry her
orange of life, was determined that others should
get no good out of theirs, if she could insert one
drop of gall.
Occasionally the young officers, perhaps too
timid to venture on a personal suggestion, sent us
word by roundabout ways, that they did not want
I 78 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
US to continue to cultivate someone of whom we
knew nothing, save that he was agreeable. How
my husband thanked them. He walked the floor
with his hands behind him, moved so that his
voice was unsteady, and said his say about what
he owed to men who would not let a woman they
valued be even associated with any one who
might reflect on them. He was a home-lover, and,
not being with those who daily congregated at the
sutler’s store, the real ” gossip-mill” of a garrison, he
heard but little of what was going on. A man is
supposed to be the custodian of his own house-
hold in civil life ; but it must be remembered that
in our life a husband had often to leave a young
and inexperienced bride to the care of his com-
rades, while he went off for months of field duty.
The grateful tears rise now in my eyes at the rec-
ollection of men who guarded us from the very
semblance of evil as if we had been their sisters.
CHAPTER VI.
A TEXAS NORTHER— A SCHOOL-GIRl’s FIRST IMPRESSION
OF TEXAS THE ANTS AS OUR THRIVING NEIGHBORS
GENERAL CUSTER ILL OF BREAK-BONE FEVER
MEASURING AN ALLIGATOR THE MARCH TO AUSTIN
CHASING JACK-RABBITS BYRON THE GREYHOUND.
‘Yy E had not been long in our camp at Hemp-
stead, before the waives of two of the staff
arrived by way of Galveston. Their tents were
put on a line with or near ours, and arbors built
over them. One of these women, Mrs. Greene, had
been one of my dearest girlhood friends, and every
pleasure of my happy life was enhanced by the
presence of this lovely woman. We all went out,
after the heat of the day, on long- rides about the
country. Our father Custer was a fine rider, and not
only sat his horse well, but it was almost impossible
to unseat him. He grew more wary and watchful
of his tormenting sons every day. If they halted,
apparently only to say a casual word or so to their
paternal, that keen old man spurred his horse to
one side with the agility of a circus-rider, just in
179
1 80 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
time to avoid the flying heels of the horse of his
offspring in front of him, which had been taught
to fling his hoofs up when touched just back of
the saddle. If both boys came together and rode
one on each side of him, he looked uneasily from
one to the other, suspicious of this sudden exhibi-
tion of friendship ; and well he might, for while
one fixed his attention by some question that pro-
voked an answer, usually about politics, the other
gave a quick rap on the back of the horse, and the
next thing, the father was grasping the pommel to
keep from being flung forward of the animal as
he threw up his heels and plunged his head down,
making the angle of an incline plane. Even when,
after a concerted plan, one rode up and pulled the
cape of the elder man’s overcoat over his head and
held it there a moment, while the other gave the
horse a cut, he sat like a centaur, and no surprise
unseated or loosened his grip on the reins. They
knew his horsemanship well, as he had ridden af-
ter the hounds in Maryland and Virginia in his
younger days, and had taught them to sit a horse
bareback, when their little fat legs were too short
to describe a curve on the animal’s side. Of course
I was always begging to have them spare father,
but it was needless championship. He enjoyed
their pranks with all his fun-loving soul.
It was very hard to get postage, and he was un-
• A COON HUNT. l8l
wary enough one day — on account of the color
being the same as the issue of that year — to buy
a dollar’s worth of his eldest scion, only to find
them old ones, such as were used before the war.
Whether he considered the joke worth a dollar, I
could not decipher, for he was silent ; but soon
afterward he showed me an envelope marked in
the writing of his son Armstrong, ” Conscience-
money,” containing the $i unlawfully obtained.
We were invited one night to go to a coon-hunt,
conducted in the real old Southern style. The
officers wanted us to see some hunting, but were
obliged to leave us behind hitherto when they
crossed the Brazos River on deer-hunts, and were
the guests of the planters in the chase, that began
before dawn and lasted all day. We had thickets,
underbrush and ditches to encounter, before the
dogs treed the coon ; then a little darkey, brought
along for the climbing, went up into the branches
and dislodged the game, which fell among our and
the neighbors’ dogs. No voice excited them more
wildly than the ” Whoop-la ! ” of our old father,
and when we came home at 2 a. m., carrying a
coon and a possum, he was as fresh as the young-
est of us.
The citizens surrounding us were so relieved to
find that our troops left them unmolested, they
frankly contrasted the disciplined conduct with the
1 82 TENTING ON TlJE PLAINS.
lawlessness to which they had been witness, in
States where the Confederate army was stationed.
But they scarcely realized that an army in time of
peace is much more restricted. They could
hardly say enough about the order that was car-
ried out, preventing the negroes from joining the
column as it marched into Texas. There was no
way of taking care of them, and the General di-
rected that none should follow, so they went back,
contented to work where they would be fed and
clothed.
One reason that our life seemed to me the very
perfection of all that is ever attained on earth
was, that the rumors of trouble with Mexico had
ceased. The demands of our Government had
been complied with ; but it was thought best to
keep the troops in the field the rest of the year,
though there was to be no war.
Our first experience with a Texas norther sur-
prised and startled us. It came on in the
night, preceded by the usual heavy, suffocating
air which renders breathing an effort. After this
prelude, the wild blast of wind swept down on us
with a fury indescribable. We heard the roar
as it approached over the stretch of prairie be-
tween us and the sea. Our tent, though it was
guyed by ropes stretched from the ridge-pole to a
strong post driven far into the ground, both in
0 UR FIRST ‘ ‘ NOR TIIERr 1 8 3
front and at the rear, shook, rattled, and flapped
as if with the rage of some human creature. It
was twisted and wrenched from side to side ; the
arbor overhead seemed to toss to and fro, and the
wagon rocked in a crazy effort to spill us out.
Though the ropes stretched and cracked like
cordage at sea, and the canvas flapped like loosen-
ed sails, we did not go down. Indeed, rocked in
this improvised ” cradle of the deep,” it was hard
to tell whether one was at sea or on land. I begged
to get up and dress for the final collapse that I was
sure was coming, but my husband quieted me and
calmed my fears, believing that the approaching
rain would still the wind, as it eventually did.
Next morning a scene of havoc was visible. Our
neighbors crept out of their tents, and we women,
in a little whispered aside, exchanged our opinions
upon the climate of the “Sunny South.”
They, also, had passed a night of terror, but
fortunately their tents did not go down. Mrs.
Lyon had just come from the North, and expected
to join her husband; meanwhile she was our guest,
and the General and I had endeavored to give her
as cordial a welcome as we could, feeling that all
must be so strange to her after the security and
seclusion of her girlhood’s home. The night pre-
ceding the norther we took her to her tent near
ours, and helped her arrange for the night, assur-
1 84 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ing her that we were so near that we could hear
her voice, if she was in the least afraid. We, being
novices in the experience of that climate and its
gales, had no idea the wind would rise to such
concert pitch that no voice could be distinguished.
She said that when we fastened her in from the
outside world with two straps, she felt very uncer-
tain about her courage holding out. We kept
on assuring her not to be afraid, but on bid-
ding her good-night and saying again not to be
in the least disturbed, that the sentinel walked his
beat in front of her tent all night, she dared not
own up that this assurance did not tend to soothe
her anxious fears, for she thought she would be
more afraid of the guard than of anything else.
And as I think of it, such a good-night from us was
rather unsatisfactory. My husband, soldier-like,
put the utmost faith in the guard, and I, though
only so short a tim.e before mortally afraid of the
stern, unswerving warrior myself, had soon for-
gotten that there were many timid women in the
world who knew nothing of sleepmg without locks
or bolts, and thought, perhaps, that at the slightest
ignorance or dereliction of duty the sentinel would
fire on an offender, whether man or woman.
Added to this fear of the sentinel, the storm took
what remnant of nerve she had left; and though she
laughed next morning about her initiation into the
WRECJ^S FROM THE HURRICANE. 1S5
service of the Government, there were subsequent
confessions to the horror of that unending night.
In talking with Major and Mrs. Lyon nowadays,
when it is my privilege to see them, there seem to
be no memories but pleasant ones of our Texas
life. They might well cherish two reminiscences
as somewhat disturbing, for Mrs. Lyon’s reception
by the hurricane, and the Major’s baptism of gore
when he killed his first deer, were not scenes that
would bear frequent repetition and only leave
pleasant memories.
The staff-officers had caused a long shade to be
built, instead of shorter ones, which would have
stood the storms better. Under this all of their
tents were pitched in two rows facing each other ;
and protected by this arbor, they daily took the
siesta which is almost compulsory there in the
heat of the noontide. Now the shade was lifted
off one side and tilted over, and some of the tents
were also flat. Among them was that of our
father Custer. He had extricated himself with
difficulty from under the canvas, and described his
sensations so quaintly that his woes were greeted
with roars of laughter from us all. After nar-
rating the downfall of his ” rag house,” he dryly
remarked that it would seem, owing to the cli-
mate and other causes, he was not going to have
much uninterrupted sleep, and, looking slyly at
1 86 TENrlNG ON THE PLAINS.
the staff, he added that his neighborhood was not
the quietest he had ever known.
The letters home at that time, in spite of their
description of trivial events, and the exuberant
underlined expressions of girlish pleasure over
nothings, my father enjoyed and preserved. I
find that our idle Sundays were almost blanks in
life, as we had no service and the hunting and
riding were suspended. I marked the day by
writing home, and a few extracts will perhaps pre-
sent a clearer idea of the life there than anything
that could be written now :
“Every Sunday I wake up with the thought of
home, and wish that we might be there and go to
church with you. I can imagine how pleasant
home is now. Among other luxuries, I see with
my ‘ mind’s eye ‘ a large plate of your nice apples
on the dining-room table. I miss apples here ;
none grow in this country ; and a man living near
here told our Henry that he hadn’t seen one for
five years. Father Custer bought me some small,
withered-looking ones for fifty cents apiece. It
seems so strange that in this State, where many
planters live who are rich enough to build a
church individually, there is such a scarcity of
churches. Why, at the North, the first knowledge
one has of the proximity of a village is by seeing
a spire, and a church is almost the first building
• SCaoOL-GIRL LETTERS. 187
put Up when a town is laid out. Here in this
country it is the last to be thought of. Cotton is
indeed king. The cake you sent to me by Nettie
Green, dear mother, was a perfect godsend. Oh,
anything you make does taste so good !
” Our orderly has perfected a trade for a beau-
tiful little horse for me, so that when Custis Lee’s
corns trouble him, I am not obliged to take the
choice of staying at home or riding one of Arm-
strong’s prancers. The new horse has cunning
tricks, getting down on his knees to let me get on
and off, if I tell him to do so. He is very affec-
tionate, and he racks a mile inside of three min-
utes. We talk ‘ horse ‘ a great deal here, dear
father, and my letters may be like our talk ; but
any man who has kept in his stable, for months
at a time, a famous race-horse worth $9,000, as
you have kept Don Juan,* ought not to object to
a little account of other people’s animals. We
had an offer of $500 for Custis Lee at Alex-
andria.”
” I sometimes have uninvited guests in my tent.
Friday, Nettie saw something on the tray that
Eliza was carrying. It had a long tail, and proved
*Don Juan was a horse captured by our soldiers during the war,
and bought, as was the custom, by the General, for the appraised
value of a contract horse. It was the horse that ran away with
him at the grand review, and it afterward died in Michigan.
l8S TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
to be a stinging scorpion. The citizens pooh-pooh
at our fear of scorpions, and insist that they are
not so very dangerous ; but 1 was glad to have
that particular one killed by Armstrong planting
his gun on it. I feel much pleased, and Armstrong
is quite proud, that I made myself a riding-habit.
You know I lost the waist of mine in the forest.
It took me weeks to finish it, being my first at-
tempt. I ripped an old waist, and copied it by
drawing lines with a pencil, pinning and basting ;
but it fits very well. I remember how you both
wanted me to learn when I was at home, and I al-
most wished I had, when I found it took me such
ages to do what ought to have been short work.
“Our letters take twenty days in coming, and
longer if there are storms in the Gulf. The papers
are stale enough, but Armstrong goes through
them all. I feel so rich, and am luxuriating in
four splint-bottom chairs that we hired an old
darkey to make for us. I want to sit in all four
at once, it seems so good to get anything in which
to rest that has a back.
” Our dogs give us such pleasure, though it
took me some time to get used to the din they set
up when Armstrong practiced on the horn. They
call it ‘ giving tongue ‘ here, but I call that too
mild a word. Their whole bodies seem hollow,
they bring forth such wild cries and cavernous
A LAWLESS LAND. 1 89
howls. We call them Byron, Brandy, Jupiter,
Rattler, Sultan and Tyler.”
” Something awful is constantly occurring-
among the citizens. It is a lawless country. A
relative of one of our old army officers, a promi-
nent planter living near here, v/as shot dead in
Houston by a man bearing an old grudge against
him. It is a common occurrence to shoot down
men here for any offense whatever. Armstrong
never goes anywhere except for hunting, and as
we have plenty of books and our evening rides,
we enjoy life thoroughly. Nettie fell from her
horse, and we were frightened for a time, but she
was only lamed. Though she weighs 165 pounds,
Autie * picked her up as if she were a baby, and
carried her into their tent.”
” Besides visiting at the house of the collector
of the port, where there is a houseful of young
girls, we have been hospitably treated by some
people to whom Armstrong was able to be of use.
One day, a gentle, well-bred Southern woman
came into our tent to see Armstrong, and asked
his protection for her boy, telling him that for
* An abbreviation of the General’s second name, Armstrong, given
him by his elder sister’s children, when they were too young to
pronounce the full name Armstrong.
I go
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
some childish carelessness the neighboringr colored
people had threatened his life. Armstrong be-
lieved her, and melted. He afterward inquired
elsewhere into the matter, and was convinced that
the boy had not intentionally erred. The child
himself was proof, by his frank manner and his
straightforward story, of his innocence.
” I suppose we were the first Yankees these
people had ever known, and doubtless nothing
but gratitude induced them even to speak with
us ; yet they conquered prejudice, and asked us
to dinner. They had been so well dressed when
they called — and were accounted rich, I believe, by
the neighbors — that I could scarcely believe we
had reached the right house when we halted. It
was like the cabins of the ” poor white trash ” in
the forest, only larger. I thought we had mis-
taken the negro quarters for the master’s. Two
large rooms, with extensions at the rear, were
divided by an open space roofed over, under
which the table was spread. The house was of
rough logs, and unpainted. Unless the Texans
built with home materials, their houses cost as
much as palaces abroad, for the dressed lumber
had to be hauled from the seacoast.
” The inside of this queer home was in marked
contrast with the exterior. The furniture was
modern and handsome, and the piano, on which
A GENEROUS NEIGHBOR. igl
the accomplished mother, as well as her little son,
gave us music, was from one of our best Northern
manufactories. The china, glass and linen on the
dinner-table were still another surprise.
“They never broached politics, gave us an ex-
cellent dinner, and got on Armstrong’s blind side
forever, by giving him a valuable full-blooded
pointer, called Ginnie, short for Virginia. With
four game chickens, a Virginia cured ham (as that
was their former State), and two turkeys, we were
sent on our way rejoicing.”
• • • • • . • . ,
” Our Henry has gone home, and we miss him,
for he is fidelity itself. He expects to move
his entire family of negroes from Virginia to
Monroe, because he says, father, you are the
finest man he ever did see. Prepare, then, for the
dark cloud that is moving toward you, and you
may have the privilege of contributing to their
support for a time, if he follows Eliza’s plan of
billeting the orphan upon us.
“We have a new cook called Uncle Charley,
who has heretofore been a preacher, but now con-
descends to get up good dinners for us. We had
eleven to dine to-day, and borrowed dishes of our
Southern neighbors. We had a soup made out of
an immense turtle that Armstrong killed in the
stream yesterday. Then followed turkeys, boiled
192
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ham — and roast beef, of course, for Armstrong
thinks no dinner quite perfect without his beef.
We are Hving well, and on so little. Armstrong’s
pay as a major-general will soon cease, and we are
trying now to get accustomed to living on less.
” I listen to the citizens talking over the pros-
pects of this State, and I think it promises
wonders. There are chances for money-making
all the time thrown in Armstrong’s way ; but he
seems to think that while he is on duty he had
better not enter into business schemes.
” Armstrong has such good success in hunting
and fishing that he sends to the other officers’
messes, turtle, deer, duck, quail, squirrels, doves
and prairie chickens. The possums are accepted
with many a scrape and flourish by the ‘ nigs.’ I
forgot to tell you that our nine dogs sleep round
our wagon at night, quarreling, growling, snor-
ing, but I sleep too soundly to be kept awake by
them.”
The very ants in Texas, though not poisonous,
were provided with such sharp nippers that they
made me jump from my chair with a bound, if,
after going out of sight in the neck or sleeves of
my dress, they attempted to cut their way out.
They clipped one’s flesh with sharp little cuts that
were not pleasant, especially when there remained
a doubt as to whether it might be a scorpion. We
DESTRUCTIVE ANTS. Iq^
had to guard our linen carefully, for they cut it up
with ugly little slits that were hard to mend. Be-
sides, we had to be careful, as we were so cut off
that we could not well replace our few clothes,
and it costs a ruinous sum to send North, or even
to New Orleans, for anything. I found this out
when the General paid an express bill on a gown
from New York — ordered before we left the East —
far larger than the cost of the material and the
dressmaker’s bill together. The ants besieged the
cook-tent and set Uncle Charley and Eliza to growl-
ing ; but an old settler told them to surround the
place with tan-bark, and they were thus freed. It
was all I could do to keep the General from digging
down into the ant-mounds, as he was anxious to
see into their mechanism. The colored people
and citizens told us what fighters they were, and
what injuries they inflicted on people who molested
them. We watched them curiously day by day,
and wanted to see if the residents had told us
stories about their stripping the trees of foliage
just to guy us. It has long been the favorite
pastime of old residents to impose all sorts of im-
probable tales on the new-comer. Whether this
occurrence happens often or not I cannot say, but
it certainly took place once while we were there.
One morning my husband ran into the tent and
asked me to hurry up with my dressing ; he had
194
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
something strange to show me, and helped me
scramble into my clothes.
The carriage-road in front of our tents cut rather
deep ruts, over which the ants found a difficult
passage, so they had laid a causeway of bits of
cut leaves, over which they journeyed between a
tree and their ant-hills, not far from our tents on
the other side of the road. They were still travel-
ing back and forth, each bearing a bit of leaf
bigger than itself ; and a half-grown tree near us,
which had been full of foliage the day before, was
entirely bare.
For some reason unexplainable, malarial fever
broke out among our staff. It was, I suppose, the
acclimation to which we were being subjected.
My father Custer was ill, and came forth from
his siege whitened out, while the officers disap-
peared to mourn over the number of their bones
for a few days, and then crept out of the tents as
soon as they could move. My husband all this
time had never even changed color. His powers
of endurance amazed me. He seemed to have set
his strong will against yielding to climatic in-
fluences ; but after two days of this fighting he
gave in and tossed himself on our borrowed
lounge, a vanquished man. He was very sick.
Break-bone fever had waited to do its worst with its
last victim. Everything looked very gloomy to
A FEVER.RACKED PATIENT.
195
me. We had not even a wide bed, on which it is
a little comfort if a fever-tossed patient can fling-
himself from side to side. We had no ice, no fruit,
indeed, nothing but quinine. The supplies of that
drug to the hospital department of Texas must be
sent by the barrel, it seemed to me, from the
manner in which it was consumed.
Our devoted surgeon came, of his own accord,
over and over again, and was untiring in his
patience in commg when I sent for him in-between-
times, to please me in my anxiety. My husband
was so racked and tormented by pain, and burnt
up with fiery heat, that he hardly made the
feeblest fight about the medicine, after having at-
tained the satisfaction of my tasting it, to be sure
that I knew how bitter it was. As the fever
abated every hour, I resorted to new modes of
bribery and corruption to get him to swallow the
huge pill. My step-mother’s cake had come in the
very best time, for I extracted the raisins and hid
the quinine in them, as my father had done
when giving me medicine as a child. It
seemed to me an interminable time before
the disease began to yield to the remedies.
In reality, it was not long, as the General
was unaccustomed to medicine, and its effect
was more quickly realized on that account. Even
when my husband began to crawl about again.
196
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the doctor continued the medicine, and I as nurse
remorselessly carried out his directions, though I
had by no means a tractable patient, as with re-
turning health came restored combative powers.
My husband noticed the rapid disappearance of
the pills from the table when he lay and watched
the hated things with relief, as he discovered that
he was being aided in the consumption by some
unknown friend. One morning we found the
plate on which the doctor had placed thirty the
night before, empty. Of course I accused the
General of being the cause of the strange disap-
pearance, and prepared to send for more, inexora-
ble in my temporary reign over a weak man. He
attempted a mild kicking celebration and clapping
accompaniment over the departure of his hated
medicine, as much as his rather unsteady feet and
arms would allow, but stoutly denied having done
away with the offending pills. The next night
we kept watch over the fresh supply, and soon
after dark the ants began their migrations up the
loose tent-wall on the table-cover that fell against
the canvas, and while one grasped the flour-mixed
pill with his long nippers, the partner pushed,
steered and helped roll the plunder down the side
of the tent on to the ground.
The triumph of the citizens was complete.
Their tales were outdone by our actual experience.
AN OLD ENEMY.
197
After that, there was no story they told us which
we did not take in immediately without question.
The hunting included alligators also. In the
stream below us there were occasional deep pools,
darkened by the overhanging trees. As we
women walked on the banks, we kept a respect-
ful distance from the places where the bend in the
creek widened into a pond, with still water near
the high banks. In one of these dark pools lived
an ancient alligator, well known to the neighbors,
on which they had been unsuccessfully firing for
years. The darkies kept aloof from his fastness,
and even Eliza, whose Monday-morning soul
longed for the running water of the stream, for she
had struggled with muddy water so long, trem-
bled at the tales of this monster. She reminds
me now ” what a lovely place to wash that Gros
w^ash-house was, down by the creek. But it was
near the old alligator’s pool, and I know I hurried
up my wash awfully, for I was afraid he might
come up ; for you know. Miss Libbie, it was
reckoned that they was mighty fond of children
and colored people.”
One of the young officers was determined to
get this veteran, and day after day went up
and down the creek, coming home at night to
meet the jeers of the others, who did not believe
that alligator-hunting in a hot country paid. One
198
TEN7ING ON THE PLAINS.
night he stopped at our lent, radiant and jubilant.
He had shot the old disturber of the peace, the
intimidator of the neighborhood, and was going
for help to haul him up to the tents. He was a
monster, and it cost the men tough pulling to get
him up the bank, and then to drag him down near
our tent. There he was left for us women to see.
We walked around and around him, very brave,
and quite relieved to think that we were rid of so
dangerous a neighbor, with a real old Jonah-and-
the-whale mouth. The General congratulated the
young officer heartily, and wished it had been his
successful shot that had ended him. Part of the
jaw had been shot away, evidently years ago, as
it was then calloused over. It was distended to
its utmost capacity, and propped open with a
stick. Nettie brought out a broom from her tent,
with which to get a rough estimate of his length,
as we knew well that if we did not give some
idea of his size in our letters home, they would
think the climate, which enervates so quickly, had
produced a total collapse in our power to tell the
truth. The broom did not begin to answer, so we
pieced out the measure with something else, in
order to arrive at some kind of accuracy. Then
we thouofht we would like to see how the beast
looked with his mouth closed, and the officers,
patient in humoring our whims, pulled out the
200 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
props. There was a sudden commotion. The
next thing visible was three sets of flying- petti-
coats making for the tent, as the alUgator, revived
by the sudden let-down of his upper jaw, sprawled
out his feet and began to walk off over the grass.
The crack of the rifle a moment after brought out
the heads of three cowards from their tents, but
after that no woman hovered over even his dead
hide. The General was convulsed over our re-
treat. The drying skin of his majesty, the lord
of the pool, flung and flapped in the wind, sus-
pended to the pole of the officers’ arbor for weeks,,
and it was well tanned by the air long before they
ceased to make sly allusions to women’s curi-
osity.
At last, in November, the sealed proposals from
citizens to the quartermaster for the contract for
transporting the camp equipage and baggage, for-
age, etc., over the country, were all in, and the
most reasonable of the propositions was accepted.
Orders had come to move on to Austin, the capi-
tal, where we were to winter. It was with real
regret that I saw our traps packed, the tents of
our pretty encampment taken down, the arbors
thrown over, and our faces turned toward the in-
terior of the State. The General, too buoyant not
to think that every move would better us, felt
nothing but pleasure to be on the march again.
MARCHING TO AUSTIN. 20I
The journey was very pleasant through the day,
and we were not compelled to rise before dawn,
for the sun was by no means unbearable, as it had
been in August. It was cold at night, and the
wind blew around the wagon, flapping the curtains,
under which it penetrated, and lifting the covers
unless they were strongly secured. As to trying
to keep warm by a camp-fire in November, I rather
incline to the belief that it is impossible. Instead
of heat coming into the tent where I put on my
habit with benumbed fingers, the wind blew the
smoke in. Sometimes the mornings were so cold
I begged to be left in bed, and argued that the
mules could be attached and I could go straight
on to camp, warm all the way. But my husband
woke my drowsy pride by saying ” the officers
will surely think you a ‘ feather-bed soldier,’ ” which
term of derision was applied to a man who sought
soft places for duty and avoided hardships, driv-
ing when he ought to ride.
If we all huddled around one of my husband’s
splendid camp-fires, I came in for the smoke. The
officers’ pretty little gallantries about ” smoke al-
ways following beauty,” did not keep my eyes
from being blistered and blinded. It was, after
all, not a very great hardship, as during the day
we had the royal sun of that Southern winter.
My husband rode on in advance every day to
202 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
select a camp. He gave the choice into my hands
sometimes, but it was hard to keep wood, water
and suitable ground uppermost; I wanted always
the sheltered, pretty spots. We enjoyed every
mile of our march. It rained sometimes, pouring
down so suddenly that a retreat to the traveling
wagons was impossible. One day I was wet to
the skin three times, and my husband wondered
what the anxious father and mother, who used
frantically to call ” rubbers ” after me, as a girl,
when I tried to slip out unnoticed, would say to
him then ; but it did not hurt me in the least.
The General actually seemed unconscious of the
shower. He wore a soldier’s overcoat, pulled his
broad hat down to shed the rain, and encouraged
me by saying I was getting to be a tough
veteran, which among us was very high praise.
Indeed, we were all then so well, we snapped our
fingers at the once-dreaded break-bone fever. If
we broke the ice in the bucket for our early ablu-
tions, it became a matter to joke over when the
sun was up and we all rode together, laughing and
joking, at the head of the column.
Our march was usually twenty-five miles, some-
times thirty, in a day. The General and I foraged
at the farms we passed, and bought good butter,
eggs and poultry. He began to collect turkeys
for the winter, until we had enough for a year.
THE SACERDOTAL COOK. 203
Uncle Charley was doing his best to awe Eliza
with his numerous new dishes. Though he was a
preacher, he put on that profession on Sundays as
he did his best coat ; and if during the week the
fire smoked, or a dog stole some prepared dish
that was standing one side to cool, he expressed
himself in tones not loud but deep, and had as ex-
tensive a collection of negro oaths as Texas afford-
ed, which, I believe, is saying a good deal. My
husband, observant as he always was, wondered
what possessed the old fellow when preparing
poultry for dinner. We used slyly to watch him
go one side, seize the chicken, and, while swift-
ly wringing its neck, mumble some unintelligible
words to himself, then throw down the fowl
in a matter-of-fact way, and sit down to pluck it.
We were mystified, and had to get Eliza to explain
this peculiar proceeding that went on day after
day. She said that ” though Uncle Charley does
swear so powerful, he has a kind of superstition
that poultry has a hereafter.” Evidently he
thought it was not right to send them to their last
home without what he intended for a funeral
oration. Sometimes he said, as fast as his nimble
old tongue could clatter :
Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound,
Mine ears attend the cry I
Ye living hens, come view the ground
Where you must shortly die.
204
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Once after this my husband, by hiding, con-
trived to be present, though unseen, at one of these
funeral ceremonies :
Princes, this clay must be your bed,
In spite of all your towers,
The tall, the wise, the reverend head.
Must lie as low as yours.
He so timed his verses that w^ith one wrench he
gave the final turn to the poor chicken’s head as
he jerked out the last line. My husband, per-
fectly convulsed himself, was in terror for fear
Uncle Charley would have his feelings hurt by
seeing us, and hearing my giggling, and I nearly
smothered myself in the attempt to get back to
our tent, where the General threw himself down
with shrieks of laughter.
We varied our march by many an exciting race
after jack-rabbits. The chapparral bushes defeated
us frequently by making such good hiding-places
for the hare.* If we came to a long stretch of
open prairie, and a rabbit lifted his doe-like head
above the grass, the General uttered a wild whoop
to his dog, a ” Come on ! ” to me, and off we
dashed. Some of the staff occasionally joined,
while our father Custer bent over his old roan
horse, mildly struck him with a spur, and was in
* I never liked hunting when the game was killed, and I was
relieved to find how often the hare rabbit escaped into the thickets.
THE L ORDL Y B YRON. 2O5
at the death. The ground was excellent for a run —
level and grassy. We had a superb greyhound
called Byron, that was devoted to the General,
and after a successful chase it was rewarded with
many a demonstration of affection. He was the
most lordly dog, I think, I ever saw, powerful,
with deep chest, and carrying his head in a royal
way. When he started for a run, with his nostrils
distended and his delicate ears laid back on his
noble head, each bound sent him flying through
the air. He hardly touched the elastic cushions
of his feet to earth, before he again was spread
out like a dark, straight thread. This gathering
and leaping must be seen, to realize how marvel-
ous is the rapidity and how the motion seems flying,
almost, as the ground is scorned except at a sort
of spring bound. He trotted back to the General,
if he happened to be in advance, with the rabbit
in his mouth, and, holding back his proud head,
delivered the game only to his chief. The tribute
that a woman pays to beauty in any form, I gave
to Byron, but I never cared much for him. A
greyhound’s heart could be put into a thimble.
Byron cared for the General as much as his cold
soul could for any one, but it was not to be com-
pared with the dear Ginnie : she was all love, she
was almost human.
The dog was in an injured state with me much
2o6 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
of the time. In quarters he resented all my
rights. My husband had a great fashion of fling-
ing himself on the bed, or even on the floor, if it
was carpeted. He told me he believed he must
unconsciously have acquired the habit at West
Point, where the zeal of the cadet seems divided
between his studies and an effort to keep the
wrinkles out of the regulation white pantaloons,
which, being of duck, are easily creased. What
punishment Government sees fit to inflict for each
separate crease, I don’t know, but certainly its
embryo soldiers have implanted in them a fear of
consequences, even regarding rumpled linen. As
soon as the General tossed himself on the bed,
Byron walked to him and was invited to share the
luxury. ” Certainly,” my husband used to say, sar-
castically; ” walk right up here on this clean white
spread, without troubling yourself to care whether
your feet are covered with mud or not. Your
Aunt Eliza wants you to lie on nice white counter-
panes ; she washes them on purpose for you.”
Byron answered this invitation by licking his host’s
hand, and turning in the most scornful manner on
me, as I uttered a mild protest regarding his
muddy paws. The General quickly remarked that
I made invidious distinctions, as no spread seemed
too fine or white for Ginnie, in my mind, while
if Eliza happened to enter, a pair of blazing eyes
A JEALOUS DOG. 20/
and an energetically expressed opinion of Byron
ensued, and he retorted by lifting his upper lip over
some of the whitest fangs I ever saw. The Gen-
eral, still aiding and abetting, asked the dog to let
Aunt Eliza see what an intelligent, knowing animal
he was, how soon he distinguished his friends from
his foes. Such an exasperating brute, and such a
tormenting master, were best left alone. But I
was tired, and wanted to lie down, so I told Eliza
that if she would stand there, I would try the
broom, a woman’s weapon, on his royal highness.
Byron wouldn’t budge, and growled even at me.
Then I quite meekly took what little place was
left, the General’s sense of mischief, and his
peculiar fondness for not interfering in a fight,
now coming in to keep him silent. The
dog rolled over, and shammed sleep, but soon
planting his feet against my back, which was
turned in high dudgeon, he pushed and pushed,
seemingly without premeditation, his dreadful
eyes shut, until I was nearly shoved off. I
was conquered, and rose afraid of the dog and
momentarily irritated at my defeat and his
tyranny, while Eliza read a lesson to the General.
She said, ” Now see what you’ve done. You keer
more for that pesky, sassy old hound than you does
for Miss Libbie. Ginnel, I’d be ‘shamed, if I was
you. What would your mother Custer think of
208 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
you now ? ” But my feelings were not seriously
hurt, and the General, having watched to the last
to see how far the brute would carry his jealousy,
gave him a kick that sent him sprawling on the
floor, springing up to restore me to my place and
close the colored harangue that was going on at
the foot of the bed. Eliza rarely dignified me
with the honor of being referee in any disputed
question. She used to say, ” No matter whether
it’s right or wrong, Miss Libbie’s sho’ to side with
the Ginnel.” Her droll way of treating him like a
big boy away from home for the first time,
always amused him. She threatened to tell his
mother, and brought up that sainted woman in all
our encounters, as she did in the dog episode
just mentioned, as if the very name would restore
order at once, and give Eliza her own way in
regulating us. But dear mother Custer had been
in the midst of too many happy scuffles, and the
centre of too many friendly fisticuffs among her
active, irrepressible boys, in the old farm-days,
for the mention of her name to restore order in
our turbulent household.
CHAPTER VII.
BYRON AS A THIEF— AN EQUESTRIAN DUDE— MEXICAN
HORSE-EQUIPAGE AND BLANKETS GENERAL CUSTER
VISITS A DEAF AND DUMB ASYLUM TALES OF
LAWLESSNESS— PISTOLS EVERYWHERE— ENTERTAIN-
MENTS AT OUR QUARTERS— ELIZA’S COLORED BALL.
ONE day we heard shout upon shout from
many a soldier’s throat in camp. The head-
quarters guard and officers’ servants, even the’
officers themselves, joined in the hallooing, and we
ran out to see what could be the matter. It was
our lordly Byron. Stately and superb as he usu-
ally was, he had another side to his character, and
now he was racing up from camp, a huge piece of
meat in his jaws, which he had stolen from the
camp-kettle where it was boiling for the soldiers’
dinner. His retreat was accompanied with every
sort of missile— sticks, boots and rocks— but this
dog, that made himself into a ” greased streak of
Hghtning,” as a colored woman described him,
bounded on, untouched by the flying hail of the
soldiers’ wrath. The General did not dare to shout
and dance in siaht of the men, over what he
2IO TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
thought so cunning- in this hateful dog, as he was
not protected by the friendly walls of our tent ;
but he chuckled, and his eyes danced, for the brute
dropped the hot meat when he had looked about
to discover how close his pursuers were, and then,
seeing the enemy nearing him, picked it up and
distanced them all. The General went back to his
tent, and called Eliza, to torment her with an
account of what “her favorite” had done all by
himself. She spared no words to express her opin-
ion of the hated hound, for Byron was no respecter
of persons when the sneaky side of his character
was uppermost. He stole his master’s dinner just
as readily as the neighbors’. Eliza said no one
could tell how many times he had made off with
a part of her dinner, just dished up to be served,
and then gone off on a prowl, “after he’d gorged
hissel,” as she expressed it, ” hidin’ from the other
dogs, and burying it in jest such a stingy way you
might ‘spect from such a worthless, plunderin’
old villain.”
The march to Austin was varied by fording.
All the streams and rivers were crossed in that
manner, except one, where we used the ponton
bridge. The Colorado we found too high to ford,
and so made a detour of some miles. The citi-
zens were not unfriendly, while there was a total
cessation of work on the part of the negroes until
TEXAS THOROUGHBREDS. 211
our column went by. They sat on the fences Hke
a row of black crows,* and with their usual polite-
ness made an attempt to answer questions the
troops put to them, which were unanswerable,
even in the ingenious brain of the propounder.
“Well, uncle, how far is it ten miles down the
road from here ?” If their feelings w^ere hurt by
such irrepressible fun, they were soon healed by
the lively trade they kept up in chickens, eggs
and butter.
The citizens sometimes answered the General’s
salute, and his interested questions about the horse
they rode, by joining us for a short distance on
the march. The horse-flesh of Texas was a delight
to him ; but I could not be so interested in the
fine points as to forget the disfiguring brands that
were often upon the fore-shoulder, as well as the
flank. They spoke volumes for the country where
a man has to sear a thoroughbred with a hot iron,
to ensure his keeping possession. Father Custer
used to say, “What sort of country is this, any-
how, when a man, in order to keep his property,
has got to print the whole constitution of the
United States on his horse?” The whole get up
of the Texans was rather cumbersome, it seemed
to me, though they rode perfectly. They fre-
quently had a Mexican saddle, heavily ornamented
with silver on the high pommel, and everywhere
2 I 2 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
else that it could be added. Even the design of
the stamped leather, for which Mexico is famous,
was embroidered with silver bullion. The stirrup
had handsome leather covers, while a fringe of
thongs fell almost to the ground, to aid in pushing
their way through the tall prairie grass. Some-
times the saddle-cloth, extending to the crupper,
w^as of fur. The bridle and bit were rich with
silver also. On the massive silver pommel hung
an incongruous coil of horse-hair rope, disfiguring
and ugly. There was an iron picket-pin attached
to the lariat, which we soon learned was of ines-
timable value in the long rides that the Texans
took. If a man made a halt, he encircled himself
with this prickly lariat and lay down securely,
knowing that no snake could cross that barrier.
In a land of venomous serpents, it behooved a
man to carry his own abatis everywhere. The
saddle was also secured by a cinch or girth of cow’s-
hair, which hard riders found a great help in keep-
ing the saddle firm. The Texan himself,though not
often wearing the high-crowned, silver-embroid-
ered Mexican sombrero, wore usually a wide-
brimmed felt hat, on which the General afterward
doted, as the felt was of superior quality. If the
term ” dude ” had been invented then, it would
often have applied to a Texan horseman. The hair
was frequently long, and they wore no waistcoat.
AN EQUESTRIAN “DUDE:* 2 1 1
I concluded, because they could better display the
vast expanse of shirt-front. While the General
and his casual companion in our march talked
horse, too absorbed to notice anything else, I
used to lose myself in the contemplation of the
maze of tucks, puffs and embroidery of this cam-
bric finery, ornamented with three old-fashioned
bosom-pins. The wearer seemed to me to repre-
sent two epochs : the fine linen, side-saddle and
blooded horse belonged to ” befo’ the war ;” while
the ragged elbows of the coat-sleeves, and the
worn boots, were decidedly “since the war.” If
the shirt-front was intricate in its workmanship,
the boots were ignored by the placid owner.
They usually had the Mexican serape strapped to
the back of the saddle, or, if it was cold, as it was
in our late November march, they put their head
through the opening in the middle, so woven for
that purpose, and flung the end across their breast
and over one shoulder in a picturesque manner.
The bright hues of the blanket, dyed by the
Indians from the juice of the prickly pear, its soft,
flexible folds having been woven in a hand-loom,
made a graceful and attractive bit of color, which
was not at all out of place in that country. These
blankets were valuable possessions. They were
so pliable and perfectly water- proof, that they pro-
tected one from every storm. We had a pair,
214 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
which we used through every subsequent cam-
paign, and when the cold in Kansas and Dakota
became almost unbearable, sometimes, after the
the long trial of a journey in the wagon, my
husband used to say, ” We will resort to extreme
measures, Libbie, and wrap you in the Mexican
blankets.” They were the warmest of all our
wraps. Nothing seemed to fade them, and even
when burnt with Tom’s cigarette ashes, or stuck
through with the General’s spurs, they did not
ravel, as do other fabrics. They have hung as por-
tieres in my little home, and the design and color-
ing are so like the Persian rug on the floor, that it
seems to be an argument to prove that Mr. Igna
tius Donnelly, in his theory of Atlantis, is right,
and that we once had a land highway between
the East and Mexico, and that the reason the Aztec
now uses the designs on his pottery and in his
weaving is, that his ancestors brought over the
first sketches on papyrus.^*
*Ina town of Mexico last year I saw these small looms with
blankets in them, in various stages of progress, in many cot-
tages. Among the Indians the rude loom is carried about in the
mountain villages, and with some tribes there is a superstition
about finishing the blankets in the same place where they were be-
gun. A squaw will sometimes have one half done, and if an
order is given her she will not break over her rule to finish it if a
move is made in the midst of her work. She waits until the next
year, when her people return to the same camp, as is the custom
when the Indian seeks certain game or grazing, or to cut longer
poles.
SHIFTLESS STABLING. 2 I 5
A Texan travels for comfort and safety rather
than for style. If a norther overtakes him, he
dismounts and drives the picket-pin into the
ground, thus tethering his horse, which turns his
back, the better to withstand the oncoming wind.
The master throws himself face down in the long
grass, buried in his blanket, and thus awaits the
termination of the fury with which the storm
sweeps a Texas prairie.
Sometimes one of the planters, after riding a
distance with us, talking the county over, and
taking in every point of our horses as he rode,
made his adieus and said he was now at his own
place, where he turned in. The General followed
his fine thoroughbred with longing eyes, and was
more than astonished to find in what stables they
kept these valuable and delicate animals. No
matter if the house was habitable, the stable was
usually in a state of careless dilapidation. Doors
swung on one hinge, and clap-boards were torn
off here and there, while the warped roof was far
from weather-proof. Even though Texas is in
the ” Sunny South,” the first sharp norther
awakens one to the knowledge that it is not
always summer. Sometimes these storms are
quickly over, but frequently they last three days.
This carelessness about stabling stock was not
owing to the depredations of an invading army.
2 i6 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
We were the first ” Yankees ” they had seen. It
was the general shiftlessness that creeps into one’s
veins. We were not long there ourselves before
climatic influence had its effect on even the most
active among us.
Before we reached Austin, several citizens sent
out invitations for us to come to their houses ; but
I knew the General would not accept, and, cold
as the nights were, I felt unwilling to lose a day
of camp life. We pitched our tents on rolling
ground in the vicinity of Austin, where we over-
looked a pretty town of stuccoed houses that
appeared summery in the midst of the live-oak’s
perennial green. The State House, Land Office,
and governor’s mansion looked regal to us, so
long bivouacking in the forest and on uncultivated
prairies. The governor offered for our head-
quarters the Blind Asylum, which had been closed
during the war. This possessed one advantage
that we were glad to improve: there was room
enough for all the staff, and a long saloon parlor
and dining-room for our hops during the winter.
By this time two pretty, agreeable women, wives
of staff – officers, were added to our circl-“
Still, I went into the building with regret,
wagon in which the wind had rocked me to si
so often, and which had proved such a stronghc
against the crawling foes of the country, was coi
A GAM UNDER A ROOF. 217
signed to the stable with a sigh. Camp hfe had
more pleasures than hardships.
There were three windows in our room, which
we opened at night ; but, notwithstanding the air
that circulated, the feeling, after having been so
long out of doors, was suffocating. The ceiling
seemed descending to smother us. There was
one joy: reveille could ring out on the dawning
day, and there was no longer imperative necessity
to spring from a warm bed and make ablutions
in ice-water. There is a good deal of that sort of
mental snapping of the fingers on the part of
campaigners when they are again stationary and
need not prepare for a march. Civilization and a
looking-glass must now be assumed, as it would
no longer do to rough it and ignore appearances,
after we had moved into a house, and were to
live like ” folks.” Besides, we soon began to be
invited by the townspeople to visit them. Re-
fined, agreeable and well-dressed women came
to see us, and, woman-like, we ran our eyes over
their dresses. They were embroidered and trim-
med richly with lace, ” befo’ the war ” finery or
from the cargo of a blockade runner ; but it was
all strange enough in such an isolated State. Al-
most everything was then brought from the ter-
minus of the Brenham Railroad to Austin, 150
miles, by ox-team. We had been anxiously ex-
2 I 8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
pected for some time, and there was no manner of
doubt that the arrival of the Division was a great
reUef to the reputable of both sides. They said
so frankly — the returned Confederate officers and
the ” stay at-home rangers,” as well as the newly
appointed Union governor.
Texas was then a ” go-as-you-please ” State, and
the lawlessness was terrible. The returned Con-
federate soldiers were poor, and did not know
how to set themselves to work, and in many
instances preferred the life of a freebooter. It
was so easy, if a crime was committed, to slip
into Mexico, for though it was inaccessible except
by stage or on horseback, a Texan would not
mind a forced march over the country to the Rio
Grande. There were then but one or two short
railroads in operation. The one from Galveston
to Brenham was the principal one, while telegraph
lines were not in use. The stage to Brenham was
our one means of communication with the out-
side world.
It was hard for the citizens who had remained
at home to realize that war was over, and some
were unwilling to believe there ever had been an
emancipation proclamation. In the northern part
of the State they were still buying and selling
slaves. The lives of the newly appointed United
States officers were threatened daily, and it was
A PATRIOTIC GIRL.
219
an uneasy head that wore the gubernatorial crown.
I thought them braver men than many who had
faced the enemy in battle. The unseen, lurking-
foe that hides under cover of darkness was their
terror. They held themselves valiantly; but one
wife and daughter were on my mind night after
night, as from dark till dawn they slept un-
easily, and started from their rooms out into
the halls at every strange sound. The Gen-
eral and I thought the courageous daughter
had enough brave, devoted blood in her veins
to distill a portion into the heart of many a
soldier who led a forlorn hope. They told us that
in the early part of the war the girl had known of
a Union flag in the State House, held in derision
and scornfully treated by the extremists. She and
her younger brother climbed upon the roof of a
wing of the building, after dark, entered a window
of the Capitol, found the flag, concealed it in the
girl’s clothing, and made their perilous descent
safely. The father of such a daughter might well
prize her watchfulness of his safety, as she
vigilantly kept it up during our stay, and was
equal to a squadron of soldiers. She won our ad-
miration; and our bachelor officers paid the tribute
that brave men always pay to courageous, unsel-
fish women, for she danced, rode and walked
with them, and when she was not so engaged.
2 20 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
their orderlies held their horses before the official
door, while they improved every hour allowed
them within the hospitable portal.
It was a great relief to find a Southern State
that was not devastated by the war. The homes
destroyed in Virginia could not fail to move a
woman’s heart, as it was women and children that
suffered from such destruction. In Texas nothing
seemed to have been altered. I suppose some
profited, for blockade-running could be carried on
from the ports of that great State, and there was
always Mexico from which to draw supplies.
In our daily rides we found the country about
Austin delightful. The roads were smooth
and the surface rolling. Indeed, there was one
high hill, called Mount Brunnel, where we had
picnics and enjoyed the fine view, far and near,
taking one of the bands of the regular regiments
from the North that joined us soon after our ar-
rival. Mount Brunnel was so steep we had to dis-
mount and climb a part of the distance. The band
played the “Anvil Chorus,” and the sound descend-
ed through the valley grandly. The river, filled
with sand-bars and ugly on close examination,
looked like a silver ribbon. At that height, the
ripened cotton, at certain seasons of the year,
looked like fields of foam. The thermometer was
over eighty before we left the lowlands; but at the
CHILDREN ‘ S SIGN LANG UA GE. 2 2 I
altitude to which we climbed the air was cool. We
even went once to the State Insane Asylum, taking
the band, when the attendants asked if dancing-
music might be played, and we watched with
wonder the quadrille of an insane eight.
The favorite ride for my husband was across
the Colorado, to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum.
There seemed to be a fascination for him in the
children, who were equally charmed with the
young soldier that silently watched their pretty,
pathetic exhibitions of intelligent speech by
gesture. My husband riveted his gaze on their
speaking eyes, and as their instructor spelt the
passions of love, hatred, remorse and reverence
on his fingers, one little girl represented them by
singularly graceful gestures, charming him, and
filling his eyes with tears, which he did not seek
to hide. The pupils were from ten to sixteen
years of age. Their supple wrists were a
delight to us, and the tiny hands of a child of the
matron, whom the General held, talked in a
cunning way to its playmates, who, it knew,
could not comprehend its speech. It was well
that the Professor was hospitality itself, and did
not mind a cavalcade dashing up the road to his
house. My husband, when he did not openly
suggest going, used some subterfuge as trivial as
going for water-cress, that grew in a pond near
222 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the Asylum. The children knew him, and wel-
comed him with lustrous, eloquent eyes, and went
untiringly through their little exhibitions, learn-
ing to bring him their compositions, examples
and maps, for his commendation. How little we
thought then that the lessons he was taking,
in order to talk with the children he learned
to love, would soon come into use while sitting
round a camp-fire and making himself understood
by Indians. Of course, their sign-language is
wholly their own, but it is the same method of
using the simplest signs as expressive of thought.
It was a long, pleasant ride; its only drawback to
me being the fording of the river, which had
quicksands and a rapid current. The Colorado
was low, but the river-bed was wide and filled
with sand-bars. The mad torrent that the citizens
told us of in freshets, we did not see. If I fol-
lowed my husband, as Custis Lee had learned to
do, I found myself guided safely, but it some-
times happened that our party entered the river,
laughing and talking so earnestly, noisily and
excitedly that we forgot caution. One lesson was
enough ; the sensation of the sinking of the
horse’s hind legs in quicksands is not to be for-
gotten. The loud cry of the General to ‘* saw on
the bit” or whip my horse, excited, frightened
directions from the staff to turn to the right or the
PISTOLS AND BOWIE-KNIVES. 223
left, Custis Lee trembling and snorting with fear,
but responding to a cruel cut of my whip (for I
rarely struck him), and we plunged on to a firmer
soil, wiser for all the future on account of that
moment of serious peril.
We seldom rode through the town, as my hus-
band disliked the publicity that a group of
cavalrymen must necessarily cause in a city street.
If we were compelled to, the staff and Tom
pointed out one after another of the loungers
about the stores, or the horseman who had killed
his man. It seemed to be thought the necessary
thing, to establish the Texan’s idea of courage, to
have either fought in duels, or, by waylaying the
enemy, to have killed from one to five men. The
Southern climate seems to keep alive a feud that
our cold Northern winters freeze out. Bad blood
was never kept in abeyance ; they had out their
bursts of temper when the attack of rage came on.
Each man, even the boys of twelve, went armed.
I used to wonder at the humped-up coats until a
norther, before which we were one day scudding
for safety, lifted the coats of men making a
similar dash, and the pistol was revealed.
It was the favorite pastime of our men (having
concocted the scheme with the General) to ride
near some of the outskirts, and, when we reached
some lone tree, tell me that from that limb a mur-
2 24 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
dered man had lately swung-. This grim joke was
often practiced on me, in order that the shuddering
horror and the start Custis Lee and I made, to
skim over the country away from such a hated
spot, might be enjoyed. I came to think the
Texas trees bore that human fruit a little too often
for truth ; but some of the citizens gloated over
these scenes of horror, and added a lamp-post in
town to the list of localities from which, in future,
I must turn away my head.
The negroes of Texas and Louisiana were the
worst in all the South. The border States had
commonly sold their most insubordinate slaves in-
to these two distant States.”^ Fortunately, our now
well-disciplined Division and the regular cavalry
kept everything in a better condition ; but there
were constantly individual cases of outrageous con-
duct, and often of crime, among whites and blacks.
*ln order to gain some idea of the immense territory in which our
troops were attempting to restore order, I have only to remind the
reader that Texas is larger than either the German or the Austrian
Empire. The area of the State is 274,356 square miles. It is as
large as France, Belgium, England and Wales all combined. If we
could place the northwestern corner of Texas at Chicago, its most
southerly point would be at Jacksonville, Fla., its most easterly
at Petersburg, Va., and its most westerly in the interior of Missouri.
It would thus cover the entire States of Indiana, Kentucky and the
two Carolinas, and nearly all of Tennessee, with one-third of Ohio,
two-thirds of Virginia, half of Georgia, and portions of Florida. Ala
bama, Illinois and Missouri. The cities of Chicago, Toledo, Cin-
cinnati, Washington, Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta and Nashville
would all be included within its borders.
HOME OF THE DESPERADO. 225
high and low. Texas had so long been looked upon
as a sort of ” city of refuge ” by outlaws, that those
whom the other States refused to harbor came to
that locality. A country reached only by sea from
the south or by a wagon-train from the north, and
through which no telegraph lines ran until after
we came,would certainly offer an admirable hiding-
place for those who leave their country for their
country’s good. I have read somewhere that Texas
derived its name from a group of rascals, who, sit-
ting round a fire on their arrival on the soil that
was to protect them, composed this couplet :
” If every other land forsakes us,
This is the land that freely takes us (Texas).”
As story after story reached us, I began to think
the State was well named. There were a great
many excellent, law-abiding citizens, but not
enough to leaven the lump at that chaotic period.
Even the women learned to defend themselves,
as the war had deprived them of their natural
protectors, who had gone either in the Northern or
the Southern army — for Texas had a cavalry regi-
ment of refugees in our service. One woman, while
we were there, found a teamster getting into her
window, and shot him fatally. Fire-arms were so
constantly about — for the men did not dress with-
out a pistol in their belts — that women grew ac-
226 TEN71NG ON THE TLA INS.
customed to the sight of weapons. There was a
lady of whom I constantly heard, rich and re-
fined, but living- out of town on a plantation that
seemed to be fit only for negroes. She rode fear-
lessly, and diverted her monotonous life by hunt-
ing. The planters frequently met her with game
slung upon her saddle, and once she lassoed and
brought in a wolf alone. Finally this woman
came to see me, but curiosity made me hardly
civil for a few moments, as I was trying to recon-
cile myself to the knowledge, that the quiet, grace-
ful woman before me, with rich dress, jewels and
a French hat, could take her gun and dogs, mount
a fiery horse, and go hunting alone. We found,
on returning the visit, that, though they were rich,
owning blooded horses, a plantation and a mill,
their domicile was anything but what we at the
North would call comfortable. It was a long,
one-storied, log building, consisting of a parlor,
dining-room, bedroom and two small ” no-‘count “
rooms, as the servants said, all opening into one
another and upon the porch. The first surprise
on entering was, that the roof did not fit down
snugly on the side wall. A strip of the blue sky
was visible on three sides, while the partition of the
dining-room only came up part way. There
seemed to be no sort of provision for ” Caudle
lectures.” The walls were roughly plastered, but
WALLS HA VE EARS. 22 7
this space just under the roof was for ventilation,
and I fancied they would get enough of it during
a norther.
I am reminded of a story that one of the witty
Southern women told me, after repeating some
very good comic verses, in which they excel. She
said the house I described was not uncommon in
Texas, and that once she was traveling over a por-
tion of the State, on a journey of great suffering,
as she was accompanying her husband’s remains
to a family burial-ground. They assisted her
from her carriage into one of the rooms of a long
log house, used as a wayside inn, and the landlady
kindly helped her into bed, as she was prostrated
with suffering and fatigue. After she left her,
the landlady seemed to forget that the partition
did not extend to the rafters, and began question-
ing her servant as to what was the matter, etc.
Hearing that the lady had lost her husband, the
old dame exclaimed, sympathetically, ” Poor
thing ! Poor thing ! I know how it is; I’ve lost
three of ’em.”
The General and his staff got a good deal of
sport out of the manner in which they exagger-
ated the tales of bloodshed to me, and aroused
the anger, grief and horror that I could not sup-
press. I must defend myself from the supposition
that I may have been chronicling their absurd and
2 28 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
highly colored tales. All that 1 have written, I
have either seen or have reliable authority for.
Their astounding stories, composed among them-
selves, began with a concocted plan by which one
casually started a story, the others met it with
surprise and with an “Is it possible?” and the
next led up to some improbable narrative of the
General’s — I growing more and more shivery as
the wicked tormentors advanced. Always rather
gullible, I suppose, I must confess the torn and
distracted state of society in Texas made every-
thing they said seem probable. I don’t know how
long I kept up a fashion of starting and shudder-
ing over the frequent crack of a rifle or pistol, as
we rode through the woods about the town. My
husband and his attendant scamps did all they
could to confirm my belief that the woods were
full of assassins, and I rode on after these sharp
reports, expecting to come upon the lifeless re-
mains of a murdered man. They all said, with
well assumed feeling, that Texas was an awful
country in which to live, where a man’s life was
not safe an hour, and excitedly exclaimed at each
shot, “There goes some other poor fellow!” I
have reason to believe it was a serious disappoint-
ment to the whole confederation of jokers, to have
me actually see a Mexican driver (a greaser) crack
his whip over the heads of his oxen, as they
SOMETHING OF SOCIAL LIFE.
229
crawled along in front of us one day when we
were riding. There is no sound like the snap of
the lash of a “bull-whacker,” as they are called,
and perhaps brighter women than I am might have
been taken in by it, and thought it a pistol-shot.
This ended my taking it as the signal of a death.
The lawlessness of the State was much dimin-
ished by the troops scattered through the country.
General Custer was much occupied in answering
communications that came from distant parts
of Texas, describing the demoralized state of the
country, and asking for troops. These appeals
were from all sides. It was felt more and more
that the presence of the troops was absolutely
necessary, and it was certainly agreeable to us
that we were not looked upon as invaders. The
General then had thirteen regiments of infantry
and as many of cavalry, scattered in every part
of the State comprised in his district. The regular
troops arriving, brought their wives and daughters,
and it was a great addition, as we had constant en-
tertainments, in which the civilians, so long cut off
from all gayety, were glad to participate. The
staff assisted me greatly in my preparations. We
dressed the long parlors in evergreens, made cano-
pies of flags, arranged wax-lights in impromptu
wooden sconces, and with the waxed floor it was
tempting enough to those who cared for dancing.
230 TENTWG ON THE PLAIN’S.
The soldiers soon organized a string band, and a
sergeant called off the quadrilles. Sometimes my
husband planned and arranged the suppers alone,
but usually the staff divided the duty of prepar-
ing the refreshments. Occasionally we attempted
a dinner, and, as we wanted to invite our own
ladies as well as some from the regular regiments,
the table was a subject of study ; for when twenty
came, the dishes gave out. The staff dined early,
so that we could have theirs, and the Southern
woman who occupied two rooms in the building
lent everything she had. Uncle Charley, our
cook, who now had found a colored church in
which to preach on Sunday, did up all his religion
on that day, and swore all the week, but the cellar-
kitchen was distant, and, besides, my husband
used to argue that it was just as well to endure
placidly the evils right about us, but not to seek
for more. The swearing did not interfere with
the cooking, and Charley thought it necessary to
thus clear the kitchen, as our yard at that time
was black with the colored race. Each officer’s
servant had his circle of friends, and they hovered
round us like a dark cloud. The dishes that
Uncle Charley sent up were excellent. The Texas
beef and poultry were of superior quality, and we
even had a respite from condensed milk, as a
citizen had lent us a cow.
CHAGRIN OF A HOSTESS. 23 1
At one of these dinners Eliza had enhsted a
colored boy to help her wait on the table. I had
tried to borrow enough dishes, and thought the
table was provided. But the glory of the occa-
sion departed when, after soup, roast game, etc.,
all served with the great luxury at that place of
separate plates. Uncle Charley bethought himself
that he would add, as a surprise, a dessert. It is
almost unnecessary to say that a dessert at that
time was an event. Uncle Charley said his “best
holt ” was on meats, and his attempts at pastry
would not only have ruined the remnant of his
temper, but, I am afraid, if often indulged in,
would have effectually finished our digestion.
For this I had not counted, and, to my dismay,
after the pudding had been deposited with great
salaam and ceremony before the General, the
colored boy rushed around and gathered every-
body’s coffee-saucer. Until he returned them
washed, and placed them at the head of the table,
I did not imagine what he was doing ; I simply
waited, in that uncertain frame of mind that a
hostess well knows. My husband looked at the
array of cups down the long table, standing bereft
of their partners, laid his head back, and shouted.
Then everybody else laughed, and, very red and
very mortified, I concluded to admit that I had
not arranged for this last course, and that on that
23^2 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
table were the united contents of all our mess-
chests, and there were no saucers or dessert-plates
nearer than town. We were aware that our
stay in the South was limited, and made no
effort to keep enough crockery for dinners of
twenty.
After many enjoyable parties in our parlor, we
received a pathetic and carefully worded hint
from Eliza, who was now a great belle, that she
would like to return some of the hospitality
shown her by the colored people of the town, and
my husband was only too glad to prove to Eliza
how we valued her faithful, self-denying life in
our service. We composed an invitation, in which
Miss Eliza Brown presented her compliments to
Mr.Washington or Mr. Jefferson, as the case might
be, and would be happy to see him on such an
evening, with the word “dancing” in the left-
hand corner. A gathering of the darkies seemed
equally jubilant, whether it was a funeral, a camp-
meeting or a dance ; but it seemed they made a
difference in dress for these occasions, if not in
manners. So it was best, Eliza thought, to add
” dancing,” though it was only at first a mirthful
suggestion of the General’s fertile brain. He gave
the copying to the office clerk, who, being a profes-
sional penman, put as many tails to his capitals
and flourishes to his words as he did for the white
A NEGRO BALL. 21′>
folks, Eliza’s critical eye watching for any less
elaborate embellishment.
The lower part of the house was given over to
the negroes, who polished the floor, trimmed the
windows, columns and chimney with garlands of
live-oak, and lavished candles on the scene, while
at the supper they had a heterogeneous jumble of
just what they asked for, including coon, the dish
garnished with watercress and bits of boiled beet.
I think we were not asked ; but as the fiddle
started the jigs, the General’s feet began to keep
time, and he executed some pas senl around our
bedroom, and then, extracting, as usual, a promise
from me not to laugh, he dragged me down the
steps, and we hid where we saw it all. The quadrille
ended, the order of ceremonies seemed to consist
in the company going down to one end of the room
in response to an order from Uncle Charley to
” clar the flo’.” Then the old man of sixty, a grand-
father, now dressed in white tie, vest and gloves,
with shining black clothes, took the floor. He knew
himself to be the cynosure of all eyes, and bore
himself accordingly. He had previously said to
me, ” To-night, I expects, Miss Libbie, to put
down some steps those colored folks has never
seen befo’.” And surely he did. He ambled out,
as lithe as a youngster, cut some pigeon-wings,
and then skipped and flung himself about with
234 TENTL\G ON THE PLAINS.
the agility of a boy, stopping” not on?y for breath,
but to watch the expressions, envious and admir-
ing, of the spectators at the end of the room.
When his last breath was exhausted, Aunt Ann,
our old laundress, came tripping down the polished
floor, and executed a shuffle, most decorous at
first, and then, reviving her youth, she struck into
a hoydenish jig, her son encouraging her by pat-
ting time. More quadrilles, then another clearing
of the floor, and a young yellow woman pirouet-
ted down the room, in bright green tarlatan
petticoats, very short and airy. She executed a
hornpipe and a reel, and, like Uncle Charley, im-
provised some steps for the occasion. This black
sylph was surrounded with a cloud of diaphanous
drapery; she wreathed her arms about her head,
kept on the smirk of the ballet-girl, and coquetted
and skipped about, with manners that brought
down the house. The fattest darkey of all wad-
dled down next and did a break-down, at which
all the assembly patted juba, and with their
woolly heads kept time to the violin. My husband
never moved from his hiding-place, but chuckled
and shook over the sight, novel to us, till Eliza
found us out and forgave the ” peeking.”
The clothes worn, looked as if the property-
room of a third-rate theatre had been rifled — faded
finery, fag ends of old lace, tumbled flowers that
TOILETS OF THE DANCERS.
235
had done duty at many a ” white folks'” ball, on
the pretty costume of the missus, old feathers set
up in the wool, where what was left of the plume
bobbed and quavered, as the head of the owner
moved to the time of the music, or nodded and
swayed back and forth while conver£^ation went
on. The braiding, oiling and smoothing had
gone on for days previous, to straighten the wool
and make it lie flat ; but the activity in the pur-
suit of pleasure soon set the little kinks free, and
each hair stood on tip-toe, joining in a jig of its
own. The powder begged from the toilet-table
of the missus was soon swept away in the general
shine ; but the belles cared little for having sus-
pended temporarily the breath of their rivals by
the gorgeousness of their toilets ; they forgot ap-
pearances and yielded to that absorption of
excitement in which the colored soul is spell-
bound.
Eliza moved about, ” queening it ” as she knew
how to do, and it was a proud hour of triumph to
her, as she cast a complacent side glance at the
tail of her gown, which she had wheedled out of
me by cunning arguments, among which the most
powerful was that ” ’twas getting so mussed and
’twasn’t no sort of a dress for a Ginnel’s wife, no
how.” The General lost nothing, for he sat in our
hidden corner, shaking and throwing his head back
236 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
in glee, but keeping a close and warning hold on
my arm, as I was not so successful in smothering a
titter as he was, having no mustache to deaden
the sound. After Eliza discovered us, she let no
one know of our perfidy, and the company, be-
lieving they were alone, abandoned themselves
to complete enjoyment as the fiddle played havoc
with the heels of the entire assembly.
CHAPTER VIII.
LETTERS HOME EXTRACTS CAUGHT BY A NORTHER
LONGING FOR A YANKEE WOOD-l’ILE COLONEL
GROOME OF l8l2 JACK RUCKER BEATEN IN A
HORSE-RACE GINNIE AND HER FAMILY OUR
FATHER Custer’s dog.
‘ I “HE trivial events of our daily life were
chronicled in a weekly letter home, and from
a number of these school-girl effusions I cull a few
items, as they give an idea of my husband’s recre-
ations as well as his duties.
” We are quartered in the Blind Asylum, which
is large and comfortable. The large rooms in the
main part of the building we can use for enter-
taining, while the staff occupy the wings and the
building in the yard, that was used for a school-
room. Out there they can have all the ‘ walk-
arounds ‘ and ‘ high-jinks ‘ they choose, without
any one hearing them.”
” Our room is large, and, mother, I have two
bureaus and a wardrobe, and lose my things con-
238 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
stantly, I am so unused to so much room. We
women hardly knew what to make of the absence of
looking-glasses, as the house is otherwise furnished,
until it occurred to us that the former occupants
wouldn’t get much good out of a mirror. It isn’t
so necessary to have one, after all, as I got on all
summer very well, after I learned to brush my
hair straight back and not try to part it. 1 have
a mirror now, and am wrestling with back hair
again.
” I confess to you, mother, it is a comfort to get
out of bed on to a carpet, and dress by a fire ; but
don’t tell Armstrong I said so, as I never men-
tioned to him that dressing before day, my eyes
streaming with tears from the camp-fire while I
took an ice-water bath, was not the mode of serv-
ing my country that I could choose.”
” Last Sunday it was uncomfortably warm. We
wore thin summer clothes, and were languid from
the heat. The thermometer was eighty-two in
the shade. On Monday the weather changed from
heat to cold in five minutes, in consequence of the
sudden and violent winds, which are called
‘ northers.’ “
” No one prepares for the cold in this country,
but there was a general scattering when our first
norther attacked us. Tom rushed for wood, and
PYROTECHNICS FOR A PARENT. 239
of course none was cut. He fished Tex out from
the kitchen, borrowed an axe from one of the
headquarters men, and soon appeared with an arm-
ful. As he took the sticks from Tex to build the fire,
out dropped a scorpion to add to the excitement.
It was torpid, but nevertheless it was a scorpion,
and I took up my usual safe position, in the middle
of the bed, till there was an auto da fe. The
loose windows rattled, and the wind howled
around the corner of our room. I put a sack and
shawl over my summer dress, and we shivered
over Tom’s fire. I rather wondered at Armstrong’s
huddling, he is usually so warm, but each act of
these boys needs investigating. By and by he
went off to write, while father Custer took out his
pipe, to calm the troubled scene into which the
rush of Nova Zembla had thrown us. He sat ‘way
under the mantel to let the tobacco-smoke go up
the chimney. Pretty soon Autie returned and
threw some waste paper on the fire, and the next
thing we all started violently back from a wild
pyrotechnic display. With the papers went in a
handful of blank cartridges, and these innocent
looking scamps faced their father and calmly
asked him why he had jumped half-way across
the room. They often repeat this Fourth-of-July
exhibition with fire-crackers, either tied to his chair,
or tossed carelessly on the burning logs, when his
240 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
attention is attracted elsewhere. But don’t pity
him, mother. No matter what trick they play, he
is never phased. He matches them too, and I
help him, though I am obliged to confess I often
join in the laugh, it is all so funny. This was not
the last of the hullaballoo. The w^ood gave out,
and Autie descended for more. Tex took this
occasion, when everyone was hunting a fire and
shelter from the cold, to right what he considered
a grievous wrong. Autie found him belaboring
another colored boy, whom he had “downed.”
Autie investigated, for if Tex was right he was
bound to let the fight proceed. You know in his
West Point days he was arrested for allowing a
fisticuff to go on, and because he said, ‘ Stand back,
boys, and let’s have a fair fight.’ But finding our
boy in the wrong, he arraigned him, and began,
‘ Did you strike Jake with malice aforethought ? ‘
‘ No, sah ! no, sah ! I dun struck him with the
back of the hatchet.’ At this Autie found himself
no longer a ‘most righteous judge.’ This Daniel
beat a quick retreat, red with suppressed laughter,
and made Tom go down to do the punishing.
Tom shut Tex in the chicken-coop ; but it was too
hard for me to see from my window his shiny
eyes looking out from between the slats, so they
made the sentence light, and he was set free in
the afternoon.
A TEXAS NORTHER. 241
( –■ ^
” Now, mother, I have estabUshed the only
Yankee wood-pile in Texas. I don’t mean to be
caught again, and shrivel up as we did this time.
You don’t know how these storms deceive you. One
hour we are so suffocated with the heavy, oppres-
sive air, we sit in the deep window-sills and pant for
breath. Along comes a roaring sound through the
tree-tops, and there’s a scatter, I can tell you. We
bang down the windows, and shout for Texas to
hunt the wood-pile, jump into warm clothes, and
before we are fairly prepared, the hurricane is
upon us. We really don’t mind it a bit, as it
doesn’t last long (once it lasted three days),
besides, it is so good to be in something that isn’t
going to blow down, as we momentarily expected
in a tent. Our Sundays pass so slowly ! The
traveling-wagon holds a good many, and we don’t
mind close quarters, so we all squeeze in, and the
bachelor officers ride with us to church. The Epis-
copal church is still open, but as they have no
fires we would be glad if the rector warmed
us up with his eloquence a little more. However,
it’s church, and we begin to feel semi-civilized.
“The citizens are constantly coming to pay
their respects to Armstrong. You see, we were
welcomed instead of dreaded, as, Yankees or no
Yankees, a man’s life is just as good, preserved by
242 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
a Federal soldier as by a Confederate, and every-
body seems to be in a terrified state in this law-
less land. Among- the callers is one man that
will interest you, father. I believe you are con-
sidered authority on the history of the fight that
took place at Monroe, when the Kentucky regi-
ment fought the British in 1812. Well, whom do
you think we have found down here, but the old
Colonel Groome who distinguished himself that
day ? He is a white-headed old soldier, and when
Autie told him that we were right from Monroe,
he was so affected the tears came to his eyes. It
was he that set the barn on fire, to prevent the
British using it as a fortification for sharp-shoot-
ers. He crawled away from the burning building
on his hands and knees, while their bullets cut his
clothes and wounded him several times. Years
afterward he met an old British officer, who told
him, in their talk, that the man who fired the barn
was killed by his own army, but Colonel Groome,
in quite a dramatic way, said, ‘ No ! I am the
man.’ He says that he would like to see you so
much. Autie is greatly interested in this veteran,
and we are going to call on him, and get two
game chickens he is to give us.
” Now, father, don’t wrinkle up your brows
when I tell you that we race horses. Even I race
with Mrs. L , and, much as you may disapprove,
HARMLESS HORSE-RACING. 243
I know my father too well, not to be sure he will
be glad that his only daughter beat. But let me
explain to you that racing among ourselves is not
your idea of it. There is no money at stake, no
rough crowd, none of the evils of which you may
well disapprove, as we know horse-racing at home.
Armstrong is considered the best judge of a horse
here. The Texans supposed no one in the world
could ride as well as themselves, and they do
ride splendidly, but those who saw Armstrong
keep his place in the saddle, when Don Juan ran
away with him at the grand review in Washing-
ton, concede that he does know how to ride,
however mistaken his views on patriotism may
be. We have now three running horses and a
fast pony, none of which has been beaten.
Autie’s bay pony beat a crack runner of which
the town boasts, by three full lengths. The races
are near our quarters, so we women can be in it
all. Indeed, there is nothing they do not share
with us.
” Our stable-boy is a tiny mulatto, a handsome
little fellow, weighing about eighty pounds.
Armstrong thinks he is the finest rider he has ever
seen. I have just made him a tight-fitting red
jacket and a red-white-and-blue skull-cap, to ride
in at races. We are running out to the stables
half our time. Armstrong has the horses exercised
244 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
on a quarter-of-a-mile track, holds the watch and
times them, as we sit round and enjoy their speed.”
” When I am so intent on my amateur dress-
making, and perplexed and tired, dear mother,
you wouldn’t wonder when I tell you that one
dress, of which I am in actual need, I cut so that
the figure ran one way on the skirt and another
on the waist, and caused Armstrong to make
some ridiculous remarks that I tried not to notice,
but he was so funny and the dress itself was so
very queer when I put it on, I had to give in.
Well, when I am so bothered, he comes in and
throws my things all over the room, kicks over
the lapboard, and picks me up for a tramp to the
stable. Then he rubs down the horses’ legs, and
asks me to notice this or that fine point, which is
all Greek to me. The truth is, that I would rather
see a fine mane and tail, than all the sinew, length
of limb, etc. Then we sit down on kegs and
boxes, and contemplate our wealth. Custis Lee
greets me with a whinny. Dear mother, you
would be simply horrified by our back yard.
Autie and I march to the stables through a dark
cloud of spectators. The negroes are upon us
like the locusts of Egypt. It is rumored that our
Uncle Charley keeps a flourishing colored board-
ing-house in the town, from what is decidedly
SCHOOLMA TES MEE T AS SOLDIERS. 245
more than the crumbs that fall from his master’s
table. After all, though, considering our house
is filled with company, and we constantly give
evening parties, I don’t think our mess-bills are
very large. Autie teases father Custer, by telling
him he is going to brigade the colored troops, and
make him chaplain. You are well aware how
father Custer feels over the ‘ nigger ‘ question, and
how he would regard a chaplaincy. I must not
forget to tell you that the wheel of time has rolled
around, and among the regiments in Armstrong’s
command is the Fourth Michigan Infantry. Don’t
you remember that when he was a second lieuten-
ant, he crossed the Chickahominy with that regi-
ment, and how, having started before dawn, his
comrades among whom he had just come, did not
know him, till, while they were lying low, he
would pop up his head and call out their first
names, or their nick-names at school in Monroe,
and when it was daylight, and they recognized
him, how glad they were to see him.”
” We had a lovely Christmas. I fared beauti-
fully, as some of our staff had been to San Antonio,
where the stores have a good many beautiful
things from Mexico. Here, we had little oppor-
tunity to buy anything, but I managed to get up
some trifle for each of our circle. We had a large
246 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Christmas-tree, and Autie was Santa Glaus, and
handed down the presents, making side-spHtting
remarks as each person walked up to receive his
gift. The tree was well lighted. I don’t know how
so many tapers were gotten together. Of course
it would not be us if, with all the substantial gifts,
some jokes were not slipped in. You know well
father Custer’s antipathy to the negro, and every-
body gathered round to see him open a box con-
taining a nigger doll baby, while two of his other
parcels held a bunch of fire-crackers and a bunch
of cards. Lately his sons have spent a good deal
of time and argument, trying to induce him to
play. They, at last, taught him some simple game,
easy enough for even me to master. The rogues
let him beat at first, but finally he discovered his
luck was so persistently bad there must be a screw
loose, and those boys up to some rascality. They
had put him, with no apparent intention, with his
back to the mirror, and, of course, saw his hand,
which, like an amateur, he awkwardly held just
right to enable them to see all his cards. This
ended his lessons, and we will return him to Mon-
roe the same good old Methodist that he left it.
Everybody is fond of him, and his real presents
were a hat, handkerchief, necktie, pipe and tobacco.
” One of our lieutenants, having just received
his brevet as major, had a huge pair of yellow
CHRISTMAS MISTLETOE. 247
leaves cut out of flannel, as his insignia for the new
rank.
” One of the staff, now a teetotaler, was remind-
ed of his past, which I hoped everyone would ig-
nore, by the present of a wooden faucet. No one
escapes in such a crowd.
” Tom, who is always drumming on the piano,
had a Jew’s-harp given him, with an explanatory
line from Autie attached, ” to give the piano a
rest.” Only our own military family were here,
and Armstrong gave us a nice supper, all of his
own getting up. We played games, sang songs,
mostly for the chorus, danced, and finally the
merriest imitated the darkies by jigs and patting
juba, and walk-arounds. The rooms were pretti-
ly trimmed with evergreens, and over one door a
great branch of mistletoe, about which the officers
sang :
Fair mistletoe !
Love’s opportunity !
What trees that grow
Give such sweet impunity ?
” But it is too bad that, pretty as two or three of
our women are, they belong to some one else. So
kissing begins and ends with every man saluting
his own wife.
” I wish you could see the waxen white berries
and the green leaves of the parasite on the naked
branches of the trees here, mother ; and, oh ! to
248 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
have you get one sniff of the December roses,
which rival the summer ones in richness of color
and perfume, would make my pleasure greater, I
assure you. It is nearly spring here, and the grass
on our lawn is getting green, and the farmers be-
gan to plough in January.
” Nettie is such a nurse here ! Her name is up
for it, and she has even to go out to the servants’
quarters if the little nigs burn their heels or toes.
She is a great pleasure to us all, and enjoys every
moment.”
It seems that the general racing of which I
wrote to my father, was too tempting for me to re-
sist entirely, and our household was beguiled one
day into a promise to bring my husband’s war-
horse. Jack Rucker, down to the citizens’ track.
Every one was confident of success, and no one
took into consideration that the experiment of
pitting gentlemen against turf roughs has never
been successful. Our officers entered into all the
preparations with high hopes, thinking that with
one good whipping the civilians would cease to
send bantering messages or drag presuming coat-
tails before their eyes. They were accustomed to
putting their steeds to their best speed when a
party of equestrians from our headquarters were
riding in their vicinity. Too fond of good horse-
flesh not to admire the pace at which their
OUR HORSE ”JACK.” 249
thoroughbreds sped over the smooth, firm roads
about Austin, there was still a murmured word
passed around that the owners of these fleet ani-
mals would hang their proud heads when ” Jack “
came into the field. We women were pressed
mto going. All of us liked the trial of speed on
our own territory, but the hatred of a horse-track
that was not conducted by gentlemen was imbed-
ded deep in our minds. The officers did not ask
us to go for good luck, as army women are so
often told they bring it, but they simply said,
‘ You could not miss seeing our Jack beat !’ Off
we went, a gay, boisterous party, till we reached
the track ; there we put on our quietest civilian
manners and took our place to watch the coming
triumph. The track was good, and the Texas men
and women, more enthusiastic over a horse than
over anything else in the world, cheered their
blanketed favorite as he was led up and down
before the judge’s stand.
When the judge gave the final ” Go !” our party
were so excited, and our hearts so swelling with
assured success, I would have climbed up on the
saddle to see better, if it had not been that we
were surrounded with strangers. Off went the
beautiful Texas horse, like an arrow from a bow ;
but our Jack, in spite of the rider sticking the spur
and cruelly cutting his silken neck with the whip.
250 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
only lumbered around the first curve, and in this
manner laboriously made his way the rest of the
distance. Of course it was plain that we were
frightfully beaten, and with loud and triumphant
huzzas, the Texans welcomed their winning horse,
long before poor Jack dragged himself up to the
stand. Our officers hurried out to look him over,
and found the poor brute had been drugged by
the contesting side. There was no serious injury,
except to our pride. We were too disappointed,
humiliated and infuriated to stand upon the order
of our going. We all turned our backs upon the
crowd and fled. The clatter of our horses’ hoofs
upon the hard road was the only sound, as none
of us spoke.
My husband met that, as everything else, as
nothing worthy of serious regret, and after the
tempest of fury over our being so imposed upon,
I rather rejoiced, because the speed of our horses,
after that first and last essay, was confined to our
own precincts. Nobody’s pocket suffered, and
the wounded spirits of those who race horses are
more easily soothed, if a wounded purse has not
to be borne in addition.
There was one member of our family, to whom
I have only referred, who was our daily joy. It
was the pointer Ginnie, whom the Virginia family
in Hempstead had given us. My husband made
DOGS AS COMPANIONS. 25 I
her a bed in the hall near our room, and she did
every cunning, intelligent act of which a dog is
capable. She used to go hunting, walking and
riding with us, and was eti rapport with her master
at all times. I often think, Who among our
friends pleases us on all occasions? How few
there are who do not rub us up the wrong way, or
whom we ourselves are not conscious sometimes
of bormg, and of taxing their patience ! And do
we not find that we sometimes approach those of
whom we are fond, and discover intuitively that
they are not in sympathy with our mood, and we
must bide their time for responding to our over-
tures ? With that dear Ginnie there was no ques-
tion. She received us exactly in the spirit with
which we approached her, responded, with
measure pressed down and running over, to our
affectionate demonstrations, and the blessed old
girl never sulked if we dropped her to attend to
something else. George Eliot says, ” Animals are
such agreeable friends! they ask no questions,
they pass no criticisms.”
A dog is so human to me, and dogs have been
my husband’s chosen friends so many years, I can-
not look upon the commonest cur with indifference.
Sometimes, as I stand now at my window, long-
ing for the old pack that whined with delight,
quarreled with jealousy for the best place near us,
25^
7-ENTING ON THE PLAINS.
capered with excitement as we started off on a
ride or walk, my eyes involuntarily follow each
dog that passes on the street. I look at the
master to see if he realizes that all that is faithful
and loving” in this world is at his heels. If he
stops to talk to a friend, and the dog leaps about
him, licks his hand, rubs against him, and tries, in
every way that his devoted heart teaches him, to
attract the attention of the one who is all the
world to him, all my sympathies are with the dog.
I watch with jealous solicitude to see if the affec-
tionate brute gets recognition. And if by instinct
the master’s hand goes out to the dog’s head, I am
quite as glad and grateful as the recipient. If the
man is absorbed and lets the animal sit patiently
and adoringly watching his very expression, it
seems to me I cannot refrain from calling his
attention to the neglect.
My husband was as courteous in responding to
his dogs’ demonstrations, and as affectionate, as he
would be to a person. If he sent them away, he
explained, in dog talk, the reason, which might
seem absurd, if our canine family had not been our
companions so constantly that they seemed to
understand and accept his excuses as something
unavoidable on his part. The men of our family
so appreciated kindness to dogs that I have found
myself this winter, involuntarily almost, calling to
ALTERING THE DOG CENSUS.
25:
them to see an evidence of affection. One of
my neighbors is a beer saloon, and though I am
too busy to look out of the window much, I have
noticed occasionally an old express horse waiting
for his master to take “something warming.” The
blanket was humped up on his back mysteriously.
It turned out to be a dear little cur, which was thus
kept warm by a fond master. It recalls our men
and the ways they devised for keeping their dogs
warm, the times innumerable when they shared
their own blankets with them, when caught out in
a cold snap, or divided short rations with the dogs
they loved.
Returning to Ginnie, I remember a day when
there was a strange disappearance ; she did not
thump her tail on the door for entrance, fetching
our stockings in her mouth, as a gentle hint that it
was time to get up and have a fire, if the morning
was chilly. It did not take the General long to
scramble into his clothes and go to investigate, for
he dearly loved her, and missed the morning call.
Soon afterward he came bounding up the stairs,
two steps at a time, to announce that no harm had
come to our favorite, but that seven other little
Ginnies were now taking the breakfast provided
by their mother, under the negro quarters at the
rear of the house. There was great rejoicing, and
preparations to celebrate this important event in
2 54 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
our family. Eliza put our room in order, and de-
scended to the kitchen to tell what antics the
General was performing over the animal. When
she was safely down-stairs, where she could not in-
timidate us, my husband and I departed to fetch
the new family up near us. The General would
not trust any one with the responsibility of the
removal. He crawled under the building, which
was set up on low piles, and handed out the baby
canines, one by one, to me. Ginnie ran beside us,
frantic with anxiety, but her eloquent eyes full of
love and trust in our intentions.
Her bed in the hall was hardly good enough for
such an epoch in her life, so the whole litter, with
the proud mother in their midst, was safely de-
posited in the middle of our bed, where we paid
court to this royalty. My husband went over each
little shapeless body, and called my special atten-
tion to fine points, that, for the life of me, dog-lover
as I was, I could not discover in the pulpy, silken-
sk inned little rolls. As he took them up, one by one
Ginnie understood every word of praise he uttered.
After all of these little blind atoms had been re-
turned to their maternal, and the General had con-
gratulated the mother on a restaurant where, he
said, the advertisement of “warm meals at all
hours” was for once true, he immediately set
about tormenting Eliza. Her outraged spirit had
VIALS OF WRATH.
255
suffered often, to see the kingly Byron reposing-
his head on the pillow, but the General said, ” We
must get her up-stairs, for there will be war in
the camp now.”
Eliza came peacefully up the stairs into our
room, but her eyes blazed when she saw Ginnie.
She asked her usual question, ” Did I come way
off down in this here no ‘count country to wash
white counterpanes for dogs ? ” At each speech
the General said something to Ginnie in reply, to
harrow her up more and more, and at last she had
to give in and laugh at some of his drolleries. She
recalls to me now her recollection. ” Miss Libbie,
do you mind how the Ginnel landed Ginnie and
her whole brood of pups in the middle of the bed,
and then had the ‘dacity to send for me ? But,
oh ! it was perfectly heart-rendin’, the way he
would go on about his dogs when they was sick.”
And we both remembered, when one of these lit-
tle puppies of our beloved Ginnie was ill, how he
walked the floor half the night, holding, rubbing,
trying to soothe the suffering little beast. And in
spite of his medical treatment — for he kept the dog-
book on his desk, and ransacked it for remedies^ —
and notwithstanding the anointing and the cod-
dling, two died.
After Eliza had come down from her ram-
pagious state, she was invited to take notice of what
256
TENTING OX THE PLAINS.
a Splendid family Ginnie had. Then all the staff
and the ladies came up to call. It was a great occa-
sion for Ginnie, but she bore her honors meekly,
and offered her paw, as was her old custom, to
each new-comer, as if prepared for congratulations.
When they were old enough to run about and
bark, Ginnie took up her former habit of following
at the General’s heels; and as he crossed the yard
to the stables there was so absurd a procession
that I could not help laughing at the commanding
officer, and question if he himself thought it added
to the dignity of his appearance, to see the court-
like trail of mother and five puppies in his wake.
The independence of the chief was too inborn to
be laughed to scorn about appearances, and so he
continued to go about, as long as these wee tod-
dlers followed their mother in quest of supplies.
I believe there were twenty-three dogs at this time
about our house, most of them ours. Even our
father Custer accepted a bulky old cur as a gift.
There was no manner of doubt about the qualities
that had influenced our persecuted parent in select-
ing this one from the numerous dogs offered him
by his farmer friends. His choice was made
neither on account of breeding nor speed. The
cur was selected solely as a watch-dog. He was
all growl and bark, and as devotion is not
confined, fortunately, to the canines of exalted
A BODY-GUARD.
257
paternity, the lumbering old fellow was faithful.
Nothing describes him better than some lines from
” The Outside Dog in the Fight ;” for though he
could threaten with savage growls, and, I fancy,
when aggravated, could have set savage teeth in
the enemy of his master, he trotted beside our
father’s horse very peacefully, unmindful of the
quarrelsome members of our canine family, who
bristled up to him, inviting an encounter merely
to pass the time.
” You may sing of your dog, your bottom dog,
Or of any dog that you please ;
I go for the dog, the wise old dog,
That knowingly takes his ease,
And wagging his tail outside the ring,
Keeping always his bone in sight,
Cares not a pin, in his wise old head,
For either dog in the fight.
‘ Not his is the bone they are fighting for,
And why should my dog sail in,
With nothing to gain but a certain chance
To lose his own precious skin ?
There may be. a few, perhaps, who fail
To see it in quite this light ;
But when the fur flies I had rather be
The outside dog in the fight.”
Affairs had come to such a pass that our father
took his yellow cur into his bedroom at night. It
was necessary to take prompt, precautionary
measures to keep his sons from picking the lock of
2 eg TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the door and descending on him in their maraud-
ing expeditions. The dog saw comparatively
Httle of outside Hfe, for, as time rounded, it be-
came necessary for the old gentleman to shut up
his body-guard daytimes also, as he found in his
absence these same sons and their confederates
had a fashion of dropping a little ” nig ” over the
transom, with directions to fetch back to them
anything he could lay his hands on. I have seen
them at the door while our father was away, try-
ing to soothe and cajole the old guardian of his
master’s effects into terms of peace. After all
overtures were declined, and the little bedroom
was simply filled up with bark and growl, the in-
vaders contented themselves with tossing all sorts
of missiles over the transom, which did not
sweeten the enraged dog’s temper. Nor did it
render our father’s bed as downy as it might have
been.
I find myself recalling with a smile the perfectly
satisfied manner in which this ungainly old dog
was taken out by his venerable owner on our rides
over the country. Father Custer had chosen him,
not for his beauty, but as his companion, and find-
ing him so successful in this one capacity, he was
just as serene over his possession as ever his sons
were with their high-bred hunters. The dog
looked as if he were a make-up from all the rough
BOWSER AND HIS MASTER. 259
clay that was discarded after modeling the sleek,
high-stepping, springy, fleet-footed dogs of our
pack. His legs were massive, while his cumber-
some tail curled over his plebeian back in a
tight coil, until he was tired — then, and only
then, did it uncurl. The droop of his head was
rendered even more ” loppy ” by the tongue, which
dropped outside the sagging jaw. But for all that,
he lumbered along, a blotch of ungainly yellow,
beside our splendid thoroughbreds; he was never
so tired that he could not understand the voice of
a proud old man, who assured his retrograde sons
that he ” would match his Bowser ‘gainst any of
their new-fangled, unreliable, high-falutin lot.”
It was a strange sight, though, this one plebeian
among patricians. Our horses were fine, our
father got good speed and some style out of his
nag, our dogs leaped over the country like deer,
and there in the midst, panting and faithfully
struggling to keep up, was the rough, uncouth old
fellow, too absorbed in endeavoring not to be left
behind, to realize that he was not all that a dog
could be, after generations of training and breed-
ing had done its refining work.
CHAPTER IX.
DISTURBED CONDITION OF TEXAS A WOMAN’s HORSE-
EDUCATION AT THE STABLES LEAVING AUSTIN FOR
HEMPSTEAD SAM HOUSTON A HERO AMONG OUR
OFFICERS DETENTION IN GALVESTON A TEXAS
NORTHER ON THE GULF OF MEXICO NARROW
ESCAPE FROM SHIPWRECK RETURN HOME ON A
MISSISSIPPI STEAMER.
” I “EXAS was in a state of ferment from one end
to the other. There was then no network of
railroads running over its vast territory as there is
now. Lawless acts might be perpetrated, and the
inciters cross the Rio Grande into Mexico, before
news of the depredations came to either military
or civil headquarters. The regiments stationed at
various points in the State had no easy duty. Jay-
hawkers, bandits and bush-whackers had every-
thing their own way for a time. I now find,
through official reports, what innumerable per-
plexities came up almost daily, and how difficult
it was for an officer in command of a division to
act in perfect justice to citizen, soldier and negro.
It was the most natural result in the world that
i6o
A DE VO TED PA TRIO T. 2 6 1
the restless throng let loose over the State from
the Confederate service, should do what idle
hands usually find to do. Consider what a land
of tramps we were at the North, after the war; and
if in our prosperous States and Territories, when so
many business industries were at once resumed,
we suffered from that class of men who refused to
work and kept outside the pale of the law by
a sneaking existence, what would naturally be the
condition of affairs in a country like Texas, for
many years the hiding-place of outlaws ?
My own father was one of the most patriotic men
1 ever knew. He was too old to enter the service
—an aged man even in my sight, for he had not
married till he was forty ; but in every way that
he could serve his country at home, he was fore-
most among the elderly patriots of the North. I
remember how little war moved me. The clash
of arms and glitter of the soldiery only appealed
to me as it did to thoughtless, light-hearted young
girls still without soldier lovers or brothers, who
lived too far from the scenes of battle to know the
tragic side. But my father impressed me by his
sadness, his tears, his lamentations, over our coun-
try’s misfortunes. He was the first in town to get
the news from the front, and so eager to hear the
result of some awful day, when lives were being
lost by thousands on a hotly contested field, that
262 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
he walked a bleak, lonely mile to the telegraph
station, waiting till midnight for the last de-
spatches, and weeping over defeats as he wearily
trod the long way homeward. I remember his
striding up and down the floor, his grand head
bent over his chest in grief, and saying, so solemnly
as to arrest the attention of my step-mother,
usually absorbed in domestic affairs, and even of
me, too happy then with the very exuberance of
living to thmk, while the sadness of his voice
touched even our thoughtlessness : ” Oh ! the
worst of this calamity will not be confined to war:
our land, even after peace is restored, will be filled
with cut-throats and villains.”
The prediction came true immediately in Texas,
and the troops had to be stationed over the ex-
tensive territory. Before the winter was over, the
civil authorities began to be able to carry out the
laws; they worked, as they were obliged to do, in
connection with the military, and the rioting, op-
pressions and assassinations were becoming less
common. It was considered unnecessary to retain
the Division of cavalry as an organization, since all
anticipated trouble with Mexico was over, and the
troops need no longer be massed in great numbers^
The necessity for a special commander for the
cavalry in the State was over, and the General
was therefore mustered out of service as a major-
‘BOOTS AND SADDLES.” 263
general of volunteers, and ordered North to await
his assignment to a new station.
We had very little to do in preparation, as our
camp outfit was about all our earthly possessions
at that time. It was a trial to part with the
elderly dogs, which were hardly worth the experi-
ment of transporting to the North, especially as
we had no reason to suppose we should see
another deer, except in zoological gardens. The
hounds fell into good and appreciative hands, be-
ing given either to the planter who had presented
them, or to the officers of the regular regiment
that had just been stationed in Texas for a five-
years’ detail. The cow was returned to the gen-
erous planter who lent her to us. She was now
a fat, sleek creature, compared with her appear-
ance when she came from among the ranch cattle.
The stables were emptied, and our brief enjoy-
ment of an embryo blue-grass farm, with a diminu-
tive private track of our own, was at an end.
Jack Rucker, Custis Lee, Phil and the blooded
mare were to go ; but the great bargains in fast
ponies had to be sacrificed.
My old father Custer had been as concerned
about my horse-education as his sons. He also
tried, as well as his boys, to attract my attention
from the flowing manes and tails, by which alone
I judged the merits of a horse, to the shoulders,
264 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
length of limb, withers, etc. One day there came
an incentive for perfecting myself in horse lore,
for my husband said that if I would select the best
pony in a number we then owned, I should have
him. I sat on a keg in the stable-yard, contem-
plating the heels of the horses, and wishing fer-
vently I had listened to my former lessons in
horse-flesh more attentively. All three men
laughed at my perplexities, and even the soldiers
who took care of the stable retired to a safe place
to smile at the witticisms of their commanding
officer, and were so deplorably susceptible to fun
that even the wife of their chief was a subject for
merriment. I was in imminent danger of losing
my chance at owning a horse, and might to this
day have remained ignorant of the peculiarly
proud sensation one experiences over that posses-
sion, if my father Custer had not slyly and surrep-
titiously come over to my side. How he cunningly
imparted the information, I will not betray ; but,
since he was as good a judge of a horse as his
sons, and had taught them their wisdom in that
direction, it is needless to say that my final judg-
ment, after repeated returns to the stable, was
triumphant. Texas made the old saw read.
All is fair in love, war and horse-trades, so I
adapted myself to the customs of the country, and
kept the secret of my wise judgment until the
GENERAL CUSTER AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR -AGED 25.
265
266 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
money that the pony brought — forty dollars in
silver-— was safely deposited in my grasping” palm.
I will not repeat the scoffing of the outwitted pair,
after I had spent the money, at ” Libbie’s horse-
dress,” but content myself with my father’s praise
at the gown he had secured to me, when I enjoyed
at the North the serenity of mind that comes of
silken attire.
The planters came to bid us good-by, and we
parted from them with reluctance. We had come
into their State under trying circumstances, and
the cordiality, generosity and genuine good feel-
ing that I know they felt, made our going a regret.
There was no reason why they should come from
their distant plantations to say good-by and wish
us godspeed, except from personal friendship,
and we all appreciated the wish they expressed,
that we might remain.
The journey from Austin to Hempstead was
made much more quickly than our march over.
We had relays of horses, the roads were good, and
there was no detention. I only remember one
episode of any importance. At the little hotel at
which we stopped in Brennan, we found loitering
about the doors and stoop and inner court a
lounging, rough lot of men, evidently the lower
order of Confederate soldiers, the lawless set that
infest all armies, the tramp and the bummer.
BARKING FOES. 26/
They gathered in knots, to watch and talk of us.
As we passed them on our way to the dining-
room, they muttered, and even spoke audibly,
words of spiteful insult. At every such word I
expected the fiery blood of the General and his
staff would be raised to fighting heat. But they
would not descend to altercation with fellows to
whom even the presence of a woman was no re-
straint. It was a mystery, it still is, to me, that
hot-blooded men can control themselves if they
consider the foeman unworthy of the steel.
My husband was ever a marvel to me, in that he
could in this respect carry out his own oft-re-
peated counsel. I began very early with that old
maxim, ” consider the source,” as a subterfuge for
the lack of repartee, in choking senseless, childish
wrath ; but it came to be a family aphorism, and
I was taught to live up to its best meaning. The
Confederates were only ” barking,” not “biting,” as
the General said would be the case ; but they gave
me a genuine scare, and I had serious objections
to traveling in Texas, unaccompanied by a Divi-
sion of cavalry. I think the cold nights, smoky
camp-fires, tarantulas, etc., that we encountered on
our march over, would have been gladly under-
taken, rather than run into the face of threatening
men, unaccompanied by a single trooper, as we
then traveled.
268 * TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
I wonder what the present tourist would think
of the bit of railroad over which we journeyed
from Brennan to Galveston ! I scarcely think it
had been touched, in the way of repairs, during the
war. The coaches were not as good as our present
emigrant-cars. The rails were worn down thin,
and so loosely secured that they moved as we rolled
slowly over them. We were to be constantly
in some sort of peril, it seemed. There was
a deep gulley on the route, over which was
stretched a cobweb trestle, intended only as a
temporary bridge. There was no sort of ques-
tion about its insecurity ; it quivered and mena-
cingly swayed under us. The conductor told us
that each time he crossed he expected to go down.
I think he imagined there could be no better time
than that, when it would secure the effectual de-
parture of a few Yankee officers, not only from
what he considered his invaded State, but from the
face of the earth. At any rate, he so graphically
described to me our imminent peril that he put me
through all the preliminary stages of sudden death.
Of course our officers, inured to risks of all sorts,
took it all as a matter of course, and the General
slyly called the attention of our circle to the usual
manner in which the ‘* old lady ” met danger,
namely, with her head buried in the folds of a
cloak.
A SOLDIER PIONEER. 269
My husband knew what interest and admiration
my father Bacon had for “old Sam Houston,” and
he himself felt the delight that one soldier takes in
the adventures and vicissitudes of another. Con-
sequently, we had listened all winter to the Texans’
laudation of their hero, and [many a story that
never found its way into print was remembered
for my father’s sake. We were only too sorry that
Houston’s death, two years previous, had prevent-
ed our personal acquaintance. He was not, as I
had supposed, an ignorant soldier of fortune, but
had early scholarly tastes, and, even when a boy,
could repeat nearly all of Pope’s translation of the
Iliad. Though a Virginian by birth, he early
went with his widowed mother to Tennessee, and
his roving spirit led him among the Indians, where
he lived for years as the adopted son of a chief.
He served as an enlisted man under Andrew
Jackson in the war of 1812, and afterward became
a lieutenant in the regular army. Then he assumed
the office of Indian agent, and befriended those
with whom he had lived.
From that he went into law in Nashville, and
eventually became a Congressman. Some mari-
tal difficulties drove him back to barbarism, and
he rejoined the Cherokees, who had been removed
to Arkansas. He went to Washington to plead
for the tribe, and returning, left his wigwam
270
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
among the Indians after a time, and went to Texas.
During the tumuhuous history of that State, when
it was being shifted from one government to
another with such vehemence, no citizen could tell
whether he would rise in the morning a Mexican,
or a member of an independent republic, or a
citizen of the United States.
With all that period Sam Houston was identi-
fied. He was evidently the man for the hour, and
it is no wonder that our officers dwelt with delight
upon his marvelous career. In the first revolution-
ary movement of Texas against Mexican rule, he
began to be a leader, and was soon commander-
in-chief of the Texan army, and in the new Re-
public he was re-elected to that office. The
dauntless man confronted Santa Anna and his
force of 5,000 men with a handful of Texans —
783 all told, undisciplined volunteers, ignorant of
war. But he had that rare personal magnetism,
which is equal to a reserve of armed battalions, in
giving men confidence and inciting them to
splendid deeds. Out of 1,600 regular Mexican
soldiers, 600 were killed, and Santa Anna, dis-
guised as a common soldier, was captured. Then
Houston showed his magnanimous heart ; for after
rebuking him for the massacres of Goliad and the
Alamo, he protected him from the vengeance of
the enraged Texans. A treaty made with the
TEX A S’ EARL V HIS TOR V.
271
captive President resulted in the independence of
Texas. When, after securing this to the State of
his adoption, Houston was made President of
Texas, he again showed his wonderful clemency —
which I cannot help believing was early fostered
and enhanced by his labors in behalf of the
wronged Cherokees — in pardoning Santa Anna,
and appointing his political rivals to offices of trust.
If Mr. Lincoln gave every energy to promoting the
perpetual annexation of California, by tethering
that State to our Republic with an iron lariat cross-
ing the continent, how quickly he would have
seen, had he then been in office, what infinite peril
we were in of losing that rich portion of our
country.
The ambition of the soldier and conqueror was
tempered by the most genuine patriotism, for Sam
Houston used his whole influence to annex Texas
to the Union, and the people in gratitude sent him
to Washington as one of their first Senators. As
President he had overcome immense difficulties,
carried on Indian wars, cleared off an enormous
debt, established trade with Mexico, made suc-
cessful Indian treaties, and steadily stood at the
helm, while the State was undergoing all sorts of
upheavals. Finally he was made Governor of the
State, and opposed secession, even resigning his
office rather than take the oath required by the
272 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
convention that assembled to separate Texas from
the Union. Then, poor old man, he died before
he was permitted to see the promised land, as the
war was still in progress. His name is perpet-
uated in the town called for him, which, as the
centre of large railroad interests, and as a leader
in the march of improvement in that rapidly pro-
gressing State, will be a lasting monument to a
great man who did so much to bring out of chaos
a vast extent of our productive land, sure to be-
come one of the richest of the luxuriant Southern
States.
At Galveston we were detained by the non-
arrival of the steamer in which we were to go
to New Orleans. With a happy-go-lucky party like
ours, it mattered little ; no important . interests
were at stake, no business appointments awaiting
us. We strolled the town over, and commented,
as if we owned it, on the insecurity of its founda-
tions. Indeed, for years after, we were surprised,
on taking up the morning paper, not to find that
Galveston had dropped down into China. The
spongy soil is so porous that the water on which
rests the thin layer of earth appears as soon as a
shallow excavation is attempted. Of course there
are no wells, and the ungainly cistern rises above
the roof at the rear of the house. The hawkers of
water through the town amused us vastly, especi-
AN INSECURE TOWN.
27.
ally as we were not obliged to pay a dollar a gal-
lon, except as it swelled our hotel-bill. I remember
how we all delighted in the oleanders that grew
as shade trees, whose white and red blossoms were
charming. To the General, the best part of all our
detention was the shell drive along the ocean. The
island on which Galveston has its insecure footing
is twenty-eight miles long, and the white, firm
beach, glistening with the pulverized shells ex-
tending all the distance, was a delight to us as we
spent hours out there on the shore.
It must surely have been this white and spark-
ling thread bordering the island, that drew the
ships of the pirate Lafitte to moor in the harbor
early in 1800. The rose pink of the oleander, the
blue of the sky, the luminous beach, with the long,
ultramarine waves sweeping in over the shore,
were fascinating; but on our return to the town,
all the desire to remain was taken away by the tale
of the citizens, of the frequent rising of the ocean,
the submerging of certain portions, and the evi-
dence they gave, that the earth beneath them was
honey-combed by the action of the water.
We paid little heed at first to the boat on which
we embarked. It was a captured blockade-runner,
built up with two stories of cabins and staterooms
for passengers. In its original condition, the crew
and passengers, as well as the freight, were down
2 74
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
in the hull. The steamer was crowded. Our
staterooms were tiny, and though they were on
the upper deck, the odor of bilge water and the
untidiness of the boat made us uncomfortable
from the first. The day was sunny and clear as
we departed, but we had hardly left the harbor
before w^e struck a norther. Such a hurricane as
it was at sea ! We had thought ourselves versed
in all the wind could do on land ; but a norther in
that maelstrom of a Gulf, makes a land storm mild
in comparison. The Gulf of Mexico is almost
always a tempest in a tea-pot. The waves
seem to lash themselves from shore to shore, and
after speeding with tornado fleetness toward the
borders of Mexico, back they rush to the Florida
peninsula. No one can be out in one of these
tempests, without wondering why that thin jet of
land which composes Florida has not long ago
been swept out of existence. How many of our
troops have suffered from the fury of that ungov-
ernable Gulf, in the transit from New Orleans to
Matamoras or Galveston ! And officers have
spoken, over and over again, of the sufferings of
the cavalry horses, condemned to the hold of a
Government transport. Ships have gone down
there with soldiers and officers who have encoun-
tered over and over again the perils of battle.
Transports have only been saved from being en-
A TEMPEST AT SEA. 275
gulfed in those rapacious waves by unloading the
ship of hundreds of horses ; and to cavalrymen the
throwing overboard of noble animals that have
been untiring in years of campaigning, and by
their fleetness and pluck have saved the lives of
their masters, is like human sacrifice. Officers and
soldiers alike bewail the loss, and for years after
speak of it with sorrow.
Though the wind seems to blow in a circle much
of the time on the Gulf, we found it dead against
us as we proceeded. The captain was a resolute
man, and would not turn back, though the ship
was ill prepared to encounter such a gale. We
labored slowly through the constantly increasing
tempest, and the last glimpse of daylight lighted
a sea that was lashed to white foam about us.
At home, when the sun sets the wind abates ; but
one must look for an entire change of programme
where the norther reigns. There was no use in
remaining up, so I sought to forget my terror in
sleep, and crept onto one of the little shelves
allotted to us. The creaking and groaning of the
ship’s timbers filled me with alarm, and I could
not help calling up to my husband to ask if it did
not seem to him that all the new portion of the
steamer would be swept off into the sea. Though
I was comforted by assurances of its impossibility,
I wished with all my heart we were down in the
276
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
hold. Sleep, my almost never-failing friend, came
to calm me, and I dreamed of the strange days of
the blockade – runner, when doubtless other
women’s hearts were pounding against their ribs
with more alarming terrors than those that agi-
tated me. For we well knew what risks Confed-
erate women took to join their husbands, in the
stormy days on sea as well as on land.
In the night I was awakened suddenly by a fear-
ful crash, the quick veering of the boat, and her
violent rolling from side to side. At the same in-
stant, the overturning of the water-pitcher deluged
me in my narrow berth. My husband, hearing my
cry of terror, descended from his berth and was
beside me in a moment. No one comprehended
what had happened. The crashing of timber, and
the creaking, grinding sounds rose above the
storm. The machinery was stopped, and we
plunged back and forth in the trough of the sea;
each time seeming to go down deeper and deeper,
until there appeared to be no doubt that the
ship would be eventually engulfed. There
seemed to be no question, as the breaking of
massive beams went on, that we were going to
pieces. The ship made a brave fight with the ele-
ments, and seemed to writhe and struggle like
something human.
In the midst of this, the shouts of the sailors,
WAVES ” MOUNTAIN high:’
277
the trumpet of the captain giving orders, went on,
and was followed by the creaking of chains, the
strain of the cordage, and the mad thrashing to
and fro of the canvas, which we supposed had
been torn from the spars. Instant disorder took
possession of the cabin. Everything moveable
was in motion. The trunks, which the crowded
condition of the hold had compelled us to put in
the upper end of the cabin, slid down the carpet,
banging from side to side. The furniture broke
from its fastenings, and slipped to and fro ; the
smashing of lamps in our cabin was followed by
the crash of crockery in the adjoining dining-
room ; while above all these sounds rose the cries
and wails of the women. Some, kneeling in their
night-clothes, prayed loudly, while others sank in
heaps on the floor, moaning and weeping in their
helpless condition. The calls of frantic women
asking for some one to go and find if we were go-
ing down, were unanswered by the terrified men.
Meanwhile my husband, having implored me to
remain in one spot, and not attempt to follow him,
hastily threw on his clothes and left me, begging
that I would remember, while he was absent, that
the captain’s wife and child were with us, and if a
man ever was nerved to do his best, that brave
husband and father would do so to-night.
It seemed an eternity to wait. I was obliged to
278
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
cling to the door to be kept from being dashed
across the cabin. While I wept and shivered, and
endured double agony, knowing into what peril
my husband had by that time struggled, I felt
warm, soft arms about me, and our faithful Eliza
was crooning over me, begging me to be com-
forted, that she was there holding me. Awakened
at the end of the cabin, where she slept on a sofa,
she thought of nothing but making her way
through the demolished furniture, to take me in
her protecting arms. Every one who knows the
negro character is aware what their terrors are at
sea. How, then, can I recall the noble forgetful-
ness of self of that faithful soul, without tears of
gratitude as fresh as those that flowed on her
tender breast when she held me ? There was not
a vestige of the heroic about me. I simply cow-
ered in a corner, and let Eliza shelter me. Besides,
I felt that I had a kind of right to yield to selfish
fright, for it was my husband of all the men on
ship-board, who had climbed laboriously to the
deck to do what he could for our safety, and calm
the agitated women below.
Some of the noble Southern women proved how
deep was their natural goodness of heart ; for the
very ones who had coldly looked me over and
shrunk from a hated Yankee when we met the
day before, crept slowly up to calm my terrors
A PERILOUS RISK. 279
about my husband, and instruct Eliza what to do
for me. At last — and oh, how interminable the
time had seemed ! — the General opened the cabin
door, and struggled along to the weeping women.
They all plied him with questions, and he was
able to calm them, so the wailing and praying
subsided somewhat. When he climbed up the
companionway, the waves were dashing over the
entire deck, and he was compelled to creep on his
hands and knees, clinging to ropes and spars as
best he could, till he reached the pilot-house.
Only his superb strength kept him from being
swept overboard. Every inch of his progress was
a deadly peril. He found the calm captain willing
to explain, and paid the tribute that one brave man
gives another in moments of peril. The norther
had broken in the wheel-house, and disabled the
machinery, so that, but for the sails, which we
who were below had heard raised, we must have
drifted and tossed to shipwreck. If he could make
any progress, we were comparatively safe, but
with such a hurricane all was uncertain. This
part of the captain’s statement the General sup-
pressed. ,We women were told, after the fashion
of men who desire to comfort and calm our sex,
only a portion of the truth.
The motion of the boat as it rolled from side
to side, made every one succumb except Eliza
28o TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and me. The General, completely subdued and
intensely wretched physically, crept into his berth,
and though he was so miserable, I remember,
toward morning-, a faint thrust of ridicule at our
adjoining neighbors, the Greens, who were suffer-
ing also the tortures of sea-sickness. A sarcastic
query as to the stability of their stomachs, called
forth a retort that he had better look to his own.
Eliza held me untiringly, and though the terror
of uncertainty had subsided somewhat, I could
not get on without an assurance of our safety
from that upper berth. My husband, in his help-
lessness, and abandoned as he was to misery,
could scarcely turn to speak more than a word or
two at a time, and even then Eliza would tell him,
” Ginnel, you jest ‘tend to your own self, and I’ll
‘tend to Miss Libbie.”
It is difficult to explain what a shock it is to find
one who never succumbs, entirely subjugated by
suffering ; all support seems to be removed. In
all our vicissitudes, I had never before seen the
General go under for an instant. He replied that
he was intensely sorry for me ; but such deadly
nausea made him indifferent to life, and for his
part he cared not whether he went up or down.
So the long night wore on. I thought no dawn
ever seemed so sfrateful. The waves were mount-
ains high, and we still plunged into what appeared
THE STORM SUBSIDES. 28 1
to be solid banks of green, glittering crystal, only to
drop down into seemingly hopeless gulfs. But day-
light diminishes all terrors, and there was hope with
the coming of light. A few crept out, and some
even took courage for breakfast. The feeble notes
disappeared from my husband’s voice, and he be-
gan to cheer me up. Then he crept to our witty
Mrs. Green (the dear Nettie of our home days), to
send more sly thrusts in her stateroom, regarding
his opinion of one who yielded to sea-sickness ; so
she was badgered into making an appearance.
While all were contributing experiences of the
awful night, and commenting on their terrors, we
were amazed to see the door of a stateroom
open, and a German family walk out uncon-
cernedly from what we all night supposed was an
unoccupied room. The parents and three children
showed wide-eyed and wide-mouthed wonder,
when they heard of the night. Through all the
din and danger they had peacefully slept, and
doubtless would have gone down, had we been
shipwrecked, unconscious in their lethargy that
death had come to them.
Then the white, exhausted faces of our officers,
who had slept in the other cabin, began to appear.
Our father Custer came tottering in, and made his
son shout out with merriment, even in the midst
of all the wretched surroundino^s, when he lacon-
282 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ically said to his boy, that “next time I follow
you to Texas, it will be when this pond is
bridged over.” Two of the officers had a state-
room next the pilot-house, and beg-ged the Gen-
eral to bring- me up there. My husband, feeling
so deeply the terrible night of terror and entire
wakefulness for me, picked me up, and carried
me to the upper deck, where I was laid in the
berth, and restored to some sort of calm by an
opportune glass of champagne. The wine seemed
to do my husband as much good as it did me,
though he did not taste it ; all vestige of his pros-
tration of the preceding night disappeared, and
no one escaped his comical recapitulation of how
they conducted themselves when we were threat-
ened with such peril. My terrors of the sea were
too deep-rooted to be set aside, and even after we
had left the hated Gulf, and were safely moving
up the Mississippi to New Orleans, I felt no secur-
ity. Nothing but the actual planting of our feet on
terra firmax^stox^^ my equanimity. Among the
petitions of the Litany, asking our Heavenly Father
to protect us, none since that Gulf storm has ever
been emphasized to me as the prayer for preserva-
tion from ” perils by land and by sea.”
New Orleans was again a pleasure to us, and
this time we knew just whereto go for recreation
or for our dinner. Nearly a year in Texas had
HIGH ART DINNERS. 283
prepared us for gastronomic feats, and though the
General was by no means a don-vivant, any one
so susceptible to surroundings as he would be
tempted by the dainty serving of a French din-
ner. Our party had dined too often with Duke
Humphrey in the pine forests of Louisiana and
Texas, not to enjoy every delicacy served. All
through the year it had been the custom to refer
to the luxuries of the French market, and now,
with our purses a little fuller than when we were
on our way into Texas, we had some royal times —
that is, for poor folks.
We took a steamer for Cairo, and though the
novelty of river travel was over, it continued to be
most enjoyable. And still the staff found the
dinner-hour an event, as they were making up for
our limited bill of fare the year past. A very
good string band ” charmed the savage “
while he dined. It was the custom, now obsolete,
to march the white coated and aproned waiters
in file from kitchen to dining-room, each carry-
ing aloft some feat of the cook, and as we
had a table to ourselves, there was no lack of
witty comments on this military serving of our
food, and smacking of lips over edibles we had
almost forgotten in our year of semi-civilization.
The negroes were in a state of perpetual guffaws
over the remarks made, soiio voce, by our merry
284 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
table, and they soon grew to be skillful confeder-
ates in all the pranks practiced on our father
Custer. For instance, he slowly read over the bill
of fare, or his sons read it, and he chose the viands
as they were repeated to him. Broiled ham on
coals seemed to attract his old-fashioned taste.
Then my husband said, ” Of course, of course ;
what a good selection ! ” and gave the order, ac-
companied by a significant wink to the waiter.
Presently our parent, feeling an unnatural warmth
near liis ear, would look around to find his order
filled literally, and the ham sizzling on red coals.
He naturally did not know what to do with the
dish, fearing to set the boat on fire, and his sons
were preternaturally absorbed in talking with
some one at the end of the table, while the waiter
slid back to the kitchen to have his laugh out.
Our father Custer was of the most intensely
argumentative nature. He was the strongest sort
of politician ; he is now, and grows excited and
belligerent over his party affairs at nearly eighty,
as if he were a lad. He is beloved at home in
Monroe, but it is considered too good fun not to
fling little sneers at his candidate or party, just to
witness the rapidity with which the old gentleman
plunges into a defense. Michigan’s present Sec-
retary of State, the Hon. Harry Conant, my
husband’s, and now my father’s, faithful friend,
A BELLIGERENT POLITICIAN. 285
early took his cue from the General, and loses
no opportunity now to get up a wordy war with
our venerable Democrat, solely to hear the defense.
And then, too, our father Custer considers it time
well spent to “labor with that young man” over
the error he considers he has made in the choice
of politics. As the old gentleman drives or rides
his son’s war-horse, Dandy, through the town, his
progress is slow, for some voice is certain to be
raised from the sidewalk calling out, ” Well,
father Custer, to-day’s paper shows your side well
whipped,” or a like challenge to argument. Dandy
is drawn up at once, and the flies can nip his sides
at will, so far as his usually careful master is
conscious of him, as he cannot proceed until
the one who has good-naturedly agitated him has
been struggled over, to convince him of the error
of his belief.
I was driving with him in Monroe not long
since, and as the train was passing through the
town, Dandy was driven up to the cars. I ex-
postulated, asking if he intended him to climb
over or creep under ; but he persisted, only ex-
plaining that he wished me to see how gentle
Dandy could be. Suddenly the conductor swung
himself from the platform, and called out some
bantering words about politics. Our father was
then for driving Dandy directly into the train. He
286 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
fairly yelled a slur upon the other party, and then
kept on talking, gesticulating with his whip and
shaking it at the conductor, who laughed immod-
erately as he was being carried out of sight. I
asked what was the matter — did he have any
grudge or hatred for the man ? ” Oh, no, daughter,
he’s a good enough fellow, only he’s an onery
scamp of a Republican.”
His sons never lost a chance to enter into dis-
cussion with him. I have known the General to
” bone up,” as his West Point phrase expressed it,
on the smallest details of some question at issue
in the Republican party, for no other reason than
to fire his parent into a defense. The discussion
was so earnest, that even I would be deceived into
thinking it something my husband was all on fire
about. But the older man was never rasped or
badgered into anger. He worked and struggled
with his boy, and mourned that he should have a
son who had so far strayed from the truth, as he
understood it. The General argued as vehement-
ly as his father, and never undeceived him for
days, but simply let the old gentleman think how
misguided he really was. It served to pass many
an hour of slow travel up the river. Tom con-
nived with the General to deprive their father
temporarily of his dinner. When the plate was
well prepared, as was the old-time custom, the
BADGERING SONS.
287
potato and vegetables seasoned, the meat cut, it
was the signal for my husband to fire a bomb of
inflammable information at the whitening hairs of
his parent. The old man would rather argue
than eat, and, laying down his knife and fork, he
fell to the discussion as eagerly as if he had not
been hungry. As the argument grew energetic
and more absorbing, Tom slipped away the
father’s plate, ate all the nicely prepared food, and
returned it empty to its place. Then the General
tapered off his aggravating threats, and said,
“Well, come, come, come, father, why don’t you
eat your dinner ?” Father Custer’s blank face at
the sight of the empty plate was a mirth-provok-
ing sight to his offspring, and they took good care
to tip the waiter and order a warm dinner for the
still argumg man. In a quaint letter, a portion of
which I give below, father Custer tells how early
in life he began to teach his boys politics.
” Tecumseh, Mich., Feb. 3, 1887.
” My Dear Daughter Elizabeth : I received
your letter, requesting me to tell you something
of our trip up the Mississippi with my dear boys,
Autie and Tommy. Well, as I was always a boy
with my boys, I will try and tell you of some of
our jokes and tricks on each other. I want to tell
you also of a little incident when Autie was about
four years old. He had to have a tooth drawn,
and he was very much afraid of blood. When I
took him to the doctor to have the tooth pulled.
288 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
it was in the night, and I told him if it bled well
it would get well right away, and he must be a
good soldier. When he got to the doctor he took
his seat, and the pulling began. The forceps
slipped off, and he had to make a second trial.
He pulled it out, and Autie never even scrunched.
Going home, I led him by the arm. He jumped
and skipped, and said, ‘ Father, you and me can
whip all the Whigs in Michigan.’ I thought that
was saying a good deal, but I did not contra-
dict him.
” When we were in Texas, I was at Autie’s
headquarters one day, and something came up,
I’ve forgotten what it was, but I said I would bet
that it was not so, and he said ‘ What will you
bet?’ I said, ‘I’ll bet my trunk.’ I have for-
gotten the amount he put up against it, but ac-
cording to the rule of betting he won my trunk.
I thought that was the end of it, as I took it just
as a joke, and I remained there with him for some
time. To my great astonishment, here came an
orderly with the trunk on his shoulder, and set
it down before Autie. Well, I hardly knew what
to think. I hadn’t been there long, and didn’t
know camp ways very well. I had always under-
stood that the soldiers were a pretty rough set of
customers, and I wanted to know how to try and
take care of myself, so I thought I would go up
to my tent and see what had become of my goods
and chattels. When I got there, all my things
were on my bed. Tom had taken them out, and
he had not been very particular in getting them
out, so they were scattered helter-skelter, for I
suppose he was hurried and thought I would
catch him at it. I began to think that I would
have to hunt quarters in some other direction.
” The next trick Autie played me was on ac-
BO YISH PRANKS. 289
count of his knowing that I was very anxious to
see an alhgator. He was out with his gun one
day, and 1 heard him shoot, and when he came up
to his tent I asked him what he had been firing at.
He said an alHgator, so I started off to see the
animal, and when I found it, what do you think it
was, but an old Government mule that had died
because it was played out ! Well, he had a hearty
laugh over that trick.
” Then, my daughter, I was going over my mess
bill and some of my accounts with Tommy, and
to my great astonishment I found I was out a
hundred dollars. I could not see how I could
have made such a mistake, but I just kept this to
myself. I didn’t say a word about it until Autie
and Tom could not stand it any longer, so Autie
asked me one day about my money matters. I
told him I was out a hundred dollars, and I could not
understand it. Then he just told me that Tonnny
had hooked that sum from me while he was pre-
tending to help me straighten up. I went for
Tom, and got my stolen money back.
“The next outrage on me was about the mess
bill. There was you, Libbie ; Autie, Tom, Colonel
and Mrs. Green, Major and Mrs. Lyon, and we
divided up the amount spent each month, and all
took turns running the mess. Somehow or
other, my bill was pretty big when Autie and
Tom had the mess. I just rebelled against
such extravagance, and rather than suffer myself
to be robbed, I threatened to go and mess
with the wagon-master or some other honest
soldier, who wouldn’t cheat an old man. That
tickled the boys ; it was just what they were aim-
ing at. I wouldn’t pay, so what do you think
Tommy did, but borrow the amount of me to buy
supplies, and when settling time came for mess
290
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
bills, they said we came out about even in money
matters !
“And so they were all the time playing tricks on
me, and it pleased them so much to get off a good
joke ; besides, they knew I was just as good a boy
with them as they were.”
Your affectionate father,
E. H. Custer.
CHAPTER X.
FATHER CUSTER GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF HOW HE
WAS A BOY WITH HIS BOYS ON THE MISSISSIPPI
RIVER A FAMILY ROBBERY GENERAL CUSTER
PARTS WITH HIS STAFF AT CAIRO AND DETROIT
THE SILENT HEROES TEMPTATIONS TO IN-
DUCE GENERAL CUSTER TO RESIGN OFFERS
FROM MEXICO ONE OF HIS CLASSMATES ENTERS
THE MINISTRY.
A LL the smaller schemes to tease our father
Custer gave way to a grand one, concocted
in the busy brains of his boys, to rob their parent.
While the patriarch sat in the cabin, reading aloud
to himself — as is still his custom — what he consid-
ered the soul-convincing editorial columns of a
favorite paper, his progeny were in some sheltered
corner of the guards, plotting the discomfiture of
their father. The plans were well laid ; but the
General was obliged to give as much time to it,,
in a way, as when projecting a raid, for he knew
he had to encounter a wily foe who was always
on guard. The father, early in their childhood,
playing all sorts of tricks on his boys, was on the
292 TENTIXG O.V THE PLAINS.
alert whenever he was with them, to parry a re-
turn thrust. I beheve several attempts had been
made to take the old gentleman’s money, but he
was too wary. They knew that he had sewed
some bills in his waistcoat, and that his steamer-
ticket and other money were in his purse. These
he carefully placed under his pillow at night. He
continues in his letter: “Tommy and I had a
stateroom together, and on one night in particu-
lar, all the folks had gone to bed in the cabin, and
Tom was hurrying me to go to bed. I was not
sleepy, and did not want to turn in, but he hung
round so, that at last I did go to our stateroom.
He took the upper berth. I put my vest under
the pillow, and was pulling off my boots, when I
felt sure I saw something going out over the
transom. I looked under the pillow, and my vest
was gone. Then I waked Tommy, who was snor-
ing already. I told him both my purse and vest
were gone, and, as the saying is, I ‘ smelt the rat.’
I opened the door, and felt sure that Autie had
arranged to snatch the vest and purse when it was
thrown out. I ran out in the cabin to his state-
room, but he had the start of me, and was locked
in. I did not know for sure which was his room,
so I hit and I thundered at his door. The people
stuck their heads out of their staterooms, and
over the transom came a glass of water. So I,
FAMILY THIEVING.
293
being rather wet, concluded I would give it up
till the next morning. And what do you think
those scamps did ? Tom, though I gave it to him
well, wouldn’t own up to a thing, and just said
‘ it was too bad such robberies went on in a ship
like that ;’ he was very sorry for me, and alluded
to the fact that the door being unlocked was
proof that the thief had a skeleton key, and all
that nonsense. Next morning Autie met me, and
asked what on earth I had been about the night
before. Such a fracas, all the people had come
out to look up the matter, and there I was pound-
ing at a young lady’s door, a friend of Libbie’s,
and a girl I liked (indeed, I had taken quite a
shine to her). They made out — those shameless
rogues, and very solemn Autie was about it, too
• — that it was not a very fine thing for my reputa-
tion to be pounding on a young lady’s door late
at night, frightening her half to death, and oblig-
ing her to defend herself with a pitcher of water.
She thought I had been trying to break in her
door, and I had better go to her at once and apol-
ogize, as the whole party were being compromised
by such scandal. They failed there ; for I knew
I was not at her door, and I knew who it was that
threw the water on me. I was bound to try and
get even with them, so one morning, while they
were all at breakfast, I went to Autie’s stateroom;
294 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Eliza was making up the bed. I looked for
Autie’s pocket-book, and found it under the pil-
low. I kept out of the way and did not come
near them for some days ; but they got desperate
and were determined to beat me, so they made
it up that Tommy was to get round me, seize
me by my arms at the back, and Autie go through
my pockets. Well, they left me without a dime,
and I had to travel without paying, and those out-
laws of boys got the clerk to come to me and
demand my ticket. I told him I had none, that I
had been robbed. He said he was sorry, but I
would have to pay over again, as some one who
stole the ticket would be likely to use it. I tried
to tell him I would make it right before I left the
boat, but I hadn’t a penny then. Well, daughter,
I came out best at the last, for Autie, having
really all the money, though he wouldn’t own up
to it, had aH the bills to pay, and when I got home
I was so much the gainer, for it did not cost me
anything from the time I left the boat, either, till
we got home, and then Autie gave me up my
pocket-book with all the money, and we all had a
good laugh, while the boys told their mother of
the pranks they had played on me.”
My father’s story ceases without doing justice to
himself ; for the cunning manner in which he cir-
cumvented those mischievous fellows, I remember,
-‘ft’llfl’VWHJ’fl’IIIWflfllipililllWy.^^^^^^^^^^^
STAND THKRE, COWARDS, WILL V
OU, A.ND SLi., AN OLD MAN ROBBED;
296
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and it seems my husband had given a full account
to our friend the Hon. Harry Conant. He writes
to me, what is very true, that ” it seems one must
know the quaint and brave old man, to appreciate
how exquisitely funny the incident, as told by
the General, really was. The third day after the
robbery, the General and Tom, thinking their
father engaged at a remote part of the boat, while
talking over their escapade incautiously exhibited
the pocket-book. Suddenly the hand that held it
was seized in the strong grasp of the wronged
father, who, lustily calling for aid, assured the
passengers that were thronging up (and, being
strangers, knew nothing of the relationship of the
parties) that this purse was his, and that he had
been robbed by these two scoundrels, and if they
would assist in securing their arrest and restoring
the purse, he would prove all he said. Seeing the
crowd hesitate, he called out. For shame ! stand
there, cowards, will you, and see an old man
robbed ?” It was enough. The spectators rushed
in, and the General was outwitted by his artful
parent and obliged to explain the situation. But
the consequent restoration of his property did not
give him half the satisfaction that it did to turn
the tables on the boys. Though they never ac-
knowledged this robbery to their father, none were
so proud of his victory as Tom and the General,”
TURNING THE TABLES. 20 7
I must not leave to the imagination of the Hteral-
minded people who may chance to read, the
suspicion that my husband and Tom ever made
their father in the least unhappy by their incessant
joking. He met them half-way always, and I
never knew them lack in reverence for his snowy
head. He was wont to speak of his Texas life
with his sons as his happiest year for many pre-
ceding, and used to say that, were it not for our
mother’s constantly increasing feebleness, he
would go out to them in Kansas.
When he reached his own ground, he made Tom
and the General pay for some of their plots and
plans to render him uncomfortable, by coming to
the foot of the stairs and roaring out (and he had
a stentorian voice) that they had better be getting
up, as it was late. Father Custer thought 6 o’clock
A. M. was late. His sons differed. As soon as
they found the clamor was to continue, assisted
by the dogs, which he had released from the stable,
leaping up-stairs and springing on our beds in ex-
citement, they went to the head of the stairs, and
shouted out for everything that the traveler calls
for in a hotel— hot water, boot-black, cock-tail, bar-
ber, and none of these being forthcoming in the
simple home, they vociferated, in what the out-
sider might have thought angry voices, “What
sort of hotel do you keep, any way ? “
2gS
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Father Custer had an answer for every question,
and only by talking so fast and loud that they
talked him down did they get the better of him.
Our mother Custer almost invariably sided with
her boys. It made no sort of difference if father
Custer stood alone, he never seemed to expect a
champion. He did seem to think she was carrying
her views to an advanced point, when she endeav-
ored to decline a new cur that he had introduced
into the house, on the strength of its having ” no
pedigree.” Her sons talked dog to her so much
that one would be very apt to be educated up to
the demand for an authenticated grandfather.
Besides, the ” Towsers ” and “Rovers” and all
that sort of mongrels, to which she had patiently
submitted in all the childhood of her boys and
their boyish father, entitled her to some choice in
after years.
At Cairo our partings began, for there some of
the staff left us for their homes. We dreaded to
give them up. Our harmonious life, and the
friendships welded by the sharing of hardships
and dangers, made us feel that it would be well
if, having tested one another, we might go on in
our future together. At Detroit the rest of our
military family disbanded. How the General re-
gretted them ! The men, scarce more than boys
even then, had responded to every call to charge
LEA VE- TAKINGS.
299
in his Michigan brigade, and afterward in the Third
Cavalry Division. Some, wounded almost to death,
had been carried from his side on the battle-field,
as he feared, forever, and had returned with
wounds still unhealed. One of those valiant men
has just died, suffering all these twenty-three years,
from his wound ; but in writing, speaking in pub-
lic when he could, talking to those who surrounded
him when he was too weak to do more, one name
ran through his whole anguished life, one hero
hallowed his days, and that was his ” boy general.”
Another — oh what a brave boy he was ! — took my
husband’s proffered aid, and received an appoint-
ment in the regular army. He carried always,
does now, a shattered arm, torn by a bullet while
he was riding beside General Custer in Virginia.
That did not keep him from giving his splendid
energy, his best and truest patriotism, to his coun-
try down in Texas even after the war, for he rode
on long, exhausting campaigns after the Indians,
his, wound bleeding, his life sapped, his vitality
slipping away with the pain that never left him
day or night. That summer when we were at
home in Monroe, the General sent for him to come
to us, and get his share of the pretty girls that
Tom and the Michigan staff, who lived near us,
were appropriating. The handsome, dark-haired
fellow carried off the favors ; for though the oth-
■700 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ers had been wounded — Tom even then bearing”
the scarlet spot on his cheek where the bullet had
penetrated — the last comer won, for he still wore
his arm in a sling. The bewitching girls had be-
fore them the evidence of his valor, and into what
a garden he stepped ! He was a modest fellow,
and would not demand too much pity, but made
light of his wound, as is the custom of soldiers,
who, dreading effeminacy, carry the matter too
far, and ignore what ought not to be looked upon
slightingly. One day he appeared without his
sling, and a careless girl, dancing with him,
grasped the arm in the forgetfulness of glee. The
waves of torture that swept over the young hero’s
face, the alarm and pity of the girl, the instant
biting of the lip and quick smile of the man,
dreading more to grieve the pretty creature by
him than to endure the physical agony — oh, how
proud the General was of him, and I think he
felt badly, that a soldier cannot yield to impulse,
and enfold his comrade in his arms, as is our
woman’s sweet privilege with one another.
Proudly the General followed the career of
those young fellows who had been so near him in
his war-life. Of all those in whom he continued
always to retain an interest, keeping up in some
instances a desultory correspondence, the most
amazing evolution was that of the provost marshal
A METAMORPHOSED SOLDIER.
301
into a Methodist minister. Whether he was at
heart a stern, unrelenting- character, is a question
I doubted, for he never could have developed into
a clergyman. But he had the strangest, most im-
placable face, when sent on his thankless duty by
his commanding officer. He it was who conducted
the ceremonies that one awful day in Louisiana,
when the execution and pardon took place. I
remember the General’s amazement when he re-
ceived the letter in which the announcement of the
new life-work was made. It took us both some
time to realize how he would set about evan-
gelizing. It was difficult to imagine him leading
any one to the throne of grace, except at the point
of the bayonet, with a military band playing the
Dead March in Saul. I know how pleased my
husband was, though, how proud and glad to
know that a splendid, brave soldier had given
his talents, his courage — and oh, what courage,
for a man of the world to come out in youth on
the side of one mighty Captain! — and taken up the
life of poverty, self-denial, and something else that
the General also felt a deprivation, the roving life
that deprives a Methodist minister of the blessings
of a permanent home.
The delightful letters we used to get from our
military family when any epoch occurred in their
lives, like the choice of a profession or business
302 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
(for most of them went back to civil life), their
marriage, the birth of a son — all gave my hus-
band genuine pleasure ; and when their sorrows
came he turned to me to write the letter — a heart-
letter, which was his in all but the manipulation
of the pen. His personal influence he gave, time
and time again, when it was needed in their
lives, and, best of all in my eyes, had patience
with those who had a larger sowing of the wild-
oat crop, which is the agricultural feature in the
early life of most men.
Since I seek to make my story of others, I take
the privilege of speaking of a class of heroes
that I now seldom hear mentioned, and over whom,
in instances of my husband’s personal friends,
we have grieved together. It is to those who,
like his young staff-officer, bear unhealed and
painful wounds to their life’s end, that I wish
to beg our people to give thought. We felt it
rather a blessing, in one way, when a man was
visibly maimed ; for if a leg or an arm is gone, the
empty sleeve or the halting gait keeps his
country from forgetting that he has braved every-
thing to protect her. The men we sorrowed for
were those who suffered silently ; and there are
more, North and South, than anyone dreams of,
scattered all over our now fair and prosperous
land. Sometimes, after they die, it transpires that
FORTITUDE IN SUFFERING. 3O3
at the approach of every storm they have been
obHged to stop work, enter into the seclusion of
their rooms, and endure the racking, torturing-
pain, that began on the battle-field so long ago.
If anyone finds this out in their life-time, it is
usually by accident ; and when asked why they
suffer without claiming the sympathy that does
help us all, they sometimes reply that the war is
too far back to tax anyone’s memory or sympathy
now. Oftener, they attempt to ignore what
they endure, and change the subject in-
stantly. People would be surprised to know
how many in the community, whom they
daily touch in the jostle of life, are silent sufferers
from wounds or incurable disease contracted
during the war for the Union. The monuments,
tablets, memorials, which are strewn with flowers
and bathed with grateful tears, have often tribute
that should be partly given to the double hero
who bears on his bruised and broken body the
torture of daily sacrifice for his country. People,
even if they know, forget the look, the word of
acknowledgment, that is due the maimed patriot.
I recall the chagrin I felt on the Plains one day,
when one of our Seventh Cavalry officers, with
whom we had long been intimately associated —
one whom our people called ” Fresh Smith,” or
” Smithie,” for short — came to his wife to get her
;o4
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
to put on his coat. I said something in bantering
tones of his Plains Hfe making him look on his
wife as the Indian looks upon the squaw, and tried
to rouse her to rebellion. There was a small blaze,
a sudden scintillation from a pair of feminine eyes,
that warned me of wrath to come. The captain
accepted my banter, threw himself into the sad-
dle, laughed back the advantage of this new order
of things, where a man had a combination, in his
wife, of servant and companion, and tore out of
sight, leaving me to settle accounts with the
flushed madame. She told me, what I never knew,
and perhaps might not even now, but for the out-
burst of the moment, that in the war ” Smithie “
had received a wound that shattered his shoulder,
and though his arm was narrowly saved from
amputation, he never raised it again, except a few
inches. As for putting on his coat, it was an im-
possibility.
One day in New York my husband and I were
paying our usual homage to the shop windows
and to the beautiful women we passed, when he
suddenly seized my arm and said, “There’s Kid-
doo ! Let’s catch up with him.” I was skipped
over gutters, and sped over pavements, the Gen-
eral unconscious that such a gait is not the usual
movement of the New Yorker, until we came up
panting each side of a tail, fine-looking man, ap-
A FIRESIDE CONFESSION.
505
parently a specimen of physical perfection. The
look of longing that he gave us as we ran up,
flushed and happy, startled me, and I could
scarcely wait until we separated to know the
meaning. It was this : General Joseph B. Kid-
doo, shot in the leg during the war, had still the
open wound, from which he endured daily pain
and nightly torture, for he got only fragmentary
sleep. To heal the hurt was to end his life, the
surgeons said. When at last I heard he had been
given release and slept the blessed sleep, what
word of sorrow could be framed ?
In the case of another friend, with whom we
were staying in Tennessee, from whom my hus-
band and I extracted the information by dint of
questions and sympathy, when, late one night,
we sat about the open fire and were warmed into
confidence by its friendly glow, we found that no
single night for the twelve years after the war had
such a boon as uninterrupted sleep been known to
him. A body racked by pain was paying daily its
loyal, uncomplaining tribute to his country. Few
were aware that he had unremitting suffering as
his constant companion. I remember that my
husband urged him to marry, and get some good
out of life, and from the sympathy that wells per-
petually in a tender woman’s heart. But he denied
himself the blessing of such compa-nionship, from
306 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
unselfish motives, declaring he could not ask a
woman to link her fate with such a broken life as
his. When we left his fireside, my husband
counted him a hero of such rare metal that few in
his experience could equal him, and years after-
ward, when we sometimes read his name in print,
he said, ” Poor , I wonder if there’s any
let-up for the brave fellow.”
Our home-coming was a great pleasure to us
and to our two families. My own father was proud
of the General’s administration of civil as well as
military affairs in Texas, and enjoyed the congratu-
latory letter of Governor Hamilton deeply.
The temptations to induce General Custer to leave
the service and enter civil life began at once, and
were many and varied. He had not been sub-
jected to such allurements the year after the war,
when the country was offering posts of honor to
returned soldiers, but this summer of our return
from Texas, all sorts of suggestions were made.
Business propositions, with enticing pictures of
great wealth, came to him. He never cared for
money for money’s sake. No one that does, ever
lets it slip through his fingers as he did. Still, his
heart was set upon plans for his mother and father,
and for his brothers’ future, and I can scarcely see
now how a man of twenty-five could have turned
his back upon such alluring schemes for wealth as
OFFERS FOR A FUTURE. 307
were held out to him. It was at that time much
more customary than now, even, to establish cor-
porations with an officer’s name at the head who
was known to have come through the war with
irreproachable honor, proved possibly as much by
his being as poor when he came out of service as
when he went in, as by his conduct in battle. The
country was so unsettled by the four years of
strife that it was like beginning all over again,
when old companies were started anew. Con-
fidence had to be struggled for, and names of
prominent men as associate partners or presidents
were sought for persistently.
Politics offered another form of temptation.
The people demanded for their representatives
the soldiers under whom they had served, prefer-
ring to follow the same leaders in the political
field that had led them in battle. The old sol-
diers, and civilians also, talked openly of General
Custer for Congressman or Governor. It was a
summer of excitement and uncertainty. How
could it be otherwise to a boy who, five brief
year before, was a beardless youth with no appar-
ent future before him ? I was too much of a girl
to realize what a summer it was. Indeed, we
had little chance, so fast did one proposition for
our future follow upon the other. When the
General was offered the appointment of foreign
^o8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Minister, I kept silence as best I could, but it was
desperately hard work. Honors, according to
old saws, ” were empty,” but in that hey-day
time they looked very different to me. I was
inwardly very proud, and if I concealed the fact
because my husband expressed such horror of
inflated people, it was only after violent effort.
Among the first propositions was one for the Gen-
eral to take temporary service with Mexico. This
scheme found no favor with me. It meant more
fighting and further danger for my husband, and
anxiety and separation for me. Besides, Texas
association with Mexicans made me think their
soldiery treacherous and unreliable. But even in
the midst of the suspense pending the decision I
was not insensible to this new honor that was
offered.
Carvajal. who was then at the head of the
Juarez military government, offered the post
of Adjutant-General of Mexico to General Cus-
ter. The money inducements were, to give twice
the salary in gold that a major-general in our
army receives. As his salary had come down
from a major-general’s pay of $8,000 to $2,000,
this might have been a temptation surely. ,There
was a stipulation, that one or two thousand men
should be raised in the United States ; any debts
assumed in organizing this force to be paid by
A COMAIENDATORY LETTER. 3O9
the Mexican Liberal Government. Senor
Romero, the Mexican Minister, did what he could
to further the application of Carvajal, and
General Grant wrote his approval of General
Custer’s acceptance, in a letter in which he speaks
of my husband in unusually flattering terms, as
one ” who rendered such distinguished service as
a cavalry officer during the war,” adding, ”There
was no officer in that branch of the service who
had the confidence of General Sheridan to a
greater degree than General Custer, and there is
no officer in whose judgment I have greater faith
than in Sheridan’s. Please understand, then, that
I mean to endorse General Custer in a high de-
gree.”
The stagnation of peace was being felt by
those who had lived a breathless four years at the
front. However much they might rejoice that
carnage had ceased and no more broken hearts
need be dreaded, it was very hard to quiet them-
selves into a life of inaction. No wonder our
officers went to the Khedive for service ! no won-
der this promise of active duty was an inviting
prospect for my husband ! It took a long time
for civilians even, to tone themselves down to the
jog-trot of peace.
Everything looked, at that time, as if there was
success awaiting any soldier who was resolute
3IO TENT/NG ON’ TUB PLAIN’S.
enough to lead troops against one they considered
an invader. Nothing nerves a soldier’s arm like
the wrong felt at the presence of foreigners on
their own ground, and the prospect of destruction
of their homes. Maximilian was then uncertain
in his hold on the Government he had established,
and, as it soon proved, it would have been what
General Custer then thought comparatively an
easy matter to drive out the usurper. The ques-
tion was settled by the Government’s refusing to
grant the year’s leave for which application was
made, and the General was too fond of his coun-
try to take any but temporary service in another.
This decision made me very grateful, and when
there was no longer danger of further exposure of
life, I was also thankful for the expressions of
confidence and admiration of my husband’s ability
as a soldier that this contemplated move had
drawn out. I was willing my husband should
accept any offer he had received except the last.
I was tempted to beg him to resign ; for this
meant peace of mind and a long, tranquil life for
me. It was my father’s counsel alone, that kept
me from urging each new proposition to take up
the life of a civilian. He advised me to forget
myself. He knew well what a difficult task it was
to school myself to endure the life on which I had
entered so thoughtlessly as a girl. I had never
FA THERL Y COUNSEL. 3 I I
been thrown with army people, and knew nothing
before my marriage of the separations and anxie-
ties of miHtary Ufe. Indeed, I was so young that it
never occurred to me that people could become so
attached to each other that it would be misery to
be separated. And now that this divided exist-
ence loomed up before me, father did not blame
me for longing for any life that would ensure our
being together. He had a keen sense of humor,
and could not help reminding me occasionally,
when I told him despairingly that I could not, I
simply would nQ)\,, live a life where I could not be
always with my husband, of days before I knew
the General, when I declared to my parents, if
ever I did marry it would not be a dentist, as our
opposite neighbor appeared never to leave the
house. It seemed to me then that the wife had a
great deal to endure in the constant presence of
her husband.
My father, strict in his sense of duty, constant-
ly appealed to me to consider only my husband’s
interests, and forget my own selfish desires. In
an old letter written at that time, I quoted to the
General something that father had said to me :
” Why, daughter, I would rather have the honor
which grows out of the way in which the battle of
Waynesboro was fought, than to have the wealth
of the Indies. Armstrong’s battle is better to hand
3 I 2 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
down to posterity than wealth.” He used in those
days to walk the floor and say to me, ” My child,
put no obstacles in the way to the fulfillment of
his destiny. He chose his profession. He is a
born soldier. There he must abide.”
In the midst of this indecision, when the Gen-
eral was obliged to be in New York and Washing-
ton on business, my father was taken ill. The
one whom I so sorely needed in all those ten
years that followed, when I was often alone in the
midst of the dangers and anxieties and vicissi-
tudes attending our life, stepped into heaven as
quietly and peacefully as if going into another
room. His last words were to urge me to do my
duty as a soldier’s wife. He again begged me to
ignore self, and remember that my husband
had chosen the profession of a soldier ; in that life
he had made a name, and there, where he was so
eminently fitted to succeed, he should remain.
My father’s counsel and his dying words had
great weight with me, and enabled me to fight
against the selfishness that was such a temptation.
Very few women, even the most ambitious for
their husbands’ future, but would have confessed,
at the close of the war, that glory came with too
great sacrifices, and they would rather gather the
husbands, lovers and brothers into the shelter of
the humblest of homes, than endure the suspense
AN OFFICER’S WORD HIS NOTE. w*
and loneliness of war-times. I am sure that my fa-
ther was right, for over and over again, in after
years, my husband met his brother officers who had
resigned, only to have poured into his ear regrets
that they had left the service. I have known him
come to me often, saying he could not be too
thankful that he had not gone into civil life. He
believed that a business man or a politician should
have discipline in youth for the life and varied ex-
perience with all kinds of people, to make a suc-
cessful career. Officers, from the very nature of
their life, are prescribed in their associates. They
are isolated so much at extreme posts that they
know little or nothing of the life of citizens. After
resigning, they found themselves robbed of the
companionship so dear to military people, unable,
from want of early training, to cope successfully
with business men, and lacking, from inexperience,
the untiring, plodding spirit that is requisite to
the success of a civilian. An officer rarely gives
a note; his promise is his bond. It is seldom vio-
lated. It would be impossible for me, even in my
twelve years’ experience, to enumerate the times I
have known, when long-standing debts, for which
there was not a scrap of written proof, were paid
without solicitation on the part of the friend who
was the creditor. One of our New York hotels
furnishes proof of how an officer’s word is con-
3 1 4 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
sidered. A few years since, Congress failed to
make the usual yearly appropriation for the pay
of the army. A hotel that had been for many
years the resort of military people, immediately
sent far and wide to notify the army that no bills
would be presented until the next Congress had
passed the appropriation. To satisfy myself, I
have inquired if they lost by this, and been assured
that they did not.
Men reared to consider their word equal to the
most binding legal contract ever made, would
naturally find it difficult to realize, when entering
civil life, that something else is considered neces-
sary. The wary take advantage of the credulity
of a military man, and, usually, the first experience
is financial loss, to an officer who has confidingly
allowed a debt to be contracted without all the
restrictive legal arrangements with which citizens
have found it necessary to surround money trans-
actions. And so the world goes. The capital with
which an officer enters into business, is lost by too
much confidence in his brother man, and when he
becomes richer by experience, he is so poor in
pocket he cannot venture into competition with
the trained and skilled business men among whom
he had entered so sanguinely.
Politics also have often proved disastrous to
army officers. Allured by promises, they have
AMBITIONS DISAPPOINTED. 3 I 5
accepted office, and been allowed a brief success ;
but who can be more completely done for than an
office-holder whose party goes out of power ? The
born politician, one who has grown wary in the
great game, provides for the season of temporary
retirement which the superseding of his party
necessitates. His antagonist calls it ” feathering
his nest,” but a free-handed and sanguine military
man has done no ” feathering,” and it is simply
pitiful to see to what obscurity and absolute pov-
erty they are brought. The men whose chestnuts
the ingenuous, unsuspecting man has pulled out
of the fire, now pass him by unnoticed. Such an
existence to a proud man makes him wish he had
died on the field of battle, before any act of his
has brought chagrin.
All these things I have heard my husband say,
when we have encountered some heart-broken
man ; and he worked for nothing harder than that
they might be reinstated in the service, or lifted
out of their perplexities by occupation of some
sort. There was an officer, a classmate at West
Point, who, he felt with all his heart, did right in
resigning. If he had lived he would have written
his tribute, and I venture to take up his pen to say,
in my inadequate way, what he would have said
so well, moved by the eloquence of deep feeling.
My husband believed in what old-fashioned
3 I 6 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
people term a “calling,” and he himself had felt a
call to be a soldier, when he could scarcely toddle.
It was not the usual early love of boys for adven-
ture. We realize how natural it is for a lad to
enjoy tales of hotly contested fields, and to glory
over bloodshed. The boy in the Sunday-school,
when asked what part of the Bible he best liked,
said promptly, “The fightenest part !” and another,
when his saintly teacher questioned him as to
whom he first wished to see when he reached
heaven, vociferated loudly, ” Goliath !” But the
love of a soldier’s life was not the fleeting desire
of the child, in my husband; it became the steady
purpose of his youth, the happy realization of his
early manhood. For this reason he sympathized
with all who felt themselves drawn to a certain
place in the world. He thoroughly believed in a
boy (if it was not a pernicious choice) having
his “bent.” And so it happened, when it was
our good fortune to be stationed with his class-
mate, Colonel Charles C. Parsons, at Leavenworth,
that he gave a ready ear when his old West Point
chum poured out his longings for a different sphere
in life. He used to come to me after these ses-
sions, when the Colonel went over and over again
his reasons for resigning, and wonder how he
could wish to do so, but he respected his friend’s
belief, that he had another ” calling ” too thor-
FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.
‘7
oughly to oppose him. He thought the place of
captain of a battery of artillery the most inde-
pendent in the service. He is detached from his
regiment, he reports only to the commanding
officer of the post, he is left so long at one station
that he can make permanent arrangements for com-
fort, and, except in times of war, the work is gar-
rison and guard duty. Besides this, the pay of a
‘captain of a battery is good, and he is not subject
to constant moves, which tax the finances of a
cavalry officer so severely. After enumerating
these advantages, he ended by saying, “There’s
nothing to be done, though, for if Parsons thinks
he ought to go into an uncertainty, and leave what
is a surety for life, why, he ought to follow his
convictions.”
The next time we saw the Colonel, he was the
rector of a small mission church on the outskirts
of Memphis. We were with the party of the
Grand Duke Alexis when he went by steamer to
New Orleans. General Sheridan had asked Gen-
eral Custer to go on a buffalo-hunt with the Duke
in the Territory of Wyoming, and he in turn
urged the General to remain with him afterward,
until he left the country. At Memphis, the city
gave a ball, and my husband begged his old com-
rade to be present. It was the first time since his
resignation that the Colonel and his beautiful
3l8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
wife had been in society. Their parish was poor,
and they had only a small and uncertain salary.
Colonel Parsons was not in the least daunted ; he
was as hopeful and as enthusiastic as such earnest
people alone can be, as certain he was right as if
his duty had been revealed to him, as divine mes-
sages were to the prophets of old. The General
was touched by the fearless manner in which he
faced poverty and obscurity.
It would be necessary for one to know, by
actual observation, what a position of authority,
of independence, of assured and sufficient income,
he left, to sink his individuality in this life that he
consecrated to his Master. When he entered our
room, before we went to the ballroom, he held
up his gloved hands to us and said : ” Custer, I
wish you to realize into what extravagance you
have plunged me. Why, old fellow, this is my first
indulgence in such frivolities since I came down
here.” Mrs. Parsons was a marvel to us. The
General had no words that he thought high
enough praise for her sacrifice. Hers was for her
husband, and not a complaint did she utter.
Here, again, I should have to take my citizen
reader into garrison before I could make clear
what it was that she gave up. The vision of that
pretty woman, as I remember her at Leaven-
worth, is fresh in my mind. She danced and
A WIFE’S SACRIFICE.
319
rode charming-ly, and was gracious and free from
the spiteful envy that sometimes comes when a
garrison belle is so attractive that the gossips say
she absorbs all the devotion. Colonel Parsons,
not caring much for dancing, used to stand and
watch with pride and complete confidence when
the men gathered round his wife at our hops.
There were usually more than twice as many men
as women, and the card of a good dancer and a
favorite was frequently filled before she left her
own house for the dancing-room. I find myself
still wondering how any pretty woman ever kept
her mental poise when queening it at those
Western posts. My husband, who never failed
to be the first to notice the least sacrifice that a
woman made for her husband, looked upon Mrs.
Parsons with more and more surprise and admi-
ration, as he contrasted the life in which we found
her, with her former fascinating existence.
The Colonel, after making his concession and
.coming to our ball, asked us in turn to be present
at his church on the following Sunday, and gave
the General a little cheap printed card, which he
used to find his way to the suburbs of the city.
Colonel Parsons told me, next day, that when he
entered the reading-desk and looked down upon
the dignified, reverent head of my husband, a
remembrance of the last time he had seen him in
320 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the chapel at West Point, came like a flash of light-
ning into his mind, and he almost had a convul-
sion, in endeavoring to suppress the gurgles of
laughter that struggled for expression. For an
instant he thought, with desperate fright, that he
would drop down behind the desk and have it out,
and only by the most powerful effort did he rally.
It seems that a cadet in their corps had fiery red
hair, and during the stupid chapel sermon Cadet
Custer had run his fingers into the boy’s hair, who
was in front of him, pretending to get them into
white heat, and then, taking them out, pounded
them as on an anvil. It was a simple thing, and a
trick dating many years back, but the drollery and
quickness of action made it something a man
could not recall with calmness.
Colonel Parsons and his wife are receiving the
rewards that only Heaven can give to lives of
self-sacrifice. Mrs. Parsons, after they came
North to a parish, only lived a short time to en-
joy the comfort of an Eastern home. When the
yellow fever raged so in the Mississippi Valley, in
1878, and volunteers came forward with all the
splendid generosity of this part of the world,
Colonel Parsons did not wait a second call from
his conscience to enter the fever-scourged Mem-
phis, and there he ended a martyr life : not only
ready to go because in his Master’s service, but
A MARTYR’S REWARD.
because the best of his Hfe, and one for whom
he continually sorrowed, awaited him beyond the
confines of eternity.
CHAPTER XL
RECEPTION BY THE WAR VETERANS OF THEIR BOY GEN-
ERAL APPOINTED LIEUTENANT-COLONEL OF THE
SEVENTH CAVALRY A RAID AFTER A PRETTY GIRL
OUR FAMILY OF HORSES AND DOGS ORDERS TO
REPORT AT FORT RILEY, KANSAS JOLLIFICATIONS
AT ST. LOUIS FRIENDSHIP FOR LAWRENCE BAR-
RETT.
/^ENERAL CUSTER was the recipient of
much kindness from the soldiers of his
Michigan brigade while he remained in Michigan
awaiting orders, and he went to several towns
where his old comrades had prepared receptions
for him. But when he returned from a re-union
in Detroit to our saddened home, there was no
grateful, proud father to listen to the accounts of
the soldiers’ enthusiasm. My husband missed his
commendation, and his proud way of referring to
his son. His own family were near us, and off he
started, when he felt the absence of the noble
parent who had so proudly followed his career,
and, running through our stable to shorten the
distance, danced up a lane through a back gate
A SOLDIER’S NAMESAKES. 323
into his mother’s garden, and thence into the
midst of his father’s noisy and happy household.
His parents, the younger brother, Boston, sister
Margaret, Colonel Tom, and often Eliza, made up
the family, and the uproar that these boys and
the elder boy, their father, made around the
gentle mother and her daughters, was a marvel
to me.
If the General went away to some soldiers’
re-union, he tried on his return to give me a lucid
account of the ceremonies, and how signally he
failed in making a speech, of course, and his sub-
terfuge for hiding his confusion and getting out
of the scrape by proposing ” Garryowen ” by the
band, or three cheers for the old brigade. It was
not that he had not enough to say : his heart was
full of gratitude to his comrades, but the words
came forth with such a rush, there was little
chance of arriving at the meaning. I think
nothing moved him in this coming together of
his dear soldiers, like his pride at their naming
babies after him. His eyes danced with pleasure,
when he told that they stopped him in the street
and held up a little George Armstrong Custer,
and the shy wife was brought forward to be con-
gratulated. I dearly loved, when I chanced to be
with him, to witness their pride and hear their
few words of praise.
324 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Not long ago I was in a small town in Michi-
gan, among some of my husband’s old soldiers.
Our sister Margaret was reciting for the benefit of
the Uttle church, and the veterans asked for me
afterward, and I shook hands with a long line of
bronzed heroes, now tillers of the soil. Their
praise of their ” boy General ” made my grateful
tears flow, and many of their eyes moistened as
they held my hand and spoke of war-times. After
all had filed by, they began to return one by one
and ask to bring their wives and children. One
soldier, with already silvering head, said quaintly,
” We have often seen you rding around with our
General in war-days ” and added, with a most
flattering ignoring of time’s treatment of me,
” You XooVJMst the same, though you was a young
gal then ; and now, tho’ you followed your hus-
band and took your hardships with us, I want to
show you an old woman who was also a purty
good soldier, for while I was away at the front
she run the farm.” Such a welcome, such honest
tribute to his ” old woman,” recalled the times
when the General’s old soldiers gathered about
him, with unaffected words, and when I pitied
him because he fidgeted so, and bit his lips, and
struggled to end what was the joy of his life, for
fear he would cry like a woman. Among those
who souofht him out that summer was an officer
Q
A ROY’S HERO WORSHIP.
o^:)
who had commanded a regiment of troops in the
celebrated Michigan brigade. Colonel George^
Grey, a brave Irishman, with as much enthusiasm
in his friendships as in his fighting. His wife and
little son were introduced. The boy had very
light hair, and though taught to reverence and love
the General by his gallant, impulsive father, the
child had never realized until he saw him that his
father’s hero also had a yellow head. Heretofore
the boy had hated his hair, and implored his
mother to dye it dark. But as soon as his inter-
view with my husband was ended, he ran to his
mother, and whispered in eager haste that she
need not mind the dyeing now ; he never would
scold about his hair being light again, since he
had seen that General Custer’s was yellow.
As I look back and consider what a descent the
major-generals of the war made, on returning to
their lineal rank in the regular army after the sur-
render at Appomattox, I wonder how they took
the new order of things so calmly, or that they
so readily adapted themselves to the positions
they had filled before the firing on Sumter in
1861. General Custer held his commission as
brevet major-general for nearly a year after the
close of hostilities, and until relieved in Texas.
He did not go at once to his regiment, the Fifth
Cavalry, and take up the command of sixty men
326 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
in place of thousands, as other officers of the
regular army were obliged to do, but was placed
on waiting orders, and recommended to the lieu-
tenant-colonelcy of one of the new regiments of
cavalry, for five new ones had been formed that
summer, making ten in all. In the autumn, the
appointment to the Seventh Cavalry came, with
orders to go to Fort Garland. One would have
imagined, by the jubilant manner in which this
official document was unfolded and read to me,
that it was the inheritance of a principality. My
husband instantly began to go over the ” good
sides ” of the question. He was so given to
dwelling on the high lights of any picture his im-
agination painted, that the background, which
might mean hardships and deprivations, became
indefinite in outline, and obscure enough in detail
to please the most modern impressionists. Out
of our camp luggage a map was produced, and
Fort Garland was discovered, after long prowling
about with the first finger, in the space given to
the Rocky Mountains. Then he launched into
visions of what unspeakable pleasure he would
have, fishing for mountain trout and hunting
deer. As I cared nothing for fishing, and was
afraid of a gun, I don’t recall my veins bounding
as his did over the prospect ; but the embryo fish-
erman and Nimrod was so sanguine over his-
A MOUNTAIN POST.
127
future, it would have been a stolid soul indeed
that did not begin to think Fort Garland a sort
of earthly paradise. The sober colors in this
vivid picture meant a small, obscure post, then
several hundred miles from any railroad, not
much more than a handful of men to command,
the most complete isolation, and no prospect of
an active campaign, as it was far from the range
of the war-like Indians. But Fort Garland soon
faded from our view, in the excitement and inter-
est over Fort Riley, as soon as our orders were
changed to that post. We had no difficulty in
finding it on the map, as it was comparatively an
old post, and the Kansas Pacific Railroad was
within ten miles of the Government reservation.
We ascertained, by inquiry, that it was better to
buy the necessary household articles at Leaven-
worth, than to attempt to carry along even a sim-
ple outfit from the East. My attention had been
so concentrated on the war, that I found the map
of Virginia had heretofore comprised the only im-
portant part of the United States to me, and it
was difficult to realize that Kansas had a city of
25,000 inhabitants, with several daily papers.
Still, I was quite willing to trust to Leavenworth
for the purchase of household furniture, as it
seemed to me, what afterward proved true,
that housekeepmg in garrison quarters was a
328 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
sort of camping out after all, with one foot in a
house and another in position to put into the stir-
rup and spin ” over the hills and far away.” We
packed the few traps that had been used in camp-
ing in Virginia and Texas, but most of our atten-
tion was given to the selection of a pretty girl,
who, it was held by both of us, would do more
toward furnishing and beautifying our army quar-
ters than any amount of speechless bric-a-brac or
silent tapestry. It was difficult to obtain what
seemed the one thing needful for our new army
home. In the first place, the mothers rose en
masse and formed themselves into an anti-frontier
combination. They looked right into my eyes,
with harassed expression, and said, ” Why, Libbie,
they might marry an officer !” ignoring the fact
that the happiest girl among them had undergone
that awful fate, and still laughed back a denial of
its being the bitterest lot that can come to a
woman. Then I argued that perhaps their
daughters might escape matrimony entirely, under
the fearful circumstances which they shuddered
over, even in contemplation, but that it was only
fair that the girls should have a chance to see the
” bravest and the tenderest,” and, I mentally added,
the ” livest ” men, for our town had been forsaken
by most of the ambitious, energetic boys as soon
as their school-days ended. The ” beau season “
FAILING IN A CAPTURE.
129
was very brief, lasting only during their summer
vacations, when they came from wide-awake
western towns to make love in sleepy Monroe.
One mother at last listened to my arguments, and
said, ” I do want Laura to see what men of the
world are, and she shall go.” Now, this lovely
mother had been almost a second one to me in all
my lonely vacations, after my own mother died.
She took me from the seminary, and gave me
treats with her own children, and has influenced
my whole life by her noble, large way of looking
at the world. But, then, she has been East a great
deal, and in Washington in President Pierce’s
days, and realized that the vision of the outside
world, seen only from our Monroe, was narrow.
The dear Laura surprised me by asking to have
over night to consider, and I could not account
for it, as she had been so radiant over the prospect
of military life. Alas ! next morning the riddle
was solved, when she whispered in my ear that
there was a youth who had already taken into his
hands the disposal of her future, and ” he ” ob-
jected. So we lost her.
Monroe was then thought to have more pretty
girls than any place of its size in the country.
In my first experience of the misery of being para-
graphed, it was announced that General Custer had
taken to himself a wife, in a town where ninety-
330 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
nine marriageable girls were left. The fame of
the town had gone abroad, though, and the
ninety-nine were not without opportunities.
Widowers came from afar, with avant couriers in
the shape of letters describing their wealth, their
scholarly attainments, and their position in the
community. The “boys” grown to men halted
in their race for wealth long enough to rush
home and propose. Often we were all under in-
spection, and though demure and seemingly un-
conscious, I remember the after-tea walks when a
knot of girls went off to ” lovers’ lane ” to ex-
change experiences about some stranger from
afar, who had been brought around by a solicit-
ous match-maker to view the landscape o’er, and
I am afraid we had some sly little congratulations
when he, having shown signs of the conquering
hero, was finally sent on his way, to seek in other
towns, filled with girls, ” fresh woods and past-
ures new.” I cannot account for the beauty of
the women of Monroe; the mothers were the
softest, serenest, smoothest-faced women, even
when white-haired. It is true it was a very quiet
life, going to bed with the chickens, and up early
enough to see the dew on the lawns. There was
very little care, to plant furrows in the cheeks
and those tell-tale radiating lines about the eyes.
Nearly everybody was above want, and few had
SUN-BURN AS A,V ARGUMENT. 331
enough of this world’s goods to incite envy in the
hearts of the neighbors, which does its share in a
younger face. I sometimes think the vicinity of
Lake Erie, and the moist air that blew over the
marsh, kept the complexions fresh. I used to
feel actually sorry for my husband, when we ap-
proached Monroe after coming from the cam-
paigns. He often said : ” Shall we not stop in
Detroit a day or two, Libbie, till you get the
tired look out of your face ? I dread going among
the Monroe women and seeing them cast reproach-
ful looks at me, when your sun-burned face is in-
troduced among their fair complexions. When
you are tired in addition, they seem to think I am
a wretch unhung, and say, ‘ Why, General ! what
have you done with Libbie’s transparent skin?’ I
am afraid it is hopelessly dark and irredeemably
thickened !” In vain I argued that it wouldn’t be
too thick to let them all see the happy light shine
through, and if his affection survived my altered
looks, I felt able to endure the wailing over what
they thought I had lost. After all, it was very
dear and kind of them to care, and my husband
appreciated their solicitude, even when he was
supposed to be in disgrace for having subjected
me to such disfigurement. Still, these mothers
were neither going to run the risk of the peach-
bloom and cream of their precious girls all run-
^3 2 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ning riot into one broad sun-burn up to the roots
of the hair, and this was another reason, in addi-
tion to the paramount one that “the girls might
marry into the army.” The vagrant Hfe, the ina-
bihty to keep household gods, giving up the privi-
leges of the church and missionary societies, the
loss of the simple village gayety, the anxiety and
suspense of a soldier’s wife, might well make the
mothers opposed to the life, but this latter reason
did not enter into all their minds. Some thought
of the loaves and fishes. One said, in trying to
persuade me that it was better to break my engage-
ment with the General, ” Why, girl, you can’t be
a poor man’s wife, and, besides, he might lose a
leg !” I thought, even then, gay and seemingly
thoughtless as I was, that a short life wuth poverty
and a wooden leg was better than the career sug-
gested to me. I hope the dear old lady is not
blushing as she reads this, and I remind her how
she took me up into a high mountain and pointed
out a house that might be mine, with so many
dozen spoons “solid,” so many sheets and pillow-
slips, closets filled with jars of preserved fruit, all
of which I could not hope to have in the life in
which I chose to cast my lot, where peaches
ripened on no garden-wall and bank-accounts
were unknown.
When we were ready to set out for the West, in
334 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
October, 1866, our caravan summed up some-
thing- like this list ! My husband’s three horses —
Jack Rucker, the thoroughbred mare he had
bought in Texas; a blooded colt from Virginia
named Phil Sheridan ; and my own horse, a fast
pacer named Custis Lee, the delight of my eyes
and the envy of the General’s staff while we were
in Virginia and Texas — several hounds given to
the General by the planters with whom he had
hunted deer in Texas ; a superb greyhound, the
most kingly dog I ever saw; the cushion of his
feet seemed to spring as he stepped, and his head
was carried so loftily as he walked his lordly way
among the other dogs, that I thought he would
have asked to carry his family-tree on his brass
collar, could he have spoken for his rights. Last
of all, some one had given us the ugliest white
bull-dog I ever saw. But in time we came to
think that the twist in his lumpy tail, the curve in
his bow legs, the ambitious nose, which drew the
upper lip above the heaviest of protruding jaws,
were simply beauties, for the dog was so affec-
tionate and loyal, that everything which at first
seemed a draw-back leaned finally to virtue’s side.
He was well named “Turk,” and a “set to” or so
with Byron, the domineering greyhound, estab-
lished his rights, so that it only needed a deep
growl and an uprising of the bristles on his back.
A FAMILY PAR 7 Y.
to recall to the overbearing aristocrat some whole-
some lessons given him when the acquaintance
began. Turk was devoted to the colt Phil, and
the intimacy of the two was comical ; Phil repaid
Turk’s little playful nips at the legs by lifting him
in his teeth as high as the feed-box, by the loose
skin of his back. But nothing could get a whim-
per out of him, for he was the pluckiest of brutes.
He curled himself up in Phil’s stall when he slept,
and in traveling was his close companion in the
box car. If we took the dog to drive with us, he
had to be in the buggy, as our time otherwise
would have been constantly engaged in dragging
him off from any dog that strutted around him,
and needed a lesson in humility. When Turk
was returned to Phil, after any separation, they
greeted each other in a most human way. Turk
leaped around the colt, and in turn was rubbed
and nosed about with speaking little snorts of
welcome. When we came home to this ugly
duckling, he usually made a spring and landed in
my lap, as if he were the tiniest, silkiest little Skye
in dogdom. He half closed his eyes, with that
beatific expression peculiar to affectionate dogs,
and did his little smile at my husband and me by
raising what there was of his upper lip and show-
ing his front teeth. All this with an ignoring of
the other dogs and an air of exclusion, as if we
■5^6 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
three — his master, mistress, and himself — com-
posed all there was of earth worth knowing.
We had two servants, one being Eliza, our
faithful colored woman, who had been with us in
Virginia and Texas, and had come home with me
to care for my father in his last illness. We had
also a worthless colored boy, who had been
trained as a jockey in Texas and had returned
with the horses. What intellect he had was em-
ployed in devising schemes to escape work.
Eliza used her utmost persuasive eloquence on
him without eff’^.ct, and failed equally with a set
of invectives, that had been known heretofore to
break the most stubborn case of lethargy. My
tender-hearted mother Custer screened him, for
he had soon discovered her amazing credulity, and
had made out a story of abuses to which he had
been subjected that moved her to confide his
wrongs to me. Two years before, I too would
have dropped a tear over his history ; but a life
among horses had enlightened me somewhat.
Every one knows that a negro will do almost
anything to become a jockey. Their bitterest
moment is when they find that growing bone and
muscle is making avoirdupois and going to cut
them off from all that makes life worth living.
To reduce their weight, so they can ride at races,
they are steamed, and parboiled if necessary.
A WOMAN’S CREDULITY. 337
This process our lazy servant described to our
mother as having been enforced on him as a tor-
ture and punishment, and such a good story did
he make out, that he did nothing but he in the
sun and twang an old banjo all summer long, all
owing to mother’s pity. We had to take him
with us, to save her from waiting on him, and
making reparation for what she supposed had
been a life of abuse before he came to us.
Last of all to describe in our party was Diana,
the pretty belle of Monroe. The excitement of
anticipation gave added brightness to her eyes,
and the head, sunning over with a hundred curls,
danced and coquetted as she talked of our future
among the ” brass buttons and epaulets.”
My going out from home was not so hard as it
had been, for the dear father had gone home,
saying in his last words, ” Daughter, continue to
do as you have done; follow Armstrong every-
w^here.” It had indeed been a temptation to me,
to use all my influence to induce my husband to
resign and accept the places held out to him. I
do not recollect that ambition or a far look into
his progress in the future entered my mind. I
can only remember thinking with envy of men
surrounding us in civil life, who came home to
their wives after every day’s business. Even
now, I look upon a laborer returning to his home
•1^8 ■ TENTING ON THE PLAINS,
at night with his tin dinner-pail as a creature
to be envied, and my imagination follows the
husband into his humble house. The wife to
whom he returns may have lost much that ambi-
tion and success bring, but she has secured for
herself a lifetime of happy twilights, when all
she cares for is safe under her affectionate eyes.
Our father and mother Custer lived near us,
and Sister Margaret and the younger brother
” Bos,” were then at home and in school. The
parting with his mother, the only sad hour to
my blithe husband, tore his heart as it always
did, and he argued in vain with her, that, as he
had come home after five years of incessant bat-
tles, she might look for his safe return again.
Each time seemed to be the last to her, for she was
so delicate she hardly expected to live to see him
again.
The summer has been one of such pleasure to
her. Her beloved boy, dashing in and out in his
restless manner, was never too absorbed with what-
ever took up his active mind, to be anything but
gentle and thoughtful for her. She found our
Eliza a mine of information, and just as willing as
mother herself to talk all day about the one topic
in common, the General and his war experiences.
Then the dogs and horses, and the stir and life
produced by the introduction of ourselves and our
A DANGER ESCAPED. 339
belongings into her quiet existence, made her re-
call the old farm life when her brood of children
were all around her. Brother Tom had spent the
summer skipping from flower to flower, tasting
the sweets of all the rose-bud garden of girls in
our pretty town. I had already taken to myself
a good deal of the mothering of this wild boy,
and began to worry, as is the custom of mothers,
over the advances of a venturesome woman who
was no longer young and playing for high stakes.
It was no small matter to me, as I knew Tom
would live with us always, if he could manage to
do so, and my prospective sister-in-law would be
my nearest companion. Lad as he was, he
escaped, and preserved his heart in an unbroken
condition during the summer. Much to our rc:
gret, he was appointed to a lieutenancy in a regi-
ment stationed South, after he was mustered out
of the volunteer service ; but the General suc-
ceeded in effecting his transfer to the Seventh Cav-
alry, and after a short service in the South he joined
us at Fort Riley that year.
One of our Detroit friends invited us to go with
a party of pretty women, in a special car, to St.
Louis ; so we had a gay send-off for our new
home. I don’t remember to have had an anxiety
as to the future ; I was wholly given over to the
joy of realizing that the war was over, and, girl-
340
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
like, now the one great danger was passed, I felt as
if all that sort of life was forever ended. At any
rate, the magnetic influence of my husband’s joy-
ous temperament, which would not look on the
dark side, had such power over those around him
that I was impelled to look upon our future as he
did. In St. Louis we had a round of gayety.
The great Fair was then at its best, for everyone
was making haste to dispel the gloom that our
terrible war had cast over the land. There was
not a corner of the Fair-ground to which my hus-
band did not penetrate. He took me into all sorts
of places to which our pretty galaxy of belles,
with their new conquests of St. Louis beaux, had
no interest in going — the stalls of the thorough-
bred horses, when a chat with the jockeys was in-
cluded ; the cattle, costing per head what, we
whispered to each other, would set us up in a
handsome income for life and buy a Blue-grass
farm with blooded horses, etc., which was my
husband’s ideal home. And yet I do not remem-
ber that money ever dwelt very long in our minds,
we learned to have such a royal time on so
little.
There was something that always came before
the Kentucky farm with its thoroughbreds. If
ever he said, ” If I get rich, I’ll tell you what I’ll
do,” I knew as well before he spoke just what was
AT THE FAIR-GROUNDS.
;4it
to follow. In all the twelve years he never al-
tered the first plan — ” I’ll buy a home for father
and mother.” They owned their home in Monroe
then, but it was not good enough to please him ;
nothing was good enough for his mother, but
the dear woman, with her simple tastes, would
have felt far from contented in the sort of home
in which her son longed to place her. All she
asked was to gather her boys around her, so that
she could see them every day.
As we wandered round the Fair-grounds, side-
shows with their monstrosities came into the
General’s programme, and the prize pigs were
never neglected. If we bent over the pens to see
the huge things rolling in lazy contentment, my
husband went back to his farm days, and explained
what taught him to like swine, in which, I admit,
I could not be especially interested. His father
had given each son a pig, with the promise exacted
in return that they should be daily washed and
combed. When the General described the pink
and white collection of pets that his father dis-
tributed among his sons, swine were no longer
swine to me, they were “curled darlings,” as he
pictured them. And now I recall, that long after
he showed such true appreciation of his friend’s
stock on one of the Blue-grass farms in Kentucky,
where we visited, two pigs of royal birth.
;42
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
whose ancestors dated back many generations,
were given to us, and we sent them home to our
farmer brother to keep until we should possess a
place of our own, which was one of the mild
indulgences of our imagination, and which we
hoped would be the diversion of our old age. I
think it rather strange that my husband looked so
fearlessly into the future. I hardly know how
one so active could so calmly contemplate the
days when his steps would be slow. We never
passed on the street an old man with gray curls
lying over his coat-collar, but the General slack-
ened his steps to say in a whisper, ” There, Libbie,
that’s me, forty years from now.” And if there
happened to be John Anderson’s obese old wife
by him toddling painfully along, red and out of
breath, he teasingly added, ” And that’s what you
would like to be.” It was a never-ending source
of argument, that I would be much more success-
ful in the way of looks if I were not so slender ;
and as my husband, even when a lad, liked women
who were slenderly formed, he loved to torment
me, by pointing out to what awful proportions a
woman weighing what was to me a requisite num-
ber of pounds sometimes arrived in old age.
A tournament was given in the great amphi-
theatre of the Fair building in St. Louis, which
was simply delightful to us. The horsemanship
KNIGHT. ERRANTR V.
\43
so pleased my husband that he longed to bound
down into the arena, take a horse, and tilt with
their long lances at the rings. Some of the Con-
federate officers rode for the prizes, and their
knights’ costume and good horses were objects of
momentary envy, as they recalled the riding
academy exercises at West Point. Finally, the
pretty ceremony of crowning the Queen of Love
and Beauty, by the successful knight, ended a real
gala day to us. At night a ball at the hotel gave
us an opportunity to be introduced to the beauti-
ful woman, who sat on a temporary throne in the
dancing-hall, and we thought her well worth tilt-
ing lances for, and that nothing could encourage
good horsemanship like giving as a prize the tem-
porary possession of a pretty girl.
While in St. Louis, we heard Mr. Lawrence
Barrett for the first time. He was of nearly the
same age as my husband, and after three years
soldiering in our war, as a captain in the Twenty-
eighth Massachusetts Infantry, had returned to his
profession, full of ambition and the sort of “go”
that called out instant recognition from the
General.
Mr. Barrett, in recalling lately the first time he
met General Custer, spoke of the embarrassing
predicament in which he was placed by the
impetuous determination of one whom from that
;44
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
hour he cherished as his warmest friend. He
was playing ” Rosedale,” and my husband was
charmed with his rendering of the hero’s part.
He recalled for years the delicate manner with
which the lover allows his wounded hand to be
bound, and the subtle cunning with which he
keeps the fair minister of his hurts winding and
unwinding the bandages. Then Mr. Barrett sang
a song in the play, which the General hummed
for years afterward. I remember his going pell-
mell into the subject whenever we met, even
when Mr. Barrett was justifiably glowing with
pride over his success in the legitimate drama,
and interrupting him to ask why he no longer
played ” Rosedale.” The invariable answer, that
the play required extreme youth in the hero, had
no sort of power to stop the continued demand
for his favorite melodrama. After we had seen
the play — it was then acted for the first time — the
General begged me to wait in the lobby until he
had sought out Mr. Barrett to thank him, and on
our return from theatre we lay in wait, knowing
that he stopped at our hotel. As he was go-
ing quietly to his room — reserved even then,
boy that he was, with not a trace of the impetuous,
ardent lover he had so lately represented before
the footlights — off raced the General up the stairs,
tw^o steps at a time, to capture him. He de-
RAID ON AN ACTOR.
345
murred, saying his rough traveHng suit of gray
was hardly presentable in a drawing-room, but
the General persisted, saying, ” The old lady told
me I must seize you, and go you must, for I don’t
propose to return without fulfilling her orders.”
Mr. Barrett submitted, and was presented to our
party, who had accompanied us on the special
car to St. Louis. The gray clothes were forgotten
in a moment, in the reception we gave him ; but
music came out from the dinino^-room and all
rose to go, as Mr. Barrett supposed, to our rooms.
The General took a lady on his arm, 1, at my
husband’s suggestion, put my hand on Mr. Bar-
rett’s arm, and before he had realized it, he was
being marched into the brilliantly lighted ball-
room, and bowing from force of capture before
the dais on which sat the Queen of Love and
Beauty.
All this delighted the General. Unconven-
tional himself, he nothing heeded the chagrin of
Mr. Barrett over his inappropriate garb, and
chuckled like a schoolboy over his successful raid.
I think Mr. Barrett was not released until he
pleaded the necessity for time to work. He was
then reading and studying far into the night, to
make up for the lapse in his profession that his
army life had caused. He was not so absorbed
in his literary pursuits, however, that he did not
346 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
take in the charm of those beautiful St. Louis
girls, and we three, in many a jolly evening since,
have gone back to the beauty of the bewitching
belles, as they floated by us in that ballroom or
paused to capture the new Riclmtonds on their
already crowded field. Mr. Barrett even remem-
bers that the Queen of Love and Beauty vouch-
safed him the eighth of a dance, for her royal
highness dispensed favors by piece-meal to the
waiting throng about her throne.
Our roving life brought us in contact with
actors frequently. If the General found that Mr.
Barrett was to play in any accessible city, he
hurried me into my traveling-gown, flung his
own dress-coat and my best bonnet in a crumpled
mass into a little trunk, and off we started in per-
suit. It is hard to speak fittingly of the meeting
of those two men. They joyed in each other as
women do, and I tried not to look when they
met or parted, while they gazed with tears into
each other’s eyes and held hands like exuberant
girls. Each kept track of the other’s movements,
through the papers, and rejoiced at every success,
while Mr. Barrett, with the voice my husband
thought perfect in intonation and expression,
always called to him the moment they met, ” Well,
old fellow, hard at work making history, are you ?”
A few evenings since I chanced to see Mr.
DECLINING ARMOR.
347
Barrett’s dresser, the Irish ” Garry,” who had
charge of his costumes in those days when the
General used to haunt the dressing-room in the
last winter we were together in New York. As
Casshis he entered the room in armor, and found
his ” old man Custer ” waiting for him. Garry
tells me that my husband leaped toward the
mailed and helmeted soldier, and gave him some
rousing bangs on the corsleted chest, for they
sparred like boys. Mr. Barrett, parrying the
thrust, said, ” Custer, old man, you ought to have
one of these suits of armor for your work.” ” Ye
gods, no !” said the General, in mimic alarm ;
” with that glistening breast-plate as a target,
every arrow would be directed at me. I’d rather
go naked than in that !”
Kansas in 1866 and Kansas To-day.
In iSbb there were three hundred miles of railroad ; in 1886, six thousand
one hundred and forty -four.
348
CHAPTER XII.
■GOOD-BY TO CIVILIZATION WESTWARD HO ! THE
PRAIRIE-SCHOONER AS WE FIRST SAW IT A FEW-
COMMENTS ON THE WISDOM OF THE ARMY MULE
THE WAGON-MASTER AND MULE-WHACKER AS
TYPES OF WESTERN ECCENTRICITY CARRYING
SUPPLIES TO DISTANT POSTS FIRST OVERLAND
JOURNEY IN AN ARMY AMBULANCE ARRIVAL AT
FORT RILEY BORDER WARFARE BETWEEN QUAR-
RELSOME DOGS THE HOSPITALITY OF OFFICERS
AND THEIR FAMILIES WELCOMED AND HOUSED
BY ONE OF GENERAL CUSTER’s OLD FRIENDS
CHANGING OF QUARTERS ACCORDING TO ARMY
REGULATIONS PREPARING A NEW-COMER FOR
HIS CALL ON THE COMMANDING OFFICER’S FAMILY
THE NEW ARRIVAL PRESENTS HIMSELF IN VERY
FULL DRESS DIANa’s HORSE TELLS TALES GEN-
ERAL CUSTER TAKES HIS DOGS AND GIVES RUN TO
HIS HORSE OVER THE PLAINS HIS HORSES COM-
MUNE WITH HIM AFTER THEIR DUMB FASHION
THE STRENGTH OF HIS ARM RESERVED FOR
THE COUNTRY SEPARATED FROM THE POST BY
THE PRAIRIE DIVIDES — WE TRADE HORSES
PHIL SHERIDAN TESTED ON A RACE-TRACK
FIGHTING DISSIPATION IN THE SEVENTH
CAVALRY GENERAL CUSTER’s TEMPTATIONS
[^O TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
THE FAMILY TEACH HIM TO APPRECIATE HIS SUN-
BURNED NOSE MEN WHO COMMAND THE ADMI-
RATION OF WOMEN THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF
AN ARMY DEMIJOHN.
” I ‘HE junketing and frolic at St. Louis came to
an end in a few days, and our faces were
again turned westward to a life about as different
from the glitter and show of the gay city in a holi-
day week as can be imagined. Leavenworth was
our first halt, and its well-built streets and excellent
stores surprised us. It had long been the outfit-
ting place for our officers. The soldiers drew
supplies from the military post, and the officers
furnished themselves with camp equipage from
the city. Here also they bought condemned
ambulances, and put them in order for traveling-
carriages for their families. I remember getting
a faint glimmer of the climate we were about to
endure, by seeing a wagon floored, and its sides
lined with canvas, which was stuffed to keep out
the cold, while a little sheet-iron stove was firmly
fixed at one end, with a bit of miniature pipe pro-
truding through the roof. The journey from
Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe, New Mexico, then
took six weeks. Everything was transported in
the great army wagons called prairie-schooners.
These were well named, as the two ends of the
352 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
wagon inclined upward, like the bow and stern of
a fore -and -after. It is hard to realize how
strangely a long train of supplies for one of the
distant posts looked, as it wound slowly over the
plains. The blue wagon-beds, with white canvas
covers rising up ever so high, disclosed, in the
small circle where they were drawn together at the
back, all kinds of material for the clothing and
feeding of the army in the distant Territories.
The number of mules to a wagon varies ; some-
times there are four, and again six. The driver
rides the near-wheel mule. He holds in his hand
a broad piece of leather, an inch and a half in
width, which divides over the shoulders of the
lead or pilot mule, and fastens to the bit on either
side of his mouth. The leaders are widely sepa-
rated. A small hickory stick, about five feet
long, called the jockey-stick, not unlike a rake-
handle, is stretched between a pilot and his mate.
This has a little chain at either end, and is at-
tached by a snap or hook to the bit of the other
leader.
When the driver gives one pull on the heavy
strap, the pilot mule veers to the left, and pulls
his mate. Two quick, sudden jerks mean to the
right, and he responds, and pushes his companion
accordingly ; and in this simple manner the ponder-
ous vehicle and all the six animals are guided. . .
GOVERNMENT MULES.
35;
The most spirited mules are selected from the train
for leaders. They cannot be reached by the whip,
and the driver must rely upon the emphasis he puts
into his voice to incite them to effort. They know
their names, and I have seen them respond to a
call, even when not accompanied by the expletives
that seem to be composed especially for this branch
of charioteering. The driver of our mules natur-
ally suppressed his invectives in my presence. The
most profane soldier holds his tongue m a vise
when he is in the presence of a woman, but he is
sorely put to it, to find a substitute for the only
language he considers a mule will heed. I have
seen our driver shake his head, and move his jaws
in an ominous manner, when the provoking
leaders took a skittish leap on one side of the trail,
or turned round and faced him with a protest
against further progress. They were sometimes
so afraid of buffalo, and always of Indians, they
became rebellious to such a degree he was at his
wits’ end to get any further go out of them. It was
in vain he called out, ” You Bet, there ! ” “What
you about, Sal ? ” He plainly showed and said
that he found “such ere tongue-lashing wouldn’t
work worth a rap with them vicious creeturs.”
The driver, if he is not a stolid Mexican, takes
much pride in his mules. By some unknown
means, poor as he is, he possesses himself of fox
154
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
or small coyote tails, which he fastens to their
bridle, and the vagaries in the clipping of the
poor beast’s tails would set the fashion to a Paris
hair-dresser. They are shaved a certain distance,
and then a tuft is left, making a bushy ring. This
is done twice, if Bet or Sal is vouchsafed an append-
age long enough to admit of it ; while the tuft on
the end, though of little use to intimidate flies, is
a marvel of mule-dudism. The coats of the beasts,
so valued sometimes, shine like the fine hair of a
good horse. Alas ! not when, in the final stages
of a long march, the jaded, half-starved beasts
dragged themselves over the trail. Driver and
lead mules even, lose ambition under the scorching
sun, and with the insufficient food and long water-
famines.
The old reliability of a mule-team is the off-
wheeler. It is his leathery sides that can be most
readily reached by the whip called a ” black-
snake,” and when the descent is made into a
stream with muddy bed, the cut is given to this
faithful beast, and on his powerful muscles depends
the wrench that jerks the old schooner out of a
slough. The nigh or saddle mule does his part
in such an emergency, but he soon reasons that,
because he carries the driver, not much more is
expected of him.
The General and I took great interest in the
SIGNIFICANT NAMES.
155
names given to the animals that pulled our trav-
eling-wagon or hauled the supplies. As we rode
by, the voice of the driver bringing out the name
he had chosen, and sometimes affectionately, made
us sure that the woman for whom the beast was
christened was the sweetheart of the apparently
prosaic teamster. I was avowedly romantic, and
the General was equally so, though, after the
fashion of men, he did not proclaim it. Our place
at the head of the column was sometimes vacant,
either because we delayed for our luncheon, or
because my husband remained behind to help the
quartermaster or the head teamster get the train
over a stream. It was then that we had the ad-
vantage of hearing the names conferred on the
mules. They took in a wide range of female
nomenclature, and we found it great fun to watch
the family life of one human being and his six
beasts. My husband had the utmost respect for
a mule’s sense. When I looked upon them as
dull, half-alive animals, he bade me watch how
deceitful were appearances, as they showed such
cunning, and evinced the wisdom of a quick-witted
thoroughbred, when apparently they were unob-
serving, sleepy brutes. It was the General who
made me notice the skill and rapidity with which
a group of six mules would straighten out what
seemed to be a hopeless tangle of chains and har-
356 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ness, into which they had kicked themselves when
there was a disturbance among them. One crack
of the whip from the driver who had tethered
them after a march, accompanied by a plain state-
ment of his opinion of such ” fools,” would send
the whole collection wide apart, and it was but a
twinkling before they extricated themselves from
what 1 thought a hopeless mess. No chains or
straps were broken, and a meek, subdued look
pervading the group, left not a trace of the active
heels that a moment before had filled the air.
“There,” the General used to say, “don’t ever
flatter yourself again that a mule hasn’t sense.
He’s got more wisdom than half the horses in the
line.” It took a good while to convince me, as a
more loggy looking animal can hardly be found
than the army mule, which never in his existence
is expected to go off from a walk, or to vary his
life, from the day he is first harnessed, until he
drops by the way, old or exhausted.
At the time we were first on the Plains, many
of the teamsters were Mexicans, short, swarthy,
dull, and hardly a grade above the animal. The
only ambition of these creatures seemed to be to
vie with one another as to who could snap the
huge ” black-snake ” the loudest. They learned
to whisk the thong at the end around the ears of
a shirking off leader, and crack the lash with such
THE PRAIRIE-SCHOONER SUPPLANTED.
357
an explosive sound that I never got over jumping
in my whole Plains life. I am sorry to say my
high-strung horse usually responded with a spring
that sent me into thin air anywhere between his
ears and his tail, with a good deal of uncertainty
as to where I should alight. I suspect it was an
innocent little amusement of the drivers, when
occasionally we remained behind at nooning, and
had to ride swiftly by the long train to reach the
head of the column.
The prairie-schooner disappeared with the ad-
vancing railroad ; but I am glad to see that
General Meigs has perpetuated its memory, by
causing this old means of transportation to be
made one of the designs in the beautiful frieze
carved around the outside of the Pension Office
at Washington. Ungainly and cumbersome as
these wagons were, they merit some such monu-
ment, as part of the history of the early days of
frontier life in our country. We were in the
West several years before the railroad was com-
pleted to Denver, and the overland trains became
an every-day sight to us. Citizens used oxen a
great deal for transportation, and there is no
picture that represents the weariness and laggard
progress of life like an ox-train bound for Santa
Fe or Denver. The prairie-schooner might set
out freshly painted, or perhaps washed in a creek,
358 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
but it soon became gray with layer upon layer of
alkali dust. The oxen — well, nothing save a snail
can move more slowly — and the exhaustion of
these beasts, after weeks of uninterrupted travel,
was pitiful. Imagine, also, the unending vigil when
the trains were insecurely guarded ; for in those
days there was an immense unprotected frontier,
and seemingly only a handful of cavalry. The
regiments looked well on the roster, but there
were in reality but few men. A regiment should
number twelve hundred enlisted men ; but at no
time, unless during the war, does the recruiting
officer attempt to fill it to the maximum ; seventy
men to a company is a large number. The de-
sertions during the first years of the reorganiza-
tion of the army after the war thinned the ranks
constantly. Recruits could not be sent out fast
enough to fill up the companies. The conse-
quence was, that all those many hundred miles of
trail where the Government undertook to protect
citizens who carried supplies to settlements and
the mines, as well as its own trains of material for
building new posts, and commissary and quarter-
master’s stores for troops, were terribly exposed
and very poorly protected.
” The Indians were, unfortunately, located on the
great highway of Western travel; and commerce,
not less than emigration, demanded their removal.”
0 VERLAMD TRANS FOR TA TION:
159
There are many conflicting opinions as to the
course pursued to clear the way ; but I only wish
to speak now of the impression the trains made
upon me, as we constantly saw the long, dusty,
exhausted-looking column wending its serpentine
way over the sun-baked earth. A group of cav-
alry, with their drooping horses, rode in front and
at the rear. The wagon-master was usually the
very quintessence of valor. It is true he formed
such a habit of shooting that he grew mdiscrimi-
nate, and should any of the lawless desperadoes
whom he hired as teamsters or trainmen ruffle his
blood, kept up to boiling-heat by suspense, physi-
cal exposure, and exasperating employees, he
knew no way of settling troubles except the
effectual quietus that a bullet secures. I well
remember my husband and Tom, who dearly
loved to raise my indignation, and create signs of
horror and detestation at their tales, walking
me down to the Government train to see a wagon-
master who had shot five men. He had emi-
grated from the spot where he bade fair to establish
a private cemetery with his victims. No one
needed a reason for his sudden appearance after
the number of his slain was known. And yet no
questions were put as to his past. He made a
capital wagon-master ; he was obedient to his
superiors, faithful, and on time every morning,
360 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and the prestige of his past record answered so
well with the citizen employees, that his pistol
remained unused in the holster.
It seemed to be expected that the train-master
would be a villain. Whatever was their record as
to the manner of arranging private disputes, a
braver class of men never followed a trail, and
some of them were far superior to their chance
lot. Their tender care of women who crossed in
these slow-moving ox-trains, to join their hus-
bands, ought to be commemorated. I have some-
where read one of the’ir remarks when a girl, going
to her mother, had been secreted in a private
wagon and there was no knowledge of her pres-
ence until the Indians were discovered to be near.
” Tain’t no time to be teamin’ women folks over
the trail, with sech a fearsom sperit for Injuns as I
be.” He, like some of the bravest men I have
known, spoke of himself as timid, while he knew
no fear. It certainly unnerved the most valiant
man when Indians were lurking near, to realize
the fate that hung over women entrusted to their
care. In a later portion of my story occurs an
instance of an officer hiding the woman whose
husband had asked him to take her into the States,
even before firing a shot at the adversary, as he
knew with what redoubled ferocity the savage
would fight, at sight of the white face of a
GRA VES B y THE WA Y-SIDE. 36 1
woman. It makes the heart beat, even to look at
a picture of the old mode of traversing- the high-
way of Western travel. The sight of the pictured
train, seemingly so peacefully lumbering on its
sleepy way, the scarcely revolving wheels, creak-
ing out a protest against even that effort, recalls
the agony, the suspense, the horror, with which
every inch of that long route has been made. The
heaps of stones by the way-side, or the buffalo
bones, collected to mark the spot where some man
fell from an Indian arrow, are now disappearing.
The hurricanes beating upon the hastily prepared
memorials have scattered the bleached bones of
the bison, and rolled into the tufted grass the few
stones with which the train-men, at risk of their
own lives, have delayed long enough to mark their
comrade’s grave.
The faded photographs or the old prints of those
overland trains speak to me but one story. In-
stantly I recall the hourly vigilance, the restless
eyes scanning the horizon, the breathless suspense,
when the pioneers or soldiers knew from unmis-
takable signs that the Indian was lying in wait.
In what contrast to the dull, logy, scarcely moving
oxen were these keen-eyed heroes, with every
nerve strained, every sense on the alert. And
how they were maddened by the fate that con-
signed them, at such moments, to the mercy of
J
62 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
” dull, driven cattle.” When I have seen officers
and soldiers lay their hands lovingly on the neck
of their favorite horse, and perhaps, when no one
was near to scoff at sentiment, say to me, ” He
saved my life,” I knew well what a man felt when
his horse took fire at knowledge of danger to his
rider and sped on the wings of the wind, till he was
lost to his pursuers, a tiny black speck on the hori-
zon. The pathos of a soldier’s parting with his
horse moved us to quick sympathy. It often hap-
pens that a trooper retains the same animal through
his entire enlistment, and it comes to be his most
intimate friend. There is nothing he will not do
to provide him with food ; if the forage runs low
or the grazing is insufficient, stealing for his horse
is reckoned a virtue among soldiers. Imagine,
then, the anxiety, the real suffering, with which a
soldier watches his faithful beast growing weaker
day by day, from exhaustion or partial starvation.
He walks beside him to spare his strength, and
finally, when it is no longer possible to keep up
with the column, and the soldier knows how fatal
the least delay may be in an Indian country, it is
more pitiful than almost any sight I recall, the
sadness of his departure from the skeleton, whose
eyes follow his master in wondering affection,
as he walks away with the saddle and accou-
trements. It is the most merciful farewell if a
A DISMOUNTED CAVALRYMAN. 363
bullet is lodged in the brain of the famished or
exhausted beast, but some one else than his sor-
rowing master has to do the trying deed.
This is not the last act in the harrowing scene.
The soldier overtakes the column, loaded down
with his saddle, if the train is too far away to de-
posit it in the company wagon. Then begms a
tirade of annoying comments to this man, still
grieving over the parting with his best friend.
No one can conceive what sarcasm and wit can
proceed from a column of cavalry. Many of the
men are Irish, and their reputation for humor is
world-wide. “Hullo, there! joined the doe-boys,
eh?” “How do you like hoofing it?” are tame
specimens of the remarks from these tormenting
tongues ; such a fusillade of sneers is followed
not long after by perhaps the one most gibing of
all flinging himself off from his horse, and giving
his mount to the one he has done his best to stir
into wrath. A cavalry man hates, beyond any
telling, enforced pedestrianism, and ” Share and
share alike ” is a motto that our Western soldiers
keep in use.
If the wagons held merchandise only, by which
the pioneer hoped to grow rich, the risk and sus-
pense attending these endless marches were not
worth commemorating ; but the bulk of the freight
was the actual necessities of life. Conceive, if
364 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
you can, how these brave men felt themselves
chained, as they drove or guarded the food for
those living- far in advance. There were not
enough to admit of a charge on the enemy, and
the defensive is an exasperating position for a
soldier or frontiersman. He long^s to advance on
the foe ; but no such privilege was allowed them,
for in these toilsome journeys they had often to
use precautions to hide themselves. If Indians
were discovered to be roaming near, the camp
was established, trains coralled, animals secured
inside a temporary stockade ; the fires for coffee
were forbidden, for smoke rises like a funnel, and
hangs out an instant signal in that clear air. Even
the consoling pipe was smoked under a sage-bush
or in a hollow, if there happened to be a depres-
sion of the ground. Few words were spoken, the
loud oaths sunk into low mutterings, and the bray
of a hungry mule, the clank of wagon-chains, or
the stamping of cattle on the baked earth,
sounded like thunder in the ears of the anxious,
expectant men.
Fortunately, our journey in these trains was not
at once forced upon us at Leavenworth. The
Kansas Pacific Railroad, projected to Denver, was
built within ten miles of Fort Riley, and it was to
be the future duty of the Seventh Cavalry, to guard
the engineers in building the remainder of the
A FRONTIER OUTFIT. 365
road out to the Rocky Mountains. It did not take
us long to purchase an outfit in the shops, for as
usual our finances were low, and consequently
our wants were curtailed. We had the sense to
listen to a hint from some practical officer who
had been far beyond railroads, and buy a cook-
stove the first thing, and this proved to be the
most important of our possessions when we
reached our post, so far from the land of shops.
Not many hours after we left Leavenworth, the
settlements became farther and farther apart, and
we began to realize that we were actual pioneers !
Kansas City was then but a small town, seemingly
with a hopeless future, as the bluffs rose so steeply
from the river, and even when the summit was
reached, the ups and downs of the streets were
discouraging. It seemed, then, as if it would never
be worth while to use it as a site for a town ; there
would be a life-time of grading. It is very easy
to become a city forefather in such a town, for in
the twenty-one years since then, it has grown into
a city of over 132,000 inhabitants — but they are
still grading. The lots which we could have had
almost for the asking, sell now for $1,000 a front
foot. Topeka, the capital, showed no evidence
of its importance, except the little circle of stars
that surrounded it on our atlas. There were but
three towns beyond Fort Riley then, and those
366 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
were built, if I may so express it, of canvas and
dug-outs.
Our railroad journey came to an end about ten
miles from Fort Riley. The laborers were laying
track from that point. It had been a sort of gala
day, for General Sherman, on one of his tours of
inspection of the frontier posts, had been asked
by railroad officials to drive the final spike of the
division of the road then finished. We found a
wagon waiting for our luggage, and an ambulance
to carry us the rest of the journey. These
vehicles are not uncomfortable, when the long
seats on either side are so arranged that they
make a bed for the ill or wounded by spreading
them out, but as traveling conveyances I could
not call them a success. The seats are narrow,
with no back to speak of, and covered with car-
riage-cloth, which can keep you occupied, if the
country is rough, in regaining the slippery surface
for any number of miles at a stretch. Fort Riley
came in sight when we were pretty well tired out.
It was m*y first view of a frontier post. I had
either been afraid to confess my ignorance, or so
assured there was but one variety of fort, and the
subject needed no investigation, that Fort Riley
came upon me as a great surprise. I supposed, of
course, it would be exactly like Fortress Monroe,
with stone walls, turrets for the sentinels, and a
THE ROLLING PLAINS. 367
deep moat. As I had heard more and more about
Indians since reaching Kansas, a vision of the en-
closure where we would eventually live was a
great comfort to me. I could scarcely believe
that the buildings, a story and a half high, placed
around a parade ground, were all there was of
Fort Riley. The sutler’s store, the quartermaster
and commissary storehouses, and the stables for
the cavalry horses, were outside the square, near
the post, and that was all. No trees, and hardly
any signs of vegetation except the buffalo-grass
that curled its sweet blades close to the ground,
as if to protect the nourishment it held from the
blazing sun. The post was beautifully situated
on a wide plateau, at the junction of the Republi-
can and Smoky Hill rivers. The Plains, as they
waved away on all sides of us like the surface of
a vast ocean, had the charm of great novelty, and
the absence of trees was at first forgotten, in the
fascination of seeing such an immense stretch of
country, with the soft undulations of green turf
rolling on, seemingly, to the setting sun. The eye
was relieved by the fringe of cotton-wood that
bordered the rivers below us.
Though we came afterward to know, on toil-
some marches under the sweltering sun, when
that orb was sometimes not even hidden for one
moment in the day by a grateful cloud, but the
•;68 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
sky was spread over as a vast canopy of dazzling
blue, that enthusiasm would not outlast such trials;
still, a rarely exultant feeling takes possession of
one in the gallops over the Plains, when in early
spring they are a trackless sea of soft verdure.
And the enthusiasm returns when the campaign
for the summer is over, and riding is taken up for
pleasure. My husband was full of delight over
the exquisite haze that covered the land with
a faint purple light, and exclaimed, ” Now I
begin to realize what all that transparent veil of
faint color means in Bierstadt’s paintings of the
Rocky Mountains and the West.” But we had
little time to take in atmospheric effects, as even-
ing was coming on and we were yet to be housed,
while servants, horses, dogs and all of us were
hungry, after our long drive. The General halted
the wagon outside the post, and left us, to go and
report to the commanding officer.
At that time I knew nothing of the hospitality
of a frontier post, and I begged to remain in the
wagon until our quarters were assigned us in the
garrison. Up to this time we had all been m
splendid spirits ; the novelty, the lovely day and
exhilarating air, and all the possibilities of a future
with a house of our own, or, rather, one lent to
us by Uncle Sam, seemed to fill up a delightful
cup to the brim. We sat outside the post so long —
TIRED PIONEERS.
;69
at least it seemed so to us — and grew hungrier and
thirstier, that there were evident signs of mutiny.
The truth is, whenever the General was with us,
with his determination of thniking that nothing
could exceed his surroundings, it was almost im-
possible to look upon anything except in the light
that he did. He gave color to everything, with
his hopeful views. Eliza sat on the seat with the
driver, and both muttered occasional hungry
words, but our Diana and I had the worst of it. We
had bumped over the country, sometimes violently
jammed against the framework of the canvas
cover, and most of the time slidmg off from the
slippery cushions upon the insulted dogs — for of
course the General had begged a place for two of
them. He had kept them in order all the way
from the termination of the railroad ; but now that
he was absent, Turk and Byron renewed hostilities,
and in the narrow space they scrambled and
snarled and sprang at each other. When the
General came back, he found the little hands of
our curly-headed girl clenched over the collar of
Byron at one end of the ambulance, while Turk
sat on my lap, swelling with rage because my
fingers were twisted in the chain that held him, as
I sat at the door shaking with terror. It was
quick work to jerk the burly brute out of the door,
and end our troubles for the time ; but the General,
370
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
after quieting our panic, threw us into a new one
by saying we must make up our minds to be the
guests of the commanding officer. Tired, travel-
stamed, and unaccustomed to what afterward be-
came comparatively easy, we were driven to one
of the quarters and made our entrance among
strangers. I then reahzed, for the first time, that
we had reached a spot where the comforts of hfe
could not be had for love or money.
It is a strange sensation to arrive at a place
where money is of little use in providing shelter,
and here we were beyond even the commonest
railroad hotel. Mrs. Gibbs, who received us, was
put to a severe test that night. Already a room
in her small house had been prepared for General
Sherman, who had arrived earlier in the day, and
now there were five of us bearing down upon her.
I told her how I had begged to be allowed to go
into quarters, even though there were no prepara-
tions, not even a fire-place where Eliza could have
cooked us food enough over the coals to stay
hunger ; but she assured me that, having been on
the Plains before the war, she was quite accus-
tomed to a state of affairs where there was nothing
to do but quarter yourself upon strangers ; and
then gave up her own room to our use. From
that night — which was a real trial to me, because I
felt so keenly the trouble we caused them all —
GENUINE HOSPITALITY. 37I
dates the beginning of a friendship that has lasted
through the darkest as well as the brightest hours
of my life. I used to try to remember after-
ward, when for nine years we received and enter-
tained strangers who had nowhere else to go, the
example of undisturbed hospitality shown me by
my first friend on the frontier.
The next day my husband assumed command
of the garrison, and our few effects were moved
into a large double house built for the command-
ing officer. There were parlors on one side, whose
huge folding doors were flung open, and made our
few articles of furniture look lonely and meagre.
We had but six wooden chairs to begin with, and
when, a few miles more of the railroad being com-
pleted, a party of one hundred and fifty excur-
sionists arrived, I seated six of them — yes, seven,
for one was tired enough to sit on a trunk — and
then concluded I would own up that in the larger
rooms of the house, into which they looked sig-
nificantly, there were no more chairs concealed.
I had done my best, and tried to make up for not
seating or feeding them by very busy talking.
Meanwhile there were incessant inquiries for the
General. It seems that he had begun that little
trick of hiding from strangers, even then. He
had seen the advancing column of tourists, and
fled. One of the servants finally unearthed him,
72
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and after they had gone and he found that I had
been so troubled to think I could do nothing for
the citizens, and so worried because he was 71011
est, he did not leave me in such strait again until
I had learned to adapt myself to the customs of
the country where the maxim that “every man’s
house is his castle ” is a fallacy.
.The officers who had garrisoned the post began
to move out as our own Seventh Cavalry officers
reported for duty. The colonel of the regiment
arrived, and ranked us out of our quarters, in this
instance much to our relief, as the barrack of a
building would never fill up from the slow rate at
which our belongings increased. This army regu-
lation, to which I have elsewhere referred, was
then new to me. The manner in which the Gov-
ernment sees fit to arrange quarters is still amusing
to me, but I suppose no better plan has ever been
thought out. In the beginning of a well-built
post, there is but little choice. It is the aim to
make the houses, except that of the commanding
officer, exactly alike. From time to time new
quarters are built. The original plan is not fol-
low^ed; possibly a few improvements are added to
the newer houses. Ah ! then the disturbance en-
sues ! Fort Vancouver, in Washington Territory,
is one of the old posts, quite interesting from the
heterogeneous collection of quarters added
” RANKING out:’
through fifty years. I was spending a day or two,
in 1875, with my husband’s niece, whose husband
was some distance down on the Ust, and conse-
quently occupied a low log building, that dated
back no one knows how far. Even in that little
cabin they were insecure, for in reply to my ques-
tion, ” Surely you are permanently fixed, and won’t
be moved,” they pathetically answered: ” Not by
any means ! We live from hour to hour in uncer-
tainty, and there are worse quarters than these,
which we walk by daily with dread, as
ranks us, and he is going to be married, so out
we go ! “
Assigning quarters according to rank goes on
smoothly for a time, but occasionally an officer re-
ports for duty who ranks everyone. Not long
ago this happened at a distant post, and the whole
line went down like a row of bricks, as eight
officers’ families were ousted by his arrival, the
lowest in rank having to move out one of the non-
commissioned officers who had lived in a little
cabin with two rooms. If possible, in choosing a
time to visit our frontier posts, let this climax of
affairs be avoided. Where there is little to vary
life the monotony is apt to be deeply stirred by
private rages, which would blow away in smoke if
there was anything else to think of. It is rather
harrowing to know that some one has an eye on
74
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the home you have furnished with your own
means. I could hardly blame a man I knew, who,
in an outburst of wrath concerning- an officer who
had at last uprooted him, secretly rejoiced that a
small room that had been the object of envy,
having been built at the impoverished post of
refuse lumber from the stables, was unendurable
on a warm day; and the new possessor was left to
find it out when he had settled himself in the
coveted house.
After our quarters were chosen by the Colonel,
we took another house, of moderate size, bought
a few pieces of furniture of an officer leaving the
post, and began to live our first home-like life.
The arrival of the new officers was for a time our
only excitement. Most of them had been in the
volunteer service, and knew nothing of the regular
army. There was no one to play practical jokes
on the first comers ; but they had made some
ridiculous errors in dress and deportment, when
reporting at first, and they longed to take out
their mortification at these harmless mistakes, by
laying pit-falls for the verdant ones who were
constantly arriving. The discipline of the regular
army, and the punctilious observance compelling
the wearing of the uniform, was something totally
new to men who had known little of parades in
their fighting days in the tented field. If it was
376 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
possible to intimidate a new officer by tales of the
strictness of the commanding officer regarding the
personal appearance of his regiment, they did
so. One by one, those who had preceded the last
comer called in to pay their compliments ; but by
previous agreement they one and all dwelt upon
the necessity of his making a careful toilet before
he approached the august presence of the Lieuten-
ant-colonel. Then one or two offered carelessly
to help him get himself up for the occasion. Our
brother Tom had arrived by this time, but there
was nothing to be made out of him, for he had
served a few months with a regular regiment be-
fore being transferred to ours. He was therefore
sent one day to prepare me for the call of an officer
who had been assisted into his new uniform by
the mischievous knot of men who had been longest
with us. If I had known to what test I was to be
put to keep my face straight, or had dreamed
what a gullible creature had come into their ro-
guish hands, I would not have consented to re-
ceive him. But it was one of the imperative rules
that each officer, after reporting for duty, must
pay a formal visit to the commanding officer and
his family. I went into the parlor to find a large
and at that time awkward man. in full uniform,
which was undeniably a tight fit for his rather
portly figure. He wore cavalry boots, the first
^.V ELABORA TE TOIL ET -^-jj
singularity I noticed, for they had such expanse of
top I could not help seeing them. They are of
course out of order with a dress coat. The red
sash, which was then en regie for all officers, was
spread from up under his arms to as far below the
waist line as its elastic silk could be stretched.
The sword-belt, with sabre attached, surrounded
this : and, folded over the wide red front, were
his large hands, encased in white cotton gloves.
He never moved them ; nor did he move an eye-
lash, so far as I could discover, though it seems he
was full of internal tremors, for the officers had told
him on no account to remove his regulation hat.
At this he demurred, and told them I would surely
think he was no gentleman ; but they assured him
I placed military etiquette far above any ordinary
rule for manners in the presence of ladies, while
the truth was I was rather indififerent as to militarv
rules of dress. As this poor man sat there, I could
think of nothing but a child who is so carefully
dressed in new furbelows that it sits as if it were
carved out of wood, for fear of disarrano^inor the
finished toilet. Diana made almost an instant
excuse to leave the room. The General’s mus-
tache quivered, and he moved restlessly around,
even coming again to shake hands with the autom-
aton and bid him welcome to the regiment ; but
finally he dashed out of the door to enjoy the out-
378 TENTIXG ON THE PLAINS.
burst of mirth that he could no longer control. I
was thus left to meet the situation as best I could,
but was not as fortunate as the General, who had
a friendly mustache to curtain the quiver in his
mouth. The poor victim apparently recalled to
himself the martial attitude of Washington cross-
ing the Delaware, or Napoleon at Waterloo, and
did not alter the first position he had assumed. In
trying to prevent him from seeing my confusion,
I redoubled my efforts to entertain him, and suc-
ceeded only too well, for when he slowly moved
out of the door I found myself tired out, and full
of wrath toward my returning family. I never
could remember that these little spurts of rage
were the primest fun for my people. The poor
officer who had been so guyed did not gratify his
tormentors by getting angry, but fell to planning
new mischief for the next arrival. He lost no
time in begging my pardon for the hat, and
though I never saw much of him afterward, he
left only pleasant impressions on my mind of a
kind-hearted man, and one of those rare beings
who knew how to take a joke.
We derived great pleasure from our horses and
dogs during the autumn. A very pretty sorrel
horse was selected for Diana, but we had little
opportunity to have her for a companion. The
young officers engaged her a week in advan.ce,
A SNUGGLING HORSE. -> yg
and about all we saw of her riding was an ava-
lanche of flying- curls as she galloped off beside
some dashing- cavalier. I remember once, when
she was engaged otherwise, and my horse tempo-
rarily disabled, I took hers, and my husband kept
begging me to guide the animal better, for it was
nettling his fiery beast by insisting upon too close
proximity. It finally dawned upon us that the
little horse was a constitutional snuggler, and we
gave up trying to teach him new tricks. But how
the General shouted, and bent himself forward
and back in his saddle, after the horse had almost
crushed his leg and nothing would keep him at a
distance. He could hardly wait to get back to
garrison, and when we did, he walked into the
midst of a collection of the beaux and told the
whole story of how dreadfully demoralized a
cavalry horse in good and regular standing could
become, in the hands of a belle. The girl blushed,
and the officers joined in the laughter, and yet
every one of them had doubtless been busy in
teaching that little tell-tale animal this new de-
velopment of character.
It was delightful ground to ride over about Fort
Riley. Ah ! what happy days they were, for at
that time I had not the slightest realization of what
Indian warfare was, and consequently no dread.
We knew that the country they infested was many
380 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
miles away, and we could ride in any direction we
chose. The dogs would be aroused from the
deepest sleep at the very sight of our riding cos-
tumes, and by the time we were well into them
and whip in hand, they leaped and sprang about
the room, tore out on the gallery, and tumbled
over one another and the furniture in racing back,,
and such a din of barking and joyful whining as
they set up — the noisier the better for my husband.
He snapped his English whip to incite them, and
bounded around crying out, “Whoop ’em up!
whoop ’em up !” adding to the melee by a toot
on the dog-horn he had brought from the Texas
deer-hunts. All this excited the horses, and when
I was tossed into the saddle amidst this turmoiU
with the dogs leaping around the horses’ heads, I
hardly knew whether I was myself or the ven-
turesome young woman who spends her life in
taking airy flights through paper-covered circles
in a saw-dust ring. It took some years for me to
accustom myself to the wild din and hubbub of
our starting for a ride or a hunt. As I have said
before, I had lived quietly at home, and my dec-
orous, suppressed father and mother never even
spoke above a certain tone. The General’s father,
on the contrary, had rallied his sons with a hallo
and resounding shouts from their boyhood. So
the huUaballoo of all our merry startings was a
A SPRINGY TURF.
thing of my husband’s early days, and added zest
to every sport he undertook.
Coming from Michigan, where there is a Uberal
dispensation of swamp and quagmire, having been
taught by dear experience that Virginia had
quicksands and sloughs into which one could dis^
appear with great rapidity, and finally having
experienced Texas with its bayous, baked with a
deceiving crust of mud, and its rivers with quick-
sand beds, very naturally I guided my horse
around any lands that had even a depression.
Indeed, he spoke volumes with his sensitive ears,
as the turf darkened in hollows, and was ready
enough to be guided by the rein on his satin-like
neck, to the safer ground. It was a long time
before I realized that all the Plains were safe. We
chose no path, and stopped at no suspicion of a
slough. Without a check on the rein, we flew
over divide after divide, and it is beyond my pen
to describe the wild sense of freedom that takes
possession of one in the first buoyant knowledge
that no impediment, seemingly, Hes between you
and the setting sun. After one has ridden over
conventional highways, the beaten path marked
out by fences, hedges, bridges, etc., it is simply an
impossibility to describe how the blood bounds in
the veins at the freedom of an illimitable sea.
No spongy, uncertain ground checks the course
382 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
over the Plains ; it is seldom even damp, and the
air is so exhilarating one feels as if he had never
breathed a full breath before. Almost the first
words General Sherman said to me out there
were, ” Child, you’ll find the air of the Plains is
like champagne,” and so it surely was. Oh, the
joy of taking in air without a taint of the city, or
even the country, as we know it in farm life ! As
we rode on, speaking enthusiastically of the fra-
grance and purity of the atmosphere, our horses
neighed and whinnied to each other, and snuffed
the air, as if approving all that was said of that
” land of the free.’^ My husband could hardly
breathe, from the very ecstasy of realizing that
nothing trammeled him. He scarcely left the
garrison behind him, where he was bound by
chains of form and ceremony — the inevitable lot
of an officer, where all his acts are under surveil-
lance, where he is obliged to know that every
hour in the day he is setting an example — be-
fore he became the wildest and most frolicsome
of light-hearted boys. His horse and he were one,
not only as he sat in the saddle a part of the ani-
mal, swayed by every motion of the active,
graceful beast, but such unison of spirit took
possession of each, it was hard to believe that a
human heart did not beat under the broad,
splendid chest of the high-strung animal.
A FEARLESS HORSEMAN. ■;^St,
It were well if human hearts responded to our
fondness, and came instantly to be en rapport
with us, as did those dear animals when they flew
with us out to freedom and frolic, over the di-
vides that screened us from the conventional
proprieties. My husband’s horse had almost
human ways of talking with him, as he leaned far
out of the saddle and laid his face on the gallant
animal’s head, and there was a gleam in the eye,
a proud little toss of the head, speaking back a
whole world of affection. The General could ride
hanging quite out of sight from the opposite side,
one foot caught in the stirrup, his hand on the
mane ; and it made no difference to his beloved
friend, he took any mode that his master chose to
cling to him as a matter of course, and curvetted
and pranced in the loftiest, proudest way. His
manner said as plainly as speech, ” See what we
two can do ! ” I rarely knew him have a horse
that did not soon become so pervaded with his
spirit that they appeared to be absolutely one in
feeling. I was obliged, usually, to submit to some
bantering slur on my splendid Custis Lee. Per-
haps a dash at first would carry the General and
the dogs somewhat in advance. My side had a
trick of aching if we started off on a gallop, and I
was obliged to keep a tight rein on Custis Lee at
first, as he champed at the bit, tossed his impa-
384 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
tient head, and showed every sign of ignominious
shame. The General, as usual, called out, ” Come
on, old lady ! Chug up that old plug of yours ;
I’ve got one orderly ; don’t want another ” — this
because the soldier in attendance is instructed to
ride at a certain distance in the rear. After a
spurt of tremendous speed, back flew the master
to beg me to excuse him ; he was ready now to
ride slowly till “that side of mine came round to
time,” w^hich it quickly did, and then I revenged
the insult on my swift Lee, and the maligner at
last called out, ” That’s not so bad a nag, after all.”
The horses bounded from the springy turf as if
they really hated the necessity of touching the
sod at all. They were very well matched in
speed, and as on we flew w^e were ” neck by neck,
stride by stride, never changing our place.” Breath-
less at last, horses, dogs and ourselves made a
halt. The orderly wath his slow troop horse was
a speck in the distance. Of course I had gone to
pieces little by little, between the mad speed and
rushing through the wind of the Plains. Those
were ignominious days for women — thank fortune
they are over! Custom made it necessary to dis-
figure ourselves with the awkward water-fall, and,
no matter how luxuriant the hair, it seemed a
necessity to still pile up more. With many a
wrathful opinion regarding the fashion, the General
HORSES AS COMPANIONS. 385
took the hairpins, net and switch, and thrust them
into the breast of his coat, as he said, ” to clear the
decks for action for another race.” It was enough
that he offered to carry these barbarities of civiUza-
tion for me, without my bantering him about his
ridiculousness if some accidental opening of his
coat in the presence of the officers, who were then
strangers, revealed what he scoffingly called ” dead
women’s hair.”
A fresh repinning, an ignoring of hairpins this
time,regirting of saddles, some proud patting of the
horses’ quivering flanks, passing of the hand over
the full veins of their necks, praise of the beautiful
distended, blood-red nostrils, and up we leap for
another race. If spur or whip had been used in
speeding our horses, it would have spoiled the
sport for me, as the effort and strain looks so
cruelly like work ; but the animals were as im-
patient for a run as w^e were to start them. It
must be a rare moment of pleasure to all horse-
lovers, to watch an animal flying over the ground,
without an incentive save the love of motion born
in the beast. When we came to certain smooth
stretches on the road, where we were accustomed
to give the horse the rein, they grew excited and
impatient, and teased for the run if we chanced
to be earnestly talking and forgot to take it. How
fortunate is one who can ride a mythological
386 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Pegasus as well as a veritable horse ! There is
nothing left for the less gifted but to use others’
words for our own enthusiasm.
“Now we’re off, like the winds, to the plains whence they came;
And the rapture of motion is thrilling my frame !
On, on, speeds my courser, scarce printing the sod,
Scarce crushing a daisy to mark where we trod;
On, on, like a deer when the hounds’ early bay
Awakes the wild echoes, away and away!
Still faster, still farther, he leaps at my cheer.
Till the rush of the startled air whirs in my ear!”
Buchanan Read not only made General Sheri-
dan’s splendid black horse immortal, but his grate-
ful owner kept that faithful beast, when it was
disabled, in a paddock at Leavenworth, and then,
when age and old wounds ended his life, he per-
petuated his memory by having the taxidermist
set him up in the Military Museum at Governor’s
Island, that the boys of this day, to whom the war
is only history, may remember what a splendid
part a horse took in those days, when soldiers
were not the only heroes. I thank a poet for
having written thus for us to whom the horse is
almost human.
” I tell thee, stranger, that unto me
The plunge of a fiery steed
Is a noble thought— to the brave and free
It is music, and breath, and majesty —
‘Tis the life of a noble deed;
And the heart and the mind are in spirit allied
In the charm of a morning’s glorious ride.”
A SUSPENDED EQUESTRIENNE.
387
388 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
There was a long, smooth stretch of land be-
yond Fort Riley, where we used to speed our
horses, and it even now seems one of the fair spots
of earth, it is so marked by happy hours. In real-
ity it was a level plain without a tree, and the
dried buffalo-grass had then scarcely a tinge of
green. This neutral-tinted, monotonous surface
continued for many unvarying miles. We could
do as we chose after we had passed out of sight of
the garrison, and our orderly, if he happened to
have a decent horse, kept drawing the muscles of
his face into a soldierly expression, trying not to be
so undignified as to laugh at the gamesomeness,
the frolic, of his commanding officer. What a re-
lief for the poor fellow, in his uneventful life, to
get a look at these pranks ! I can see him now,
trymg to keep his head away and look unconscious,
but his eyes turned in their sockets in spite of him
and caught it all. Those eyes were wild with
terror one day, when our horses were going full
tilt, and the General with one powerful arm, lifted
me out of my saddle and held me poised in the
air for a moment. Our horses were so evenly
matched in speed they were neck and neck, keep-
ing close to each other, seemingly regardless of
anything except the delight at the speed with
which they left the country behind them. In the
brief moment that I found myself suspended be-
A SUDDEN ELEVATION. 389
tween heaven and earth, I thought, with Ughtning
rapidity, that I must chng to my bridle and keep
control of my flying horse, and trust to good for-
tune whether I alighted on his ear or his tail.
The moment I was thus held aloft was an hour in
uncertainty, but nothing happened, and it taught
me to prepare for sudden raids of the commanding
officer after that. I read of this feat in some novel,
but was incredulous until it was successfully prac-
ticed on me. The Custer men were given to what
their Maryland father called ” toting ” us around.
I’ve seen them pick up their mother and carry her
over the house as if she weighed fifty instead of one
hundred and fifty pounds. There was no chance
for dignified anger with them. No matter how
indignant I might be, or how loftily I might
answer back, or try one of those eloquent silences
to which we women sometimes resort in moments
of wrath, I was snatched up by either my husband
or Tom, and had a chance to commune wath the
ceiling in my airy flight up and down stairs and
through the rooms.
One of our rides marked a day with me, for it
was the occasion of a very successful exchange of
horses. My husband used laughingly to refer to
the transaction as unfortunate for him ; but as it
was at his suggestion, I clung with pertinacity to
the bargain. My horse, Custis Lee, being a pacer.
390 TEX TING ON THE PLAINS.
my husband felt in the fascination of that smooth,
swift gait I might be so wedded to it I could never
endure anything else ; so he suggested, while we
were far out on our evening ride, that we change
saddles and try each other’s horse. I objected, for
though I could ride a spirited horse when I had
come to know him, I dreaded the early stages of
acquaintance. Besides, Phil was a high-strung
colt, and it was a venturesome experiment to try
him with a long riding-skirt, loaded with shot,
knocking about his legs. At that time the safe
fashion of short habits was not in vogue, and the
high winds of Kansas left no alternative to load-
ing our skirts. We kept opening the hem and in-
serting the little shot-bags as long as we lived
there. Fortunately for me, I was persuaded into
trying the colt. As soon as he broke into a long
swinging trot, I was so enchanted and so hilarious
with the motion, that I mentally resolved never to
yield the honor temporarily conferred upon me.
It was the beginning of an eternal vigilance for my
husband. The animal was so high-strung, so
quick, notwithstanding he was so large, that he
sprang from one side of the road to the other on
all fours, without the slightest warning. After I
had checked him and recovered my breath, we
looked about for a cause for this fright, and found
only the dark earth where slight moisture had re-
“FHW CHANGES HANDS.
;9i
mained from a shower. In order to get the
smoothest trotting- out of him, I rode with a
snaffle, and I never knew the General’s eyes to be
off him for more than an instant. The officers
protested, and implored my husband to change
back and give me the pacer. But his pride was
up, and he enjoyed seeing the animal on fire with
delight at doing his best under a light weight, and
he had genuine love for the brute that, though so
hard to manage in his hands, responded to my
lightest touch or to my voice.
As time advanced and our regiment gained
better and better horseflesh, it was a favorite
scheme to pit Phil against new-comers. We all
started out, a gay cavalcade of noisy, happy
people, and the stranger was given the post of
honor next to the wife of the commanding officer.
Of course he thought nothing of this, as he had
been at the right of the hostess at dinner. The
other officers saw him take his place as if it were
the most natural thing in the world, but in reality
it was a deep-laid plot. Phil started off with so
little effort that our visitor thought nothing of
keeping pace for a while, and then he began to
use his spurs. As my colt took longer and longer
strides, there was triumph in the faces of the offi-
cers, and a big gleam of delight in the General’s
eye. Then came the perplexity in my guest’s face
392
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
at a trotter outdoing the most splendid specimen
of a loping horse, as he thought. A little glance
from my husband, which incited me to give a sign
and a low word or two that only Phil and I under-
stood, and off we flew, leaving the mystified man
urging his nag in vain. It was not quite my idea
of hospitality so to introduce a new-comer to our
horses’ speed ; but then he was not a transient
guest, and the sooner he knew all our “tricks and
our manners ” the better, while it was beyond my
power of self-denial to miss seeing the proud tri-
umph in my husband’s eyes as he rode up and
patted the colt and received the little return of
affection from the knowing beast. Phil went on im-
proving in gait and swiftness as he grew in years,
and I once had the courage, afterward, to speed him
on the Government race-track at Fort Leaven-
worth, though to this day I cannot understand
how I got up to concert pitch ; and I could never
be induced to try such an experiment again. I
suppose I often made as good time, trotting beside
my husband’s horse, but to go alone was some-
thing I was never permitted to do on a roadway.
The General and brother Tom connived to get
this bit of temporary courage out of me by an off-
hand conversation, as we rode toward the track,
regarding what Phil might be made to do under
the best circumstances, which I knew meant the
AN EXCITING RIDE. ^^^
-snaffle-rein, a light weight, and my hand, which
the General had trained to be steady. I tried to
beg off and suggest either one of them for the
trial ; but the curb which they were obliged to use,
as Phil was no easy brute to manage with them,
made him break his gait, and a hundred and sev-
enty pounds on his back was another obstacle to
speed. It ended in my being teased into the
experiment, and though I called out, after the first
half-mile, that I could not breathe any longer, the
air rushed into my lungs so rapidly, they implored
and urged by gesture and enthusiastic praise, until
I made the mile they had believed Phil equal to
in three minutes.
I wieh I could describe what delight my hus-
band took in his horse life, what hours of recrea-
tion and untiring pleasure he got out of our com-
panionship with Jack Rucker, Phil and Custis Lee.
On that day we three and our orderly were alone
on the track, and such a merry, noisy, care-forget-
ting three as we were ! the General, with his stop-
watch in hand, cheering me, urging the horse
wildly, clapping his hands, and hallooing with
joy as the animal responded to his expectation.
Phil’s coming up to their boasts and anticipations
was just a little episode in our life that went to
prove what a rare faculty he had of getting much
out of little, and of how persistently the boy in
)94
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
him cropped out as soon as an opportunity came
to throw care aside. It is one of the results of a
Ufe of deprivation, that pleasures, when they come,
are rarities, and the enjoyment is intensified. In
our life they lasted so short a time that we had
no chance to learn the meaning of satiety.
One of the hardest trials, in our first winter with
the regiment, was that arising from the constantly
developing tendency to hard drinking. Some who
came to us had held up for a time, but they were
not restricted in the volunteer service, as a man
who fought well was forgiven much else that
came, in the rare intervals of peace. In the new
state of aff’airs, as went the first few months of the
regiment, so would it go for all time. There was
a regiment stationed in New Mexico at that time,
the record of which was shameful. We heard of
its career by every overland train that came into
our post, and from officers who went out on duty.
General Sherman said that, with such a set of
drunkards, the regiment, officers and all, should be
mustered out of the service. Anything, then, rather
than let our Seventh follow such a course. But I
must not leave the regiment at that point in its
history. Eventually it came out all right, ably
officered and well soldiered, but it was the terror
of the country in 1867. While General Custer
steadily fought against drunkenness, he was not
ALONE ON A BA TTLE-FIELD.
595
remorseless or unjust. I could cite one instance
after another, to prove with what patience he strove
to reclaim some who were, I fear, hopeless when
they joined us. His own greatest battles were
not fought in the tented field ; his most glori-
ous combats were those waged in daily, hourly,
fights on a more hotly contested field than was
ever known in common warfare. The truest
heroism is not that which goes out supported by
strong battalions and reserve artillery. It is when
a warrior for the right enters into the conflict alone,
and dares to exercise his will, in defiance of some
established custom in which lies a lurking, deadly
peril or sin. I have known my husband to almost
stand alone in his opinion regarding temperance,
in a garrison containing enough people to make a
good-sized village. He was thoroughly unosten-
tatious about his convictions, and rarely said
much ; but he stood to his fixed purpose, purely
from horror of the results of drinking. I would
not imply that in garrison General Custer was the
only man invariably temperate. There were some
on pledge ; some temperate because they paid such
a physical penalty by actual illness that they
could not drink ; some restrained because their best
loved comrade, weak in his own might, ” swore
off ” on consideration that the stronger one of the
two backed him up ; some (God bless them !) re-
396 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
fused because the woman they loved grieved, and
was afraid of even one friendly glass. What I mean
is, that the general custom, against which there is
little opposition in any life, is, either to indulge in
the social glass, or look leniently upon the habit.
Without preaching or parading his own strength
in having overcome the habit. General Custer
stood among the officers and men as firm an advo-
cate of temperance as any evangelist whose life is
devoted to the cause.
I scarcely think I would have realized the con-
stantly recurring temptations of my husband’s life,
had I not been beside him when he fought these
oft-repeated battles. The pleasure he had in con-
vivial life, the manner in which men and women
urged him to join them in enjoyment of the spark-
ling wine, was enough to have swept every resolu-
tion to the winds. Sometimes, the keen blade of
sarcasm, though set with jewels of wit and appar-
ent badinage, added a cut that my ears, so quick-
ened to my husband’s hard position, heard and
grieved over. But he laughed off the carefully
concealed thrust. When we were at home in our
own room, if I asked him, blazing anew with
wrath at such a stab, how he kept his temper, he
replied, “Why notice it? Don’t I know what I’ve
been through to gain my victory ? That fellow,
you must remember, has fought and lost, and
RESE.YTIXG AN INSUL T. 397
knows in his soul he’ll go to the dogs if he doesn’t
hold up, and, Libbie, he can’t do it, and I am
sorry for him.” Our brother Tom was less patient,
less forbearing, for in one of his times of pledge,
when the noble fellow had given his word not to
taste a drop for a certain season if a man he loved,
and about whom he was anxious, would do the
same, he was sneered at by a brother officer, with
gibes at his supposed or attempted superiority,
Tom leaped across the table in the tent where
they sat at dinner, and shook up his assailant in a
very emphatic way. I laugh in remembrance of
his choler, and am proud of it now. I, as ” gentle-
woman,” descended from a hne of decorous gen-
tlemen and ladies, ought to be horrified at one
man’s seizing another by the collar and pouncing
upon him, regardless of the Marquis of Queens-
bury rules. But I know that circumstances alter
cases, and in our life an occasional good shaking
was better than the slow justice of a tedious
court-martial.
The General would not smile, but there was a
noticeable twisting of his mustache, and he took
himself out of the way to conceal his feelings,
when I pointed my discerning finger at him and
said, ” You’re laughing, your own self, and you
think Tom was right, even if you don’t say a word,
and look so dreadfully commandery-officery at
198
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
both of us ! ” The General did not keep himself
aloof, and sometimes, in convivial scenes, when he
joined in the increasing hilarity, was so infused with
the growing artificial jovialty, and grew jollier
and jollier, that he was accused himself of bemg
the wildest drinker of them all. But some one
was sure to speak up and say, as the morning ap-
proached, “I have sat beside Custer the night
through, and if he’s intoxicated it’s over water, for
he has not tasted a drop of wine — more loss to
him, I say.” After a campaign, his nose was fiery
red from the summer’s exposure, and some one
said, ” If Custer wishes to pass for a temperance
man, he’d better take in his sign.” When this was
reported to us, the General sang an old song, to
drown the spluttering of his indignant better
half—
“Nose, nose, jolly red nose,”
to an appropriate bacchanalian tune, and I found
him smoothing caressingly this feature of his face;
telling me that people might scoff at its color, but
its stock had gone up with him. Some one once
told me that distinguished men of strong charac-
ter had almost invariably big noses. I noted that,
and counted noses when we found ourselves in an
assembly at the East with people of note, and as
my husband passed me, I was guilty of whisper-
ing that I had gone over the assembly, and noted
ICE INSTEAD OF WINE.
399
the number down in my memory, and that ours
out-shone and out-sized them all. After that, no
thrust at the tint so suspiciously red after a scout
disturbed him in the least. Only a short time
before the final battle, he dined in New York, at
a house where General McDowell was also a
guest. When no one else could hear, he told me,
with a warning not to talk of it, that he had some
one to keep him company, and described the bowl
of ice that stood in the midst of the untouched
semicircle of glasses before General McDowell,
and how the ice seemed just as satisfactory as any
of the rare beverages. We listened once to John
B. Gough, and the General’s enthusiasm over his
earnestness and his eloquence was enhanced by
the well-known fact of his failures, and the plucky
manner in which he started anew. Everybody
cries over Jefferson’s Rip Van Winkle, even if
they have never encountered drunkenness, and my
husband wept Hke a child because of his intense
sympathy for the weakness of the poor tempted
soul, harrowed as he was by a Xantippe.
If women in civil life were taken among men,
as army women are, in all sorts of festivities, they
would get a better idea of what strength of pur-
pose it requires to carry out a principle. At some
army posts the women go to the sutler’s store
with their husbands, for billiards or amusements.
400
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
There is a separate room for the soldiers, so we
see nothing of those poor fellows who never can
stay sober. The sutler’s is not only the store,
but it is the club-house for the garrison, and I
have known posts where the officers were so
guarded about their drinking, that women could
go among them and join in any amusement with-
out being liable to the distress that the sight of
an intoxicated man invariably gives to a sensitive
woman. If I saw drunken soldiers reeling off
after pay-day, it was the greatest possible relief to
me to know, that out of hundreds only a few were
married, as but a certain number of the laun-
dresses were allowed to a company. So no
woman’s heart was going to be wrung by unsteady
steps approaching her door, and the sight of the
vacant eyes of a weak husband. It took away
half the sting and shock, to know that a soldier’s
spree was not one that recoiled on an innocent
woman.
As I look back upon our life, I do not believe
there ever was any path so difficult as those men
on the frontier trod. Their failures, their fights,
their vacillations, all were before us, and it was
an anxious life to be watching who won and who
lost in those moral warfares. You could not sepa-
rate yourself from the interests of one another.
It was a network of friendships that became more
BESETTING TEMPTATIONS. 4OI
and more interwoven by common hardships, dep-
rivations, dangers, by isolation and the daily
sharing of joys and troubles. I am thankful for
the certainty that there is some one who scores all
our fights and all our victories ; for on His records
will be written the story of the thorny path over
which an officer walked if he reached the goal.
Women shielded in homes, supported by ex-
ample, unconscious of any temptation save the
mildest, will realize with me what it was to watch
the quivering mouth of a man who voluntarily
admitted that until he was fifty he knew he was in
hourly peril of being a drunkard. The tears blind
me as I go back in retrospection and think over
the men that warred against themselves. – \
In one respect, there never was such a life as
ours ; it was eminently one of partings. How
natural, then, that the last act before separa-
tion be one of hospitable generosity ! How
little we had to offer ! It was often almost an
impossibility to get up a good dinner. Then
we had so many coming to us from a distance,
that our welcome could not be followed up
by any entertainment worthy of the name.
Besides, there were promotions to celebrate, an
occasional son and heir to toast, birthdays occur-
ring so often, and nothing in the world that an-
swered for an expression of hospitality and good
402
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
feeling but an old straw demijohn behind the door.
It was surprising what pertinacious lives the demi-
johns of the garrison had. The driver of the
wagon containing the few appointments of an
officer’s outfit, was just as careful of the familiar
friend as one could wish servants to be with the
lares and penates of an aesthetic household. If
he was rewarded with a drink from the sacred
demijohn, after having safely preserved it over
muddy roads, where the mules jerked the prairie-
schooner out of ruts, and where, except for a pro-
tecting hand, the contents would have saturated
the w^agon, he was thankful. But such was his
reverence for what he considered the most valu-
able possession of the whole wagon, virtue alone
would have been sufficient reward. When in the
regimental movings the crockery (the very
heaviest that is made) was smashed, the furniture
broken, carpets, curtains, clothes and bedding
mildewed and torn, the old demijohn neither
broke, spilled nor suffered any injury by exposure
to the elements. It was, in the opinion of our
lovers of good whisky, a ” survival of the fittest.”
It never came to be an old. story with me, that
in this constant, familiar association with drinkings,
the General and those of his comrades who ab-
stained could continue to exercise a marvelous
self-control. I could not help constantly speaking
AN UNLIMITED TETHER. 4O3
to my husband of what he went through ; and it
seemed to me that no Uberty could be too great to
extend to men who, always keeping their heads,
were clear as to what they were about. The do-
mestic lariat of a cavalryman might well be drawn
in, if the women waiting at home were uncertain
whether the brains of their liege lords would be
muddled when absent from their influence.
CHAPTER XIII.
“GOOD society” AN EMBARRASSING POSITION FOR
AN OFFICER THE GENERAL EXTRICATES HIM A
MOCK TRIAL VARIETIES OF CHARACTER LESSONS-
IN HORSEMANSHIP A DISGRACED CAVALRY-WOMAN
GOSSIP A MEDLEY OF OFFICERS AND MEN
WAR ON A DRESSING-GOWN.
TT was well we had our horses at Fort Riley for
recreation, as walking was almost out of the
question in autumn. The wind blew unceasingly
all the five years we were in Kansas, but it seemed
to do its wildest work in autumn. No one had
told US of its incessant activity, and I watched for
it to quiet down for days after our arrival, and
grew restless and dull for want of exercise, but
dared not go out. As the post was on a plateau,
the wind from the two river valleys swept over it
constantly. The flag was torn into ribbons in no
time, and the storm-flag, made smaller and used
in rainy weather, had to be raised a good deal,
while the larger and handsomer one was being
mended. We found that the other women of the
garrison, who were there when we arrived, ven-
404
VOLUMINOUS DRAPERY.
405
tured out to see one another, and even crossed the
parade-ground when it was almost impossible to
keep on one’s feet. It seems to date very far back,
when I recall that our dresses then measured five
yards around, and were gathered as full as could
be pressed into the waist-band. These seven
breadths of skirt flew out in advance of us, if they
did not lift themselves over our heads. My skirts
wrapped themselves around my husband’s ankles,
and rendered locomotion very difficult for us both,
if we tried to take our evening stroll. Rethought
out a plan, which he helped me to carry into effect,
by cutting bits of lead in small strips, and these I
sewed into the hem. Thus loaded down, we took
our constitutional about the post, and outwitted
the elements, which at first bade fair to keep us
perpetually housed.
There was very little social life in garrison that
winter. The officers were busy studying tactics,
and accustoming themselves to the new order of
affairs, so very different from their volunteer ex-
perience. Had not everything been so novel, I
should have felt disappointed in my first associa-
tion with the regular army in garrison. I did not
then consider that the few old officers and their
families were really the regular army, and so was
somewhat disheartened regarding our future asso-
ciates. As fast as our own officers arrived, a
4o6
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
part of the regiment that had garrisoned Fort
Riley before we came, went away ; but it soon be-
came too late in the season to send the remainder.
The post was therefore crowded. The best man-
ners with which all had made their debut wore off,
and some jangling began. Some drank too
freely and were placed under arrest, or released if
they went on pledge. Nothing was said, of
course, if they were sober enough for duty ; but
there were some hopeless cases from the first. For
instance, a new appointee made his entrance into
our parlor, when paying the visit that military eti-
quette requires, by falling in at the door, and
after recovering an upright position, proceeded to
entangle himself in his sword again, and tumble
into a chair. I happened to be alone, and was, of
course, very much frightened. In the afternoon
the officers met in one of their quarters, and drew
up resolutions that gave the new arrival the choice
of a court-martial or his resignation before night ;
and by evening he had written out the papers re-
signing his commission. Another fine-looking
man, whom the General worked long and faith-
fully to make a sober officer, had really some good
instincts. He was so glad to get into our home
circle, and was so social, telling the drollest stories
of far Western life, where he had lived formerly,
that I became greatly interested in his efforts at
A THANKSGIVING DINNER. 407
reformation. He was almost the first to be court-
martialed for drunkenness on duty, and that was
always a grief to us ; but in those early days of
our regiment’s history, arrest, imprisonment and
trial had to go on much of the time. The officer to
whom I refer was getting into and out of difficulty
incessantly. He repented in such a frank, regretful
sort of way, that my husband kept faith in his final
reformation long after it seemed hopeless. One day
I asked him to dinner. It was Thanksgiving, and
on those days we tried to select the officers that
talked most to us of their homes and parents. To
my dismay, our reprobate came into the room with
very uncertain gait. The other men looked anx-
iously at him. My husband was not in the parlor.
I thought of other instances where these signs of
intoxication had passed away in a little while, and
tried to ignore his condition. He was sober
enough to see the concerned look in his comrades’
faces, and brought the tears to my eyes by walk-
ing up to me and saying, ” Mrs. Custer, I’m sorry,
but I think it would be best for me to go home.”
Who could help being grieved for a man so frank
and humble over his failings ? There were six
years of such vicissitudes in this unfortunate man’s
life, varied by brave conduct in the Indian cam-
paigns, before the General gave him up. He vio-
lated, at last, some social law that was considered
4o8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
an outrage beyond pardon, which compelled his
departure from the Seventh. That first winter
while the General was trying to enforce one fact
upon the new-comers, that the Seventh must be a
sober regiment, it was a difficult and anything
but pleasant experience.
Very few of the original appointments remained
after a few years. Some who served on to the
final battle of 1876, went through many struggles
in gaining mastery of themselves. The General
believed in them, and they were such splendid
fighters, and such fine men when there was any-
thing to occupy them, I know that my husband
appreciated with all his soul what trials they went
through, in facing the monotony of frontier life.
Indeed, he was himself enduring some hours of
torture from restlessness and inactivity. It is
hard to imagine a greater change than from the
wild excitement of the Virginia campaigns, the
final scenes of the war, to the dullness of Fort
Riley. Oh ! how I used to feel when my hus-
band’s morning duties at the office were over, and
he walked the floor of our room, saying, ” Libbie,
what shall I do ?” There were no books to speak
of, for the Seventh was then too new a regiment
to purchase company libraries, as we did later.
. . . My husband never cared much for
current novels, and these were almost the sole
4IO TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
literature of the households at that time. At
every arrival of the mail, there v^^as absolute con-
tentment for a while. The magazines and news-
papers were eagerly read, and I used to discover
that even the advertisements were scanned. If
the General was caught at this, and accused of it,
he slid behind his paper in mock humility, peep-
ing roguishly from one side when a voice, pitched
loftily, inquired whether reading advertisements
was more profitable than talking with one’s wife ?
It was hard enough, though, when the heaps of
newspapers lay on the floor all devoured, and one
so devoted to them as he was condemned to wait
the slow arrival of another mail. The Harper s
Bazar fashion-pages were not scorned in that
dearth of reading, by the men about our fireside.
We had among us a famous newspaper-reader ;
the men could not outstrip her in extracting
everything that the paper held, and the General
delighted in hunting up accounts of ” rapscal-
lions ” from her native State, cutting out the
paragraphs, and sending them to her by an or-
derly. But his hour of triumph was brief, for the
next mail was sure to contain an account of either
a Michigan or an Ohio villain, and the prompt-
ness with which General Custer was made aware
of the vagabondage of his fellow-citizens was
highly appreciated by all of us. Fie had this dis-
NEWSPAPER DEVOTEES.
411
advantage : he was a native of Ohio, and appointed
to the MiUtary Academy from there, and that
State claimed him, and very proud we were to
have them do so ; but Michigan was the State of
his adoption during the war, he having married
there and it being the home of his celebrated
” Michigan brigade.” . . . He was enabled,
by that bright woman’s industry, to ascertain
what a large share of the population of those
States were adepts in crime, as no trifling account,
or even a pickpocket, was overlooked. I remem-
ber how we laughed at her one day. This friend
of ours was not in the least sensational, she was
the very incarnation of delicate refinement. All
her reading (aside from the search for Ohio and
Michigan villains in the papers) was of the lofti-
est type ; but the blood rose in wild billows over
her sweet face when her son declared his mother
such a newspaper devotee that he had caught
her reading the ” personals.” We knew it was a
fib ; but it proves to what lengths a person might
go from sheer desperation, when stranded on the
Plains.
Fortunately, I was not called much from home,
as there were few social duties that winter, and we
devised all sorts of trumpery expedients to vary
our life. There was usually a wild game of romps
before the day was ended. We had the strangest
412 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
neighbors. A family lived on each floor, but the
walls were not thick, as the Government had
wasted no material in putting up our plain quar-
ters. We must have set their nerves on edge, I
suppose, for while we tore up stairs and down,
using the furniture for temporary barricades
against each other, the dogs barking and racing
around, glad to join in the fracas, the din was
frightful.
The neighbors — not belonging to our regiment,
I am thankful to say, having come from a circle
where the husband brings the wife to terms by
brute force — in giving a minute description of the
sounds that issued from our quarters, accounted
for the melee to those of the garrison they could
get to listen, by saying that the commanding
officer was beating his wife. While I was inclined
to resent such accusations, they struck the Gene-
ral very differently. He thought it was intensely
funny, and the gossip passed literally in at one
ear and out at the other, though it dwelt with him
long enough to suggest something about the good
discipline a man might have if the Virginia law,
never repealed, were now in vogue. I felt sure it
would fare badly with me ; for though the dimen-
sions of the stick with which a man is permitted
to beat his wife are limited to the size of the hus-
band’s finger, my husband’s hands, though in good
AFFECTED GENTILITY. 413
proportion, had fingers the bones of which were
unusually large. These strange fingers were not
noticeable until one took hold of them; but if
they were carefully studied, with the old English
law of Virginia in mind, there well might be a
family mutiny. I tried to beg off from further
visits to certain families of this stamp, but never
succeeded; the General insisted on my going
everywhere. One of the women asked me one
day if I rose early : Not knowing why she asked,
I replied that I feared it was often 9 o’clock
before we awoke, whereupon she answered, in an
affected voice, that “she never rose early, it was
so plebeian.”
It was very discouraging, this first encounter
with what I supposed would be my life-long asso-
ciates. There were many political appointments
in the army then. Each State was entitled to its
quota, and they were frequently given for favor-
itism, regardless of soldierly qualities. There
were also a good many non-commissioned officers,
who, having done good service during the war,
were given commissions in the new regiments.
For several years it was difficult to arrange every-
thing so satisfactorily in social life that no one’s
feelings would be hurt. The unvarying rule,
which my husband considered should not be vio-
lated by any who truly desired harmony, was to
414
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
visit every one in our circle, and exclude no one
from invitations to our house, unless for positively
disgraceful conduct.
We heard, from other posts, of the most amusing
and sometimes the most uncomfortable of expe-
riences. If I knew any one to whom this incident
occurred, I should not venture to make use of it
as an example of the embarrassing situations in
the new order of affairs in the reorganized army.
The story is true ; but the names, if I ever knew
them, have long since faded out of memory.
One of the Irish laundresses at a Western post
was evidently infatuated with army life, as she
was the widow of a volunteer officer — doubtless
some old soldier of the regular army, who held a
commission in one of the regiments during the
war — and the woman drew the pension of a
major’s widow. Money, therefore, could not
have been the inducement that brought her back
to a frontier post. At one time she left her fasci-
nating clothes-line and went into the family of an
officer, to cook, but was obliged to leave from
illness. Her place was filled satisfactorily, and
when she recovered and came back to the officer’s
wife, she was told that the present cook was en-
tirely satisfactory, but she might yet find a place,
as another officer’s wife (whose husband had been
an enlisted man, and had lately been appointed
SURPRISE AT SURROUNDINGS.
415
an officer in the regular regiment stationed there)
needed a cook. It seems that this officer’s wife
also had been a laundress at one time, and the
woman applying for work squared herself off in
an independent manner, placed her arms akimbo,
and announced her platform : ” Mrs. Blank, I
ken work for a leddy, but I can’t go there ; there
was a time when Mrs. and I had our toobs
side by side.”
How often, in that first winter, I thought of my
father’s unstinted praise of the regular army, as
he had known it at Sackett’s Harbor and at De-
troit, in Michigan’s early days. I could not but
wonder what he would think, to be let down in
the midst of us. He used to say, in reference to
my future, ” Daughter, marrying into the army,
you will be poor always ; but I count it infinitely
preferable to riches with inferior society. It con-
soles me to think you will be always associated
with people of refinement.” Meanwhile, the Gen-
eral was never done begging me to be silent
about any new evidences of vulgarity. There
were several high-bred women at Fort Riley ; but
they were so discreet I never knew but that they
had been accustomed to such associations, until
after the queer lot had departed and we dared to
speak confidentially to one another.
Soon after the officers began to arrive in the
4i6
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
autumn, an enlisted man, whom the General had
known about in the regular army, reported
for duty. He had re-enlisted in the Seventh,
hoping ultimately for a commission. He was.
soldierly in appearance, from his long experience
in military life, and excellently well versed in
tactics and regimental discipline. On this account
he was made sergeant-major, the highest non-
commissioned officer of a regiment ; and, at his
request, the General made application almost at
once for his appointment as a lieutenant in the
Seventh Cavalry. The application was granted,
and the sergeant-major went to Washington to
be examined. The examining board was com-
posed of old and experienced officers, who were
reported to be opposed to the appointment of en-
listed men. At any rate, the applicant was asked
a collection of questions that were seemingly un-
answerable. I only remember one, “What does a
regiment of cavalry weigh ? ” Considering the
differences in the size of officers, men and horses,
it would seem as if a correct answer were im-
possible. The sergeant-major failed, and returned
to our post with ,the hopelessness before him of
five years of association with men in the ranks ;
for there is no escaping the whole term of enlist-
ment, unless it is found that a man is under age.
But the General did not give up. He encouraged
A SOLDIER PROMOTED. 4 1 7
the disappointed man to hope, and when he was
ordered before the board himself, he went to the
Secretary of War and made personal application
for the appointment. Vi^ashington was then full
of men and their friends, clamoring for the vacan-
cies in the new regiments ; but General Custer
was rarely in Washington, and was guarded in
not making too many appeals, so he obtained
the promise, and soon afterward the sergeant-
major replaced the chevrons with shoulder-straps.
Then ensued one of those awkward situations, that
seem doubly so in a life where there is such marked
distinction in the social standing of an officer and
a private ; and some of the Seventh Cavalry made
the situation still more embarrassing by conspicu-
ous avoidance of the new lieutenant, carefully
ignoring him except where official relations ex-
isted. This seemed doubly severe, as they knew
of nothing in the man’s conduct, past or present,
to justify them in such behavior. He had borne
himself with dignity as sergeant-major, living very
much to himself, and performing every duty punc-
tiliously. Shortly before, he had been an officer like
themselves in the volunteer service, and this social
ostracism, solely on account of a few months of ser-
vice as an enlisted man, was absurd. They went
back to his early service as a soldier, determined
to show him that he was not “to the manner born.”
41 8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
The single men had estabUshed a mess, and each
bachelor officer who came was promptly called
upon and duly invited to join them at table. There
was literally no other place to be fed. There were
no cooks to be had in that unsettled land, and if
there had been servants to hire, the exorbitant
wages would have consumed a lieutenant’s pay.
There were enough officers in the bachelors’ mess
to carry the day against the late sergeant-major.
My husband was much disturbed by this discour-
teous conduct ; but it did not belong to the prov-
ince of the commanding officer, and he was careful
to keep the line of demarkation between social
and official affairs distinct. Yet it did not take
long for him to think a way out of the dilemma.
He came to me to ask if I would be willing to
have him in our family temporarily, and, of course,
it ended in the invitation being given. In the
evening, when our quarters filled up with the
bachelor officers, they found the lieutenant whom
they had snubbed, established as one of the com-
manding officer’s family. He remained as one of
us until the officers formed another mess as their
number increased, and the new lieutenant was in-
vited to join them. This was not the end of Gen-
eral Custer’s marked regard for him, and as long
as he lived he showed his unswerving friendship,
and, in ways that the officer never knew, kept up
LOYALTY TO FRIENDS.
419
his disinterested loyalty, making me sure, as
years advanced, that he was worthy of the old
adage, ” Once a friend, always a friend.” Until
he was certain that there was duplicity and in-
gratitude, or that worst of sins, concealed enmity,
he kept faith and friendships intact. At that time
there was every reason in the world for an officer
whose own footing was uncertain, and who owed
everything to my husband, to remain true to him.
Many of the officers were learning to ride, as
they had either served in the infantry during the
war, or were appointed from civil life, and came
from all sorts of vocations. It would seem that
hardly half of the number then knew how to sit
or even to mount a horse, and the grand and lofty
tumbling that winter kept us in a constant state
of merriment. It was too bad to look on and
laugh ; but for the life of me I could not resist
every chance I had to watch them clambering up
their horse’s side, tying themselves hopelessly in
their sabres, and contorting their heels so wildly
that the restive animal got the benefit of a spur in
unexpected places, as likely in his neck as in his
flank. One officer, who came to us from the
merchant marine, used to insist upon saying to
his brother officers, when off duty and experiment-
ing with his steed, ” If you don’t think I am a
sailor, see me shin up this horse’s foreleg.”
420 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Some grew hot and wrathy if laughed at, and
that increased our fun. Others were good-natured,
even coming into the midst of us and deHberately
narrating the number of times the horse had either
shpped from under them, turned them off over
his head, or wiped them off by running against a
fence or tree-trunk. Occasionally somebody tried
to hide the fact that he had been thrown, and then
there was high carnival over the misfortune. The
ancient rule, that had existed as far back as the
oldest officer could remember, was, that a basket
of champagne was the forfeit of a first fall. Many
hampers were emptied that winter ; but as there
were so many to share the treat (and I am inclined
to think, also, it was native champagne, from
St. Louis), I don’t remember any uproarious
results, except the natural wild spirits of fun-lov-
ing people. After the secret was out and the for-
feit paid, there was much more courage among
the officers in letting the mishaps be known. They
did not take their nags off into gulleys where
they were hidden from the post, and have it out
alone, but tumbled off in sight of the galleries of
our quarters, and made nothing of a whole after-
noon of voluntary mounting and decidedly invol-
untary dismounting. One of the great six-footers
among us told me his beast had tossed him off
half a dozen times in one ride, but he ended by
A confession:
421
conquering. He daily fought a battle with his
horse, and, in describing the efforts to unseat him,
said that at last the animal jumped into the creek.
How I admired his pluck and the gleam in his
eye ; and what a glimpse that determination to
master gave of his successful future ! for he won
in resisting temptation, and conquered in making
himself a soldier, and his life, though short, was
a triumph.
I am obliged to confess that to this day I owe
a basket of champagne, for I belonged to those
that went off the horse against their will and then
concealed the fact. My husband and one of his
staff were riding with me one day, and asked me
to go on in advance, as they wanted to talk over
something that was not of interest to me. I for-
got to keep watch of my fiery steed, and when he
took one of those mad jumps from one side of
the road to the other, at some imaginary obstacle,
not being on guard I lost balance, and found my^
self hanging to the saddle. There was nothing
left for me but an ignominious slide, and I landed
in the dust. The General found Phil trotting
riderless toward him, was terribly frightened,
and rode furiously toward where I was. To save
him needless alarm, I called out, ” All right !”
from my lowly position, and was really quite un-
harmed, save my crushed spirits. No one can
422 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
serve in the cavalry and not feel humiliated by a
fall. I began to implore the two not to tell, and
in their relief at my escape from serious hurt they
promised. But for weeks they made my life a
burden to me, by direct and indirect allusions to
the accident when a group of us were together.
They brought little All Right, the then famous
Japanese acrobat, into every conversation, and
the General was constantly wondering, in a seem-
ingly innocent manner, ” how an old campaigner
could be unseated, under any circumstances.” It
would have been better to confess and pay the
penalty, than to live thus under the sword of
Damocles. Still, I should have deprived my
husband of a world of amusement, and every
joke counted in those dull days, even when one
was himself the victim.
The Board in Washington then examining the
officers of the new regiments, called old and new
alike ; but in the General’s case, as in that of most
of the officers who had seen service before the war,
or were West Point graduates, it was but a form,
and he was soon back in our post.
He began then a fashion that he always kept up
afterward, of having regular openings of his trunk
for my benefit. I was as interested in the contents
as any child. First putting me under promise to
remain in one spot without ” peeking,” as the chil-
A PLEASANT SURPRISE. 423
dren say, he took out from the trunk in our room
article after article for me. They comprised every-
thing a woman could wear, from gowns to stock-
ings, with ribbons and hats. If all the gowns he
brought were not made, he had dress-materials and
stored-up recollections of the new modes of trim-
ming. He enjoyed jokes on himself, and gave us
all a laughable description of his discovering in
the city some fashion that he had especially liked,
when, turning in the crowded street, he followed
at a respectful distance the woman wearing it, in
order to commit to memory the especial style.
Very naturally, he also took in the gait and fig-
ure of the stylish wearer, even after he had fixed
the cut of her gown in his mind, that he might
eventually transfer it to me. Ah, how we torment-
ed him when he described his discomfiture, and
the sudden termination of his walk, when a tu^n
in the street revealed the face of a negress !
I shall have to ask that a thought be given to
our surroundings, to make clear what an immense
pleasure a trunk-full of finery was at that time.
There were no shops nearer than Leavenworth,
and our faces were set westward, so there seemed
to be no prospect of getting such an outfit for
years. There was no one in that far country to
prevent the screams of delight with which each
gift was received, and it is impossible to describe
424
TENTIA^G ON THE PLAINS.
how jubilant the donor was over the success of his
purchases. Brother Tom made a time always, be-
cause his name was left out, but he noted carefully
if the General’s valise held a new supply of neck-
ties, gloves, etc., and by night he had usually
surreptitiously transferred the entire contents to
his own room. The first notification would be his
appearance next morning at the breakfast-table,
wearing his brother’s new things, his face perfectly
solemn and innocent, as if nothing peculiar was
going on. This sort of game never grew old, and
it seemed to give them much more amusement
than if the purchases were formally presented.
My husband confided to me that, knowing Tom
would take all he could lay his hands on, he had
bought twice as many as he needed. The truth
is, it was only for the boyish fun they got out of
it, for he always shared everything he had with
his brother.
At some point in the journey East, the General
had fallen into conversation with an officer who,
in his exuberance of spirits at his appointment to
the Seventh, had volunteered every detail about
himself. He was coming from his examination at
Washington, and was full of excitement over the
new regiment. He had not the slightest idea who
my husband was, only that he was also an officer,
but in the course of conversation brought his name
A CONFIDENTIAL TRAVELER.
425
Up, giving all the accounts he had heard of him
from both enemies and friends, and his own im-
pressions of how he should like him. The Gene-
ral’s love of mischief, and curiosity to hear himself
so freely discussed, led the unsuspecting man to
ramble on and on, incited by an occasional query
or reflection, regarding the character of the Lieu-
tenant-colonel of the Seventh. The first knowl-
edge the Lieutenant had with whom he had been
talking, was disclosed to him when he came to pay
the customary call, on the return of the command-
ing officer at Fort Riley. His face was a study ;
perplexity and embarrassment reddened his com-
plexion almost to a purple, and he moved about
uneasily in his chair, abashed to thmk he had
allowed himself . to speak so freely of a man to
that person’s very face. My husband left him but
a moment in this awkward predicament, and then
laughed out a long roll of merriment, grasping the
man’s hand, and assured him that he must re-
member his very freely expressed views were the
opinions of others, and not his own. It was a
great relief to the Lieutenant, when he reached
his quarters, to find that he had escaped some dire
fate, either long imprisonment or slow torture ;
for at that time the volunteer officers had a deeply
fixed terror of the stern, unflinching severity of
regular officers. Again he became confidential,
426 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and told the bachelor mess. This was too good a
chance to lose ; they felt that some more fun could
still be extracted, and immediately planned a sham
trial. The good-natured man said his stupidity
merited it, and asked for counsel. The case was
spun out as long as it could be made to last. We
women were admitted as audience, and all the
grave dignity of his mock affair was a novelty.
The court used our parlor as a Hall of Justice.
The counsel for the prisoner was as earnest in his
defense as if great punishment was to be averted
by his eloquence. In the daytime he prepared
arguments, while at the same time the prose-
cuting attorney wrinkled his brows over the most
convincmg assaults on the poor man, who, he
vehemently asserted, ought not to go at large,
laden with such unpardonable crime. The judge
addressed the jury, and that solemn body of men
disappeared into our room, perching on the
trunks, the bed, the few chairs, to seriously dis-
cuss the ominous ” guilty ” or ” not guilty.” The
manner of the grave and dignified judge, as he
finally addressed the prisoner, admonishing him
as to his future, sorrowfully announcing the de-
cision of the jury as guilty, and condemning him
to the penalty of paying a basket of champagne,
was worthy of the chief executor of an Eastern
court.
FORMER HISTORIES. 427
We almost regretted that some one else would
not, by some harmless misdemeanor, put himself
within the reach of such a court. This affair gave
us the first idea of the clever men among us, for
all tried to acquit themselves at their best, even
in the burlesque trial.
Little by little, it came out what varied lives
our officers had led heretofore. Some frankly
spoke of the past, as they became acquainted,
while others, making an effort to ignore their pre-
vious history, were found out by the letters that
came into the post every mail, or by some one
arriving who had known them in their other life.
The best bred among them — one descended from
a Revolutionary colonel, and Governor of a State,
the other from Alexander Hamilton — were the
simplest and most unaffected in manner. The
boaster and would-be aristocrat of our number
had the misfortune to come face-to-face with a
townsman, who effectually silenced further refer-
ence to his gorgeous past. There were men who
had studied law ; there was one who had been a
stump speaker in Montana politics, and at last a
judge in her courts ; another who had been a sea-
captain, and was distinguished from a second of
his name in the regiment, by being called always
thereafter “Salt Smith,” while the younger was
” Fresh Smith,” or, by those who were fond of
428 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
him, ” Smithie.” There was also a Member of
Congress, who, having returned to his State after
the war, had found his place taken and himself
quite crowded out. When this officer reported
for duty, I could not believe my eyes. But a few
months before, in Texas, he had been such a bit-
ter enemy of my husband’s, that, with all the cau-
tion observed to keep official matters out of my
life, it could not be hidden from me. The Gen-
eral, when this officer arrived, called me into our
room and explained, that, finding him without
employment in Washington when he went before
the Board, he could not turn away from his appeal
for a commission in the service, and had applied,
without knowing he would be sent to our regi-
ment. “And now, Libbie, you would not hurt
my feelings by showing animosity and dislike to
a man whose hair is already gray !” There was
no resisting this appeal, and no disguising my
appreciation of the manner in which he treated
his enemies, so his words brought me out on the
gallery with extended hand of welcome, though I
would sooner have taken hold of a tarantula. I
never felt a moment’s regret, and he never forgot
the kindness, or that he owed his prosperity, his
whole future, in fact, to the General, and he won
my regard by his unswerving fidelity to him from
that hour to this.
A SOCIAL POT-POURRI. 429
There were some lieutenants fresh from West
Point, and some clerks, too, who had tried to turn
themselves into merchants, and groaned over the
wretched hours they had spent, since the close of
the war, in measuring tape. We had several Irish
officers — reckless riders, jovial companions. One
had served in the Papal army, and had foreign
medals. There was an Italian who had a long,
strange career to draw upon for our amusement, and
numbered, among his experiences, imprisonment
for plotting the hfe of his king. There were two
officers who had served in the Mexican War, and
the ears of the subalterns were always opened to
their stories of those days when, as lieutenants,
they followed General Scott in his march over the
old Cortez highway, to his victories and con-
quests. There was a Prussian among the officers,
who, though expressing his approval of the justice
and courtesy that the commanding officer showed
in his charge of the garrison, used to infuriate the
others by making invidious distinctions regarding
foreign service and our own. We had an edu-
cated Indian as an officer. He belonged to the
Six Nations, and his father was a Scotchman, but
there was no Scotch about him, except that he was
loyal to his trusts and a brave soldier, for he
looked like any wild man of the Plains ; and one of
his family said to him, laughingly, ” Dress you up
430
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
in a blanket, and you couldn’t be told from a
Cheyenne or Arrapahoe.” There was a French-
man to add to the nationalities we represented,
and in our heterogeneous collection one company
might have its three officers with parentage from
three of the four corners of the earth.
The immense amount of rank these new lieuten-
ants and captains carried was amusing, for those
who had served in the war still held their titles
when addressed unofficially, and it was to all ap-
pearances a regiment made up of generals, colo-
nels and majors. Occasionally, an officer who had
served in the regular army many years before the
war arrogantly lorded it over the young lieuten-
ants. One especially, who saw nothing good in
the service as it now was, constantly referred to
” how it was done in the old First.” Having a
young fellow appointed from civil life as his lieu-
tenant, who knew nothing of army tactics or eti-
quette, he found a good subject over whom to
tyrannize. He gave this lad to understand that,
whenever the captain made his appearance, he
must jump up, offer him a chair, and stand atten-
tion. It was, in fact, a servile life he was mapping
out for his subordinate. If the lad asserted him-
self in the slightest way, the captain straightened
up that Prussian back-bone, tapped his shoulder-
strap, and grandiloquently observed, ” Remem-
SUPPRESSING A BULLY.
431
ber the goolf ” [gulf], meaning the great chasm
that intervened between a shoulder-strap with two
bars and one with none. Even one knowing lit-
tle of military life, is aware that the ” goolf ” be-
tween a captain and a second lieutenant is not one
of great magnitude. At last the youth began to see
that he was being imposed upon, and that other
captains did not so hold themselves toward their
inferiors in rank, and he confidentially laid the
case before a new arrival who had seen service, ask-
ing him how much of a stand he might make for
his self-respect, without infringing on military
rules. The reply was, “When next he tries that
game on you, tell him to go to h — with his
gulf.” The young fellow, not lacking in spirit,
returned to his captain well primed for the en-
counter, and when next the gulf was mentioned,
he stretched up his six feet of admirable physique,
and advised the captain to take the journey ” with
his gulf,” that had been previously suggested by
his friend.
This same young fellow was a hot – headed
youth, though a splendid soldier, and had a knack
of getting into little altercations with his brother-
officers. On one occasion, at our house during a
garrison hop he and another officer had some dis-
pute about dancing with a young lady, and retired
to the coat-room, too courteous to enter into a
432
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
discussion in the presence of women. It occurred
to them, as words grew hotter and insufficient for
the gravity of the occasion, that it would be
well to interview the commanding officer, fearing
that they might be placed in arrest. One of them
descended to the dancing-room, called the Gen-
eral one side, told the story, and asked permission
to pound his antagonist, whom he considered the
aggressor. The General, knowing well how it
was himself, having, at West Point, been known
as the cadet who said, ” Stand back, boys, and
let’s have a fair fight ! ” gave his permission. The
door of the coat-room closed on the contestants
for the fair lady’s favor, and they had it out alone.
It must not, from this incident, be inferred that
our officers belonged to a class whose idea of jus-
tice was “■ knocking down and dragging out/’ but,
in the newness of our regiment, there seemed to
be occasions when there was no recourse for im-
positions or wrongs, except in the natural way.
The mettle of all was being tested, with a large
number of men turned suddenly from a free life
into the narrow limits of a garrison. Where
everybody’s elbow knocked his neighbor’s, and no
one could wholly escape the closest sort of inter-
course, it was the most natural consequence that
some jarring and grating went on.
None of us know how much the good-nature that
DIFFICULTIES OF ORGANIZATION 433
we possess is due to the fact that we can take
refuge in our homes or in flight, sometimes, from
people who rasp and rub us up the wrong way.
Our regiment was then a medley of incongruous
elements, and might well have discouraged a less
persevering man, in the attempt to mold such
material into an harmonious whole. From the
first, the effort was to establish among the better
men, who had ambition, the proper esprit de corps
regarding their regiment. The General thought
over carefully the future of this new organization,
and worked constantly from the first days to
make it the best cavalry regiment in the service.
He assured me, when occasionally I mourned the
inharmonious feeling that early began to crop out,
that I must neither look for fidelity nor friendship,
in its best sense, until the whole of them had been
in a fight together ; that it was on the battle-field,
when all faced death together, where the truest
affection was formed among soldiers. I could not
help noting, that first year, the change from the
devotion of my husband’s Division of cavalry in
the Army of the Potomac, to these new officers,
who, as yet, had no affection for him, nor even for
their regiment. He often asked me to have pa-
tience, not to judge too quickly of those who were
to be our companions, doubtless for years to come,
and reminded me that, as yet, he had done nothing
434 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
to win their regard or command their respect ; he
had come among officers and men as an organizer,
a discipHnarian, and it was perfectly natural they
should chafe under restraints they had never
known before. It was a hard place for my hus-
band to fill, and a most thankless task, to bring
that motley crowd into military subjection. The
mischief-makers attempted to report unpleasant
criticisms, and it was difficult to keep in subjec-
tion the jealousy that existed between West Point
graduates, volunteer officers, and civil appointees.
Of course a furtive watch was kept on the
graduates of the Military Academy for any
evidences of assumed superiority on their part, or
for the slightest dereliction of duty. The volun-
teer, no matter how splendid a record he had made
during the war, was excessively sensitive regard-
ing the fact that he was not a graduated officer.
My husband persistently fought against any line
of demarkation between graduates and non-
graduates. He argued personally, and wrote for
publication, that the war had proved the volunteer
officers did just as good service as, and certainly
were not one whit less brave than, West Pointers.
I remember how every little slip of a West Pointer
was caught at by the others. One morning a
group of men were gathered about the flag-staff at
guard-mount, making the official report as officer
A SLIP OF THE TONGUE.
435
of the day and officer of the guard, when a West
Pointer joined them in the irreproachable uniform
of a Heutenant, walking as few save graduates
ever do walk. He gravely saluted, but, instead
of reporting for duty, spoke out of the fullness of
his heart, ” Gentlemen, it’s a boy.” Of course, not a
man among them was insensible to the honor of
being the father of a first son and heir, and all
suspended military observances belonging to the
morning duties, and genuinely rejoiced with the
new-made parent ; but still they gloated over the
fact that there had been, even in such a moment
of excitement, this lapse of military dignity in one
who was considered a cut-and-dried soldier.
An embarrassing position for General Custer
was, that he had under him officers much older
than himself. He was then but twenty-seven
years of age, and the people who studied to make
trouble (and how rarely are they absent from
any community ?) used this fact as a means of
stirring up dissension. How thankful I was that
nothing could draw him into difficulty from that
question, for he either refused to listen, or heard
only to forget. One day he was deeply moved
by the Major of our regiment, General Alfred
Gibbs, who had commanded the brigade of regu-
lar cavalry in the Army of the Potomac during
the war, and whose soul was so broad and his
436 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
heart so big that he was above everything petty
or mean. My husband called me into our room
and shut the door, in order to tell me, quietly, that
some gossip had endeavored to spread a report
that General Gibbs was galled by his position, and
unwilling to submit to the authority of so young
a man. On hearing this,- he came straightway to
General Custer — ah, what worlds of trouble we
would be saved if there were courage to inquire
into slander ! — and in the most earnest, frank
manner assured him that he had never expressed
such sentiments, and that their years of service
together during the war had established an abid-
ing regard for his soldierly ability, that made it a
pleasure to be in his regiment. This, from an
officer who had served with distinction in the
Mexican War, as well as done gallant service
in an Indian campaign before the Civil War,
was a most grateful compliment to my hus-
band. General Gibbs was a famous disciplinarian,
and he had also the quaintest manner of fetching
every one to the etiquettical standard he knew
to be necessary. He was witty, and greatly given
to joking, and yet perfectly unswerving in the
performance of the most insignificant duty. We
have exhausted ourselves with laughter as he de-
scribed, by contortions of feature and really
extraordinary facial gymnastics, his efforts to
A MODEL DISCIPLINARIAN. 407
dislodg-e a venturesome and unmilitary fly, that
had perched on his nose when he was conducting
a dress-parade. To hft his hand and brush off
the intruder, with a long- Hne of soldiers facing
him, was an example he would scarcely like them
to follow ; and yet the tantalizing tickling of
those fly-legs, slowly traveling over his moist and
heated face, was almost too exasperating to en-
dure. If General Gibbs felt the necessity of
reminding any one of carelessness in dress, it was
managed in so clever a manner that it gave no
lasting offense. My husband, absorbed in the
drilling, discipline and organization of the regi-
ment, sometimes overlooked the necessity for
social obligations, and immediately came under
the General’s witty criticisms. If a strange officer
visited our post, and any one neglected to call, as is
considered obligatory, it was remarked upon by
our etiquettical mentor. If the officers were care-
less in dress, or wore semi – military clothes,
something quite natural in young fellows who
wanted to load on everything that glittered,
our General Etiquette made mention of it. One
wore an English forage-cap with a lot of gilt
braid on top, instead of the plain visored cap of
the regulations. The way he came to know that
this innovation must be suppressed, was by a re-
quest from General Gibbs to purchase it for his
438 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
band-master. He himself was so strictly military
that he could well afford to hold the others up to
the mark. His coats were marvelous fits, and
he tightly buckled in his increasing rotundity
with a superb belt and clasp that had belonged
to his grandfather, a Wolcott in the Revolution-
ary War.
Most women know with what obstinate deter-
mination and adoring fondness a man clings to
some shabby article of wearing apparel. There
was in our family an ancient dressing-gown, not
the jaunty smoking-jacket that I fortunately
learned afterward to make, but a long, clumsy,
quilted monstrosity that I had laboriously cobbled
out with very ignorant fingers. My husband
simply worshipped it. The garment appeared
on one of his birthdays, and I was praised be-
yond my deserts for having put in shape such a
success, and he could hardly slide out of his
uniform, when he came from the office, quickly
enough to enable him to jump into this soft,
loose, abomination. If he had vanity, which it
is claimed is lodged somewhere in every human
breast, it was spasmodic, for he not only knew
that he looked like a fright, but his family told
him this fact, with repeated variations of derision.
When at last it became not even respectable, it
was so ragged I attempted to hide it, but this
RIDICULE WORKS A REFORM. 43 g
did no earthly good. The beloved possession was
ferreted out, and he gaily danced up and down in
triumph before his discomfited wife, all the rags
and tags flaunting out as he moved. In vain
General Gibbs asked me why I allowed such a
disgraceful ” old man’s garment ” about. The
truth was, there was not half the discipline in our
family that there might have been had we been
citizens. A woman cannot be expected to keep
a man up to the mark in every little detail, and
surely she may be excused if she do a little
spoiling when, after months of separation she is
returned to the one for whom her heart has been
wrung with anxiety. No sooner are you to-
gether than there comes the ever present terror
of being divided again.
General Gibbs won at last in suppressing the
old dressing-gown, for he begged General Custer
to picture to himself the appearance of his entire
regiment clad in long-tailed, ragged gowns
modeled after that of their commanding officer !
In dozens of ways General Gibbs kept us up to the
mark socially. He never drew distinctions be-
tween the old army and the new, as some were
wont to do, and his influence in shaping our regi-
ment in social as well as military affairs was felt
in a marked manner, and we came to regard him
as an authority and to value his suggestions.
CHAPTER XIV.
RISTORI, AND THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE A PRO-
POSAL ON THE HOUSE-TOP GIDEON’s BAND A
LETTER FROM CHARLES G. LELAND BREITMANN
IN KANSAS CLEVER ROGUES ESCAPE FROM THE
GUARD-HOUSE MARKETING IN JUNCTION CITY
CROSSING A SWOLLEN RIVER THE STORY OF
JOHNNIE AN EXPEDITION LEAVES FORT RILEY
FOR A CAMPAIGN.
O OON after my husband returned from Wash-
ington, he found that Ristori was advertised
in St. Louis, and as he had been deHghted with
her acting when in the East, he insisted upon my
going there, though it was a journey of several
hundred miles. The young officers urged, and
the pretty Diana looked volumes of entreaty at
me, so at last I consented to go, as we need be
absent but a few days. At that time the dreaded
campaign looked far off, and I was trying to
cheat myself into the belief that there might pos-
sibly be none at all.
Ristori, heard under any circumstances, was an
event in a life ; but to listen to her as we did, the
only treat of the kind in our winter, and feeling
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE. 441
almost certain it was the last of such privileges
for years to come, was an occasion never to be
forgotten.
I do not know whether Diana collected her
senses enough to know, at any one time, that she
was listening to the most gifted woman in
histrionic art. A civilian lover had appeared on
the scene, and between our young officers, already
far advanced in the dazed and enraptured state,
and the new addition to her retinue, she was never
many moments without “airy nothings” poured
into her ear. The citizen and the officers
glowered on each other, and sought in vain to
monopolize the inamorata. Even when the
thoughtless girl put a military cap on the head of
the civilian, and told him that an improvement in
his appearance was instantly visible, he still re-
mained and held his ground valiantly. Finally
the most desperate of them called me to one side,
and implored my championship. He com-
plained bitterly that he never began to say what
trembled on his tongue, but one of those interfer-
ing fellows appeared and interrupted him, and
now, as the time was passing, there remained but
one chance before we went home, where he would
again be among a dozen other men who were sure
to get in his way. He said he had thought over
every plan, and if I would engage the interfering
442 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ones for a half hour, he would take Diana
to the hotel cupola, ostensibly to see the view
and if, after they were up there, she saw anything
but him, it would not be his fault, for say his say
he must. No one could resist such a piteous ap-
peal, so I engaged the supernumerary men in
conversation as best I could, talking against time
and eyeing the door as anxiously as they did. I
knew, when the pair returned, that the pent-up
avowal had found utterance ; but the coquetting
lass had left him in such a state of uncertainty
that even “fleeing to the house-top” had not se-
cured his future. So it went on, suspense
and agitation increasing in the perturbed hearts,
but the dallying of this coy and skillful strate-
gist, wise beyond her years in some ways,
seemed to prove that she believed what is often
said, that a man is more blissful in uncertainty
than in possession.
Our table was rarely without guests at that
time. A great many of the strangers came with
letters of introduction to us, and the General
superintended the arrangements for buffalo-hunts,
if they were to be in the vicinity of our post.
Among the distinguished visitors was Prince
OurosofF, nephew of the Emperor of Russia. He
was but a lad, and only knew that if he came
west far enough, he was very likely to find what
STRANGERS WITHIN THE GATES. 443
the atlas put down as the ” Great American
Desert.” None of us could tell him much more
of the Sahara of America than of his own step-
pes in Russia. As the years have advanced, the
maps have shifted that imaginary desert from
side to side. The pioneer does such wonders in
cultivating what was then supposed to be a barren
waste; that we bid fair in time not to have any
Sahara at all. I hardly wonder now at the sur-
prise this royal scion expressed, at finding- himself
among men and women who kept up the ameni-
ties of refined life, even when living in that sub-
terranean home which our Government provided
for its defenders — the dug-out. It seems strange
enough, that those of us who lived the rough life
of Kansas’s early days, did not entirely adopt the
careless, unconventional existence of the pioneer ;
but military discipline is something not easily set
aside.
Almost our first excursionists were such a suc-
cess that we wished they might be duplicated in
those who flocked out there in after years. Several
of the party were old travelers, willing to under-
go hardships and encounter dangers, to see the
country before it was overrun with tourists. They
were our guests, and the manner in which they
beguiled our time made their departure a real
regret. They called themselves ” Gideon’s Band.”
444
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
The youngest of the party, a McCook from the
fighting Ohio family, was ” Old Gid,” while the
oldest of all answered when they called ” Young
Gid.” As they were witty, clever, conversant by
actual experience with most things that we only
read of in the papers, we found them a godsend.
When such people thanked us for what simple
hospitality we could offer, it almost came as a
surprise, for we felt ourselves their debtors. After
having written to this point in my narrative of
our gay visit from Gideon’s Band, a letter in re-
sponse to one that I had sent to Mr. Charles
G. Leland arrived from London. I asked him
about his poem, and after twenty years, in
which we never saw him, he recalls with enthusi-
asm his short stay with us. I have only eliminated
some descriptions that he gives, in the extract of
the private letter sent then from Fort Riley —
descriptions of the wife of the commanding officer
and the pretty Diana. Women being in the
minority, it was natural that we were never un-
dervalued. Grateful as I am that he should
so highly appreciate officers’ wives, and much
as I prize what he says regarding ” the influ-
ences that made a man, and kept him what he
was,” I must reserve for Mr. Leland’s correspond-
ent of twenty years back, and for myself, his
opinion of frontier women.
A MEMORY REVIVED.
445
“Langham Hotel. Portland Place,
“London, W., June 14, 1887.
“Dear Mrs. Custer : — It is a thousand times
more likely that you should forget me than that
I should ever forget you, though it were at an in-
terval of twice twenty years ; the more so since I
have read your admirable book, which has re-
vived in me the memory of one of the strangest
incidents and some of the most agreeable impres-
sions of a somewhat varied and eventful life. I
was with a party of gentlemen who had gone out
to what was then the most advanced surveyor’s
camp for the Pacific Railway, in western Kansas.
On returning, we found ourselves one evening
about a mile from Fort Riley, where we were to
be the guests of yourself and your husband. We
had been all day in a so-called ambulance or
wagon. The one that I shared with my friend,
J. R. G. Plassard, of the New York Tribime, was
driven by a very intelligent and amusing frontiers-
man, deeply experienced in Indian and Mexican
life, named Brigham. Brigham thought, by mis-
take, that we had all gone to Fort Riley by some
other conveyance, and he was thirty or forty yards
in advance, driving on rapidly. We, encumbered
with blankets, packs and arms, had no mind to
walk when we could ‘waggon.’ One man
whistled, and all roared aloud. Then one dis-
charged his rifle. But the wind was blowing
away from Brigham towards us, and he heard
nothing. The devil put an idea in my head,
for which I have had many a regret since then.
In/andum regina jubes renovare doloreni. ‘ Thou,
my queen, dost command me to revive a
wretched sorrow.’ For it occurred that I could
send a rifle-ball so near to Brigham’s head that he
could hear the whistle, and that this would very
446
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
naturally cause him stop. If I could only know
all, I would sooner have aimed between my own
eyes.
” ‘ Give me a gun,’ I said to Colonel Lam-
bourn.
” ‘ You won’t shoot at him !’ said the Colonel.
“‘If you’ll insure the mules,’ I replied, ‘I will
insure the driver.’
” I took aim and fired. The ambulance was cov-
ered, and I did not know that Mr. Hassard, the
best fellow in the world — neinini secundus — was
sitting inside and talking to Brigham. The
bullet passed between their faces, which were
a foot apart — less rather than more.
” • What is that ? ‘ cried Hassard.
” ‘ lnju7isr replied Brigham, who knew by many
an experience how wagons were Apached, Co-
manchied, or otherwise aboriginated.
” ‘ Lay down flat !’
” He drove desperately till he thought he was
out of shot, and then put out his head to give the
Indians a taunting war-whoop. I shall never for-
get the appearance of that sun-burned face, with
gold ear-rings and a vast sombrero ! What was
his amazement at seeing only friends ! I did not
know what Brigham’s state of mind might be tow-
ard me, but I remembered that he gloried in his
familiarity with Spanish, so I said to him in the
Castile-soap dialect, ‘ I fired that shot ; is it to be
hand or knife between us ? ‘ It is to his credit
that he at once shook my hand, and said ‘ La
niano!’ He drove on in grim silence, and then
said, ‘ I’ve driven for twelve years on this frontier,
but I never heard, before, of anybody trying to
stop one by shooting the driver.’
” Another silence, broken by the following re-
mark : ‘ I wish to God there was a gulch any
A TERROR CALMED. 447
where between here and the fort ! I’d upset this
party into it d n quick.’
” But I had a great fear. It was of General Cus-
ter and what he would have to say to me, for
recklessly imperiling the life of one of his drivers,
to say nothing of what might have happened to a
valuable team of mules and the wagon. It was
with perturbed feelings — Sind, ay de ?ni / with an
evil conscience — that I approached him. He had
been informed of the incident, but was neither
angry nor vindictive. All he did was to utter a
hearty laugh and say, ‘ 1 never heard before of
such an original way of ringing a bell to call a
man.’
” In a letter written about this time to a friend, I
find the following :
” * We had not for many days seen a lady. In-
deed, the only woman I had met for more than a
week was a poor, sad soul, who, with her two child-
daughters, had just been brought in by Lieuten-
ant Hesselberger from a six-months’ captivity of
outrage and torture among the Apaches. You
may imagine how I was impressed with Mrs.
General Custer and her friend, Miss .
” ‘General Custer is an ideal — the ideal of frank
chivalry, unaffected, genial humor, and that ear-
nestness allied to originality which is so character-
istic of the best kind of Western army man. I
have not, in all my life, met with so many inter-
esting types of character, as during this, my first
journey to Kansas, but first among all, I place
this trio.
” ‘ In the evening a great musical treat awaited
me. I had once passed six months in Bavaria,
where I had learned to love the zither. This in-
strument was about as well known twenty years
ago in America, as a harp of a thousand strings.
448 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
But there was at the fort a Bavarian soldier, who
played charmingly on it, and he was brought in.
I remember askmg him for many of his best-loved
airs. The General and his wife impressed me as
two of the best entertainers of guests whom I
ever met. The perfection of this rare talent is, to
enjoy yourself while making others at their ease
and merry, and the proof lies in this, that seldom,
indeed, have I ever spent so pleasant an evening
as that in the fort.’
” My personal experience of General Custer does
not abound in anecdotes, but is extremely rich
in my impressions of him, as a type and a charac-
ter, both as man and gentleman. There is many
a man whom I have met a thousand times, whom
I hardly recollect at all, while I could never for-
get him. He w^as not only an admirable but an
impressive man. One would credit anything to
his credit, because he was so frank and earnest.
One meets with a somewhat similar character
sometimes among the Hungarians, but just such a
man is as rare as the want of them in the world is
great.
” With sincere regards, yours truly,
” Charles G. Leland.”
As Mr. Leland’s poem, ” Breitmann in Kansas,”
was inspired partly by the buffalo-hunt and visit
at our quarters, I quote a few stanzas :*
” Vonce oopen a dimes, der Herr Breitmann vent oud West.
Von efenings he was drafel mit some ladies und shendlemans,
und he shtaid incognitus. Und dey singed songs dill py and py
one of de ladies say : * Ish any podies here ash know de crate
• * From ” Hans Breitmann’s Ballads,” by permission of Messrs.
T. B. Peterson & Brothers, publishers.
A DIALECT POEM.
449
pallad of ” Hans Breitmann’s Barty ?” ‘ Den Hans said, * I am
dat rooster !’ Den der Hans took a drink und a let pencil und a
biece of baper, und goes indo himself a little dimes, and den
coomes out again mit dis boem :
*’ Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas ;
He drafel fast und far.
He rided shoost drei dousand miles
All in one railroot car.
He knowed foost rate how far he goed —
He gounted all de vile.
Dar vash shoost one bottle of champagne.
Dat bopped at efery mile.
” Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas ;
He went in on de loud.
At Ellsvort in de prairie land,
He found a pully croud.
He looked for bleeding Kansas,
But dat’s * blayed out,’ dey say ;
De whiskey keg’s de only dings
Dat’s bleedin’ der to-day.
” Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas ;
Py shings ! I dell you vot,
Von day he met a crisly bear
Dat rooshed him down, bei Gott !
Boot der Breitmann took und bind der bear,
Und bleased him fery much —
For efry vordt der crisly growled
Vas goot Bavarian Dutch !
” Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas !
By donder, dat is so !
He ridit out upon de plains
To shase de boofalo.
He fired his rifle at the bools,
Und gallop troo de shmoke
Und shoomp de canyons shoost as if
Der tyfel vas a choke !”
450
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Not only were a large number of officers
brought together that winter from varied walks
in life and of different nationalities, but the men
that enlisted ranged from the highest type of
soldier to the lowest scum of humanity recruited
in the crowded cities. It often happened that
enlisted men had served an honorable record as
officers in the volunteer service. Some had en-
tered the regular army because their life was
broken up by the war and they knew not how to
begin a new career; others had hopes of promo-
tion, on the strength of their war record, or from
the promises of influential friends. My heart is
moved anew as I recall one man, who sank his
name and individuality, his very self, it seemed,
by enlistment, and as effectually disappeared as
if he had flung himself into the river that rushed
by our post. One night there knocked at the
door of one of our officer’s quarters a man who,
though in citizen’s dress, was at once recognized
as an old comrade in the war. He had been a
brigadier-general of volunteers. After he had been
made welcome, he gave some slight account of
himself, and then said he had about made up his
mind to enlist. Our Seventh Cavalry officer im-
plored him not to think of such a thing, pictured the
existence of a man of education and refinement
in such surroundings, and offered him financial
GOOD-BY TO INDIVIDUALITY.
451
help, should that be needed.”
He finally found the subject
was adroitly withdrawn, and
the conversation went back to
old times. They talked on in
this friendly manner until mid-
night, and then parted. The
next day a soldier in fresh,
bright blue uniform, passed the
officer, formally saluting as he
went by, and to his consterna-
tion he discovered in this en-
listed man his friend of the
night before. They never met
again ; the good-by of the mid- / ^^^
night hour was m reality the y”^'”-
farewell that one of them had ifk
intended it to be.
GUN-STAND IN GENERAL CUSTER’S LIBRARY.
452
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
This is but one of many instances where supe-
rior men, for one reason or another, get into the
ranks of our army. If they are fortunate enough
to fall into the hands of considerate officers, their
lot is endurable ; but to be assigned to one who
is unjust and overbearing is a miserable existence.
One of our finest men was so constantly looking,
in his soldiers, for the same qualities that he pos-
sessed, and insisted so upon the superiority of
his men, that the officers were wont to exclaim in
good-natured irony, ” Oh, yes, we all know that
Hamilton’s company is made up of dukes and
earls in disguise.”
There were some clever rogues among the en-
listed men, and the officers were as yet scarcely
able to cope with the cunning of those who doubt-
less had intimate acquaintance with courts of
justice and prisons in the Eastern States. The re-
cruiting officer in the cities is not compelled, as in
other occupations, to ask a character from a
former employer. The Government demands able-
bodied men, and the recruiting sergeant casts his
critical eye over the anatomical outlines, as he
would over the good points of a horse destined for
the same service. The awful hereafter is, when the
officer that receives this physical perfection on the
frontier aims to discover whether it contains a soul.
Our guard-house at Fort Riley was outside the
ESCAPE FROM PRISON.
453
garrison a short distance, and held a goodly
number of violators of the regulations. For sev-
eral nights, at one time, strange sounds for such a
place issued from the walls. Religion in the
noisiest form seemed to have taken up its perma-
nent abode there, and for three hours at a time
singing, shouting and loud praying went on.
There was every appearance of a revival among
those trespassers. The officer of the day, in mak-
ing his rounds, had no comment to pass upon this
remarkable transition from card- playing and
wrangling ; he was doubtless relieved to hear the
voice of the exhorters as he visited the guard, and
indulged in the belief that the prisoners were out
of mischief. On the contrary, this vehement
attack of religion covered up the worst sort of
roguery. Night after night they had been digging
tunnels under the stone foundation-walls, remov-
ing boards and cutting beams in the floor, and to
deaden the sound of the pounding and digging
some of their number were told off to sing, pray
and shout. One morning the guard opened the
door of the rooms in which the prisoners had been
confined, and they were empty ! Even two that
wore ball and chains for serious offenses had in
some manner managed to knock them off, as all
had swum the Smoky Hill River, and they were
never again heard from.
454 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
As with the history of all prisons, so it was of
our Httle one. The greatest rogues were not in-
carcerated ; they were too cunning to be caught.
It often happened that some excellent soldiers be-
came innocently involved in a fracas and were
marched off to the guard-house, while the arch
villain slipped into his place in the ranks and
answered to his name at roll-call, apparently the
most exemplary of soldiers. Several instances of
what I thought to be unjust imprisonment came
directly under my notice, and I may have been
greatly influenced by Eliza’s pleas in their be-
half. We made the effort, and succeeded in ex-
tricating one man from his imprisonment.
Whether he was in reality wronged, or had only
worked upon our sympathies, will never be known,
but he certainly made an excellent soldier from
that time until the end of his enlistment. Eliza,
in her own quaint way, is saying to me now, ” Do
you mind, Miss Libbie, how me and you got J
his parole ? He used to come to our house with
the rest of the prisoners, to police the yard and cut
the wood, and they used to hang round my door ;
the guard could hardly get ’em away. Well, I
reckon he didn’t try very hard, for he didn’t like
hard-tack no better than they did. One of them
would speak up the minute they saw me, and say,
‘Eliza, you hain’t got no hot biscuit, have you?’
A PLEA FOR PRISOXERS.
455
Hot biscuits for prisoners ! do you hear that, Miss
Libbie ? The Ginnel would be standin’ at the
back window, just to catch a chance to laugh at
me if I gave the prisoners anythin’ to eat. He’d
stand at that window, movin’ from one foot to
the other, craning of his neck, and when I did
give any cold scraps, he just bided his time, and
when he saw me he would say, ‘ Well, been
issuin’ your rations again, Eliza ? How many
apple-dumplin’s and biscuit did they get this
time ? ‘ Apple-dumplin’s, Miss Libbie ! He jest
said that ’cause he liked ’em better than any-
thin’ else, and s’posed I’d been givin’ away some
of his. But as soon as he had teased me about it,
that was the end; he would go along about his way
and pick up his book, when he had done his laugh.
But, Miss Libbie, he used to kinder mistrust, if me
and you was talkin’ one side. He would say,
‘ What you two conspirin’ up now ? Tryin’ to
get some one out of jail, I s’pose.’ I remember
how we worked for J . He came to me and
told me I must ‘ try to get Mrs. Custer to work
for him ; two words from her would do him more
good than all the rest,’ and he would come along
sideways by your window, carrying his ball over
his arm with the chain a danglin’, and look so
pitiful like, so you would see him and beg him off.”
This affair ended entirely to Eliza’s satisfaction.
45^
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
I saw the captain of his company ; for though it
was against my husband’s wish that I should have
anything to do with official matters, he did not
object to this intervention; he only laughed at my
credulity. The captain politely heard my state-
ment of what Eliza had told me were J ‘s
wrongs, and gave him parole. His sentence was
rescinded eventually, as he kept his promises and
was a most faithful soldier. The next morning
after J was returned to duty and began life
anew, one of the young officers sauntered into our
quarters and, waving his hand with a little
flourish, said, ” I want to congratulate you on
having obtained the pardon of the greatest scamp
in the regiment ; he wouldn’t steal a red-hot stove,
but would wait a mighty long time for it to cool.”
Later in my story is my husband’s mention, in his
letters, of the very man as bearing so good a
record that he sent for him and had him detailed
at headquarters, for nothing in the world, he con-
fessed, but because I had once interceded for him.
Eliza kept my sympathies constantly aroused,
with her piteous tales of the wrongs of the pris-
oners. They daily had her ear, and she appointed
herself judge, jury and attorney for the defense.
On the coldest days, when we could not ride and
the wind blew so furiously that we were not able
to walk, I saw from our windows how poorly clad
COLD FACTS AGAINST US.
457
they were, for they came daily, under the care of
the guard, to cut the wood and fill the water-bar-
rels. The General quietly endured the expressions
of sympathy, and sometimes my indignant pro-
tests against unjust treatment. He knew the wrath-
ful spirit of the kitchen had obeyed the natural
law that heat must rise, and treated our combined
rages over the prisoners’ wrongs with aggravating
calmness. Knowing more about the guard-house
occupants than I did, he was fortified by facts
that saved him from expending his sympathies in
the wrong direction. He only smiled at the plau-
sible stories by which Eliza was first taken in at
the kitchen door. They lost nothing by trans-
mission, as she had quite an imagination and de-
cidedly a dramatic delivery ; and finally, when I
told the tale, trying to perform the monstrously
hard feat of telling it as it was told to me, youth,
inexperience and an emotional temperament made
a narrative so absolutely distressing that the Gen-
eral was likely to come over bodily to our side,
had he not recalled the details of the court-martial
that had tried the soldier. We were routed, yet
not completely, for we fell back upon his clothes,,
and pleaded that, though he was thought to be
wicked, he might be permitted to be warm. But
the colored and white troops had to leave the field,
“horse, foot and dragoons,” when, on investiga-
458 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
tion, we found that the man for whom we pleaded
had gambled away his very shirt.
The unmoved manner in which my husband
listened to different accounts of supposed cruelty —
dropping his beloved newspaper with the injured
air that men assume, while 1 sat by him, half cry-
ing, gesticulating, thoroughly roused in my de-
fense of the injured one — was exasperating, to say
the least ; and then, at last, to have this bubble
of assumed championship burst, and see him
launch into such uproarious conduct when he
found that the man for whom I pleaded was the
arch rogue of all — oh, women alone can picture to
themselves what the situation must have been to
poor me !
After one of these seasons of good-natured
scoffing over the frequency with which I was taken
in, I mentally resolved that, though the proof I
heard of the soldier’s depravity was too strong
for me to ignore, there was no contesting the fact
that the criminal was cold, and if I had failed in
freeing him I might at least provide against his
freezing. He was at that time buttoning a rag-
ged blouse up to his chin, not only for warmth,
but because, in his evening game of poker, his
comrade had won the undergarment, quite super-
fluous, he thought, while warmed by the guard-
house fire. I proceeded to shut myself in our
CAPTURE FROM A GUNBOAT. 459
room, and go through the General’s trunk for
something warm. The selection that I made was
unfortunate. There were some navy shirts of blue
flannel that had been procured with considerable
trouble from a gunboat in the James River the last
year of the war, the like of which, in quality and
durability, could not be found in any shop. The
material was so good that they neither shrunk nor
pulled out of shape. The broad collar had a star
embroidered in solid silk in either corner. The
General had bought these for their durability, but
they proved to be a picturesque addition to his
gay dress ; and the red necktie adopted by his
entire Third Division of Cavalry gave a dash of
vivid color, while the yellow hair contrasted with
the dark blue of the flannel. The gunboats were
overwhelmed with applications to buy, as his
Division wished to adopt this feature of his dress
also, and military tailors had many orders to re-
produce what the General had ” lighted upon,” as
the officers expressed it, by accident. Really,
there was no color so good for campaigning, as it
was hard to harmonize any gray tint with the
different blues of the uniform. Men have a way
of saying that we women never seize their things,
for barter or other malevolent purposes, without
selecting what they especially prize. But the
General really had reason to dote upon these shirts.
460 TENTING ON THE PLAINS,
The rest of the story scarcely needs telHng.
Many injured husbands whose wardrobes have
been confiscated for eleemosynary purposes, will
join in a general wail. The men that wear
one overcoat in early spring, and carry another
over their arm to their offices, uncertain, if they
did not observe this precaution, that the coming
winter would not find these garments mysteriously
metamorphosed into lace on a gown, or mantle
ornaments, may fill in all that my story fails to
tell. In the General’s case, it was perhaps more
than ordinarily exasperating. It was not that a
creature who bargains for ” gentlemen’s cast-offs”
had possession of something that a tailor could
not readily replace, but we were then too far out
on the Plains to buy even ordinary blue flannel.
As I remember myself half buried in the trunk
of the commanding officer, and suddenly lifted into
the air with a shirt in one hand, my own escape
from the guard-house seems miraculous. As it
was, I was let off very lightly, ignoring some re-
marks about it’s being ” a pretty high-handed
state of affairs, that compels a man to lock his
trunk in his own family ; and that, between Tom’s
pilfering and his wife’s, the commanding officer
would soon be obliged to receive official reports
in bed.”
There was very little hunting about Fort Riley
TEMPORAR Y FAMINE. /^6 I
in the winter. The General had shot a great
many prairie chickens in the autumn, and hung
them in the wood-house, and while they lasted
we were not entirely dependent on Government
beef. As the season advanced, we had only ox-
tail soup and beef. Although the officers were
allowed to buy the best cuts, the cattle that sup-
plied the post with meat were far from being in
good condition. One day our table was crowded
with officers, some of whom had just reported for
duty. The usual great tureen of soup was dis-
posed of, and the servant brought in an immense
platter, on which generally reposed a large roast.
But when the dish was placed before the General,
to my dismay there appeared in the centre of its
wide circumference a steak hardly larger than a
man’s hand. It was a painful situation, and I
blushed, gazed uneasily at the new-comers, but
hesitated about apologies, as they were my hus-
band’s detestation. He relieved us from the
awful silence that fell upon all, by a peal of
laughter that shook the table and disturbed the
poor little steak in its lonesome bed. Eliza thrust
her head in at the door, and explained that the
cattle had stampeded, and the commissary could
not get them back in time to kill, as they did
daily at the post. The General was perfectly
unmoved, calling those peculiar staccato “all
462 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
right !” ” all right !” to poor Eliza, setting affairs
at ease again, and asking the guests to do the best
they could with the vegetables, bread and butter,
coffee and dessert.
The next day, beef returned to our table, but,
alas ! the potatoes gave out, and I began to be
disturbed about my housewifely duties. My
husband begged me not to give it a thought, say-
ing that Eliza would pull us through the tempo-
rary famine satisfactorily, and adding, that what
was good enough for us, was good enough for our
guests. But an attack of domestic responsibility
was upon me, and I insisted upon going to the
little town near us. Under any circumstances the
General opposed my entering its precincts, as it
was largely inhabited by outlaws and despera-
does, and to go for so small a consideration as
marketing was entirely against his wishes. I
paid dearly for my persistence ; for, when, after
buying what I could at the stores, I set out to
return, the chain bridge on which I had crossed
the river in the morning, had been swept away,
and the roaring torrent, that had risen above the
high banks, was plunging along its furious way,
bearing earth and trees in its turbid flood. I
spent several dreary hours on the bank, growing
more uneasy and remorseful all the time. The
potatoes and eggs that so short a time since I had
A PERSISTENT V/OMAN. 463
triumphantly secured, seemed more and more
hateful to me, as I looked at them lying in the
basket in the bottom of the ambulance. I made
innumerable resolves that, so long as my husband
did not wish me to concern myself about provid-
ing for our table, I never would attempt it again ;
but all these resolutions could not bring back the
bridge, and I had to take the advice of one of
our officers, who was also waiting to cross, and
go back to the house of one of the merchants
who sold supplies to the post. His wife was very
hospitable, as frontier men and women invariably
are. and next morning I was down on the bank of
the river early, more impatient than ever to cross.
What made the detention more exasperating was,
that the buildings of the garrison on the plateau
were plainly visible from where we waited. Then
ensued the most foolhardy conduct on my part,
and so terrified the General when I told him
afterward, that I came near never being trusted
alone again. The most vexing part of it all was,
that I involved the officer, who was in town by
accident, in imminent danger, for when he heard
what I was determined to do, he had no alternative
but to second my scheme, as no persuasion was
of any avail. I induced a sergeant in charge of
a small boat to take me over. I was frantic to
get home, as for some time preparations had been
464 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
going on for a summer campaign, and I had kept
it out of our day as much as I could.
The General never anticipated trouble, reason-
ing that it was bad enough when it came, and we
both felt that every hour must hold what it could
of enjoyment, and not be darkened a moment if
we could help it. The hours of delay on the
bank were almost insupportable, as each one was
shortening precious time. I could not help tell-
ing the sergeant this, and he yielded to my en-
treaties— for what soldier ever refused our ap-
peals ? The wind drove through the trees on the
bank, lashing the limbs to and fro and breaking
off huge branches, and it required almost super-
human strength to hold the frail boat to the slip-
pery landing long enough to lift me in. The sol-
dier at the prow held in his muscular hands a pole
with an iron pin at the end, with which he used
all his energy to push away the floating logs that
threatened to swamp us. It was almost useless to
attempt to steer, as the river had a current that
it was impossible to stem. The only plan was, to
push out into the stream filled with debris, and
let the current shoot the boat far down the river,
aiming for a bend in its shores on the opposite
side. I closed my eyes to the wild rush of water
on all sides ; shuddering at the shouts of the sol-
diers, who tried to make themselves heard above
TESTING A MAN’S METTLE. 465
the deafening clamor of the tempest. I could not
face our danger and retain my self-control, and I
was tortured by the thought of having brought
peril to others. I owed my life to the strong and sup-
ple arms of the sergeant and the stalwart soldier
who assisted him, for with a spring they caught
the limbs of an over-hanging tree, just at the im-
portant moment when our little craft swung near
the bank at the river bend, and, clutching at
branches and rocks, we were pulled to the shore
and safely landed. Why the brave sergeant
even listened to such a wild proposition, I do not
know. It was the maddest sort of recklessness to
attempt such a crossing, and the man had nothing
to gain. With the strange, impassable gulf that
separates a soldier from his officers and their
families, my imploring to be taken over the river,
and my overwhelming thanks afterward, were
the only words he would ever hear me speak.
With the officer who shared the peril, it was differ-
ent. When we sat round the fireside again, he
was the hero of the hour. The gratitude of the
officers, the thanks of the women putting them-
selves in my place and giving him praise for en-
countering danger for another, were some sort of
compensation. The poor sergeant had nothing ;
he went back to the barracks, and sank his indi-
viduality in the ranks, where the men look so
466 TENTIXG ON THE PLAINS.
alike in their uniform it is almost impossible to
distinguish the soldier that has acted the hero
from one who is never aught but a poltroon.
After the excitement of the peril I had passed
was over, I no longer wondered that there was
such violent opposition to women traveling with
troops. The lesson lasted me a long time, as I
was well aware what planning and preparation it
cost to take us women along, in any case, when
the regiment was on the move, and to make these
efforts more difficult by my own heedlessness was
too serious a mistake to be repeated.
In spite of the drawbacks to a perfectly success-
ful garrison, which was natural in the early career
of a regiment, the winter had been full of pleas-
ure to me ; but it came to a sad ending when the
preparations for the departure of the troops began.
The stitches that I put in the repairs to the blue
flannel shirts were set with tears. I eagerly
sought every opportunity to prepare the camping
outfit. The mess-chest was filled with a few strong
dishes, sacks were made and filled with coffee,
sugar, flour, rice, etc., and a few cans of fruit and
vegetables were packed away in the bottom of
the chest. The means of transportation were so
limited that every pound of baggage was a matter
of consideration, and my husband took some of
the space, that I thought ought to be devoted to
TROPHIES OF THE CHASE IN GENERAL CUSTER’s LIPRARY.
467
468 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
comforts, for a few books that he could stand read-
ing and re-reading. EHza was the untiring one in
preparing the outfit for the summer. She knew just
when to administer comforting words, as I sighed
over the preparations, and reminded me that “the
Ginnel always did send for you, every chance he
got, and war times on the Plains wan’t no wuss
than in Virginia.”
There was one joke that came up at every move
we ever made, over which the General was always
merry. ^The officers, in and out of our quarters
daily, were wont to observe the unusual alacrity
that I displayed when orders came to move. As
I had but little care or anxiety about household
affairs, the contrast with my extreme interest in
the arrangements of the mess-chest, bedding and
campaigning clothes was certainly marked. I
longed for activity, to prevent me from showing
my heavy heart, and really did learn to be some-
what successful in crowding a good deal into a
small space, and choosing the things that were
most necessary. As the officers came in unan-
nounced, they found me flying hither and thither,
intent on my duties, and immediately saw an
opportunity to tease the General, condoling with
him because, having exhausted himself in ardu-
ous packing for the campaign, he would be obliged
to set out totally unfitted for the summer’s hard-
FRUGALITY RIDICULED. 469
ships. After their departure, he was sure to turn
to me, with roguery in his voice, and ask if I had
noticed how sorry all those young fellows were
for a man who was obliged to work so hard to
^et his traps ready for a move.
It was amusing to notice the indifferent manner
in which some of the officers saw the careful and
frugal preparing for the campaign. That first
spring’s experience was repeated in every after
preparation. There were always those who took
little or nothing themselves, but became experts
at casual droppings in to luncheon or dinner with
some painstaking provider, who endeavored vainly
to get himself out of sight when the halt came for
eating. This little scheme was occasionally per-
sisted in merely to annoy one who, having shown
some signs of parsimony, needed discipline in the
eyes of those who really did a great deal of good
by their ridicule. Among one group of officers,
who had planned to mess together, the only pro-
vision was a barrel of eggs. It is only necessary
to follow a cavalry column over the crossing of
one creek, to know the exact condition that such
perishable food would be in at the end of the first
day. There were two of the ” plebes,” as the
youngest of the officers were called — as I recall
them, bright, boyish, charming fellows — who
openly rebelled against the rebuffs they claimed
470 TEN7IXG OM THE PLAINS.
were given them, when they attempted to prac-
tice the dropping-in plan at another’s meals.
After one of these sallies on the enemy, they
met the repulse with the announcement that if
“those stingy old molly-coddles thought they had
nothing to eat in their own outfit, they would
show them,” and took the occasion of one of their
birthdays to prove that their resources were un-
limited. Though the two endeavored to conceal
the hour and place of this fete, a persistent watch-
er discovered that the birthday breakfast con-
sisted of a bottle of native champagne and corn
bread. The hospitality of officers is too well
known to make it necessary to explain that those
with any tendency to penuriousness were excep-
tions. An army legend is in existence of an
officer who would not allow his hospitality to be
set aside, even though he was very short of sup-
plies. Being an officer of the old army, he was
as formal over his repast as if it were abundant,
and, with all ceremony, had his servant pass
the rice. The guest, thinking it the first course,
declined, whereupon the host, rather offended,
replied, “Well, if you don’t like the rice, help
yourself to the mustard.” This being the only
other article on the bill of fare, there need be no
doubt as to his final choice. When several officers
decide to mess together on a campaign, each one
LEARNING TO CAMPAIGN. 47 1
promises to provide some one necessary supply.
On one of these occasions, after the first day’s
march was ended, and orders for dinner were given
to the servant, it was discovered that all but one
had exercised his own judgment regarding what
was the most necessary provision for comfort,
and the one that had brought a loaf of bread in-
stead of a demijohn of whisky was berated for
his choice.
In the first days of frontier life, our people
knew but little about preparations for the field,
and it took some time to realize that they were in
a land where they could not live upon the country.
It was a severe and lasting lesson to those using
tobacco, when they found themselves without it,.
and so far from civilization that there was no op-
portunity of replenishing their supply. On the
return from the expedition, the injuries as well as
the enjoyments are narrated. Sometimes, we
women, full of sympathy for the privations that
had been endured, found that these um^e injuries ;
sometimes we discovered that imagination had
created them. We enjoyed, maliciously I am
afraid, the growling of one man who never erred
in any way, and consequently had no margin for
any one that did ; calculating and far – seeing in
his life, he felt no patience for those who, being
young, were yet to learn these lessons of frugality
472
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
that were born in him. He was still wrathful
when he gave us an account of one we knew to be
delightfully impudent when he was bent on
teasing. When the provident man untied the
strings of his tobacco-pouch, and settled himself
for a smoke, the saucy young lieutenant was sure
to stroll that way, and in tones loud enough for
those near to hear him, drawl out, “I’ve got a
match ; if any other fellow’s got a pipe and tobac-
co, I’ll have a smoke.”
The expedition that was to leave Fort Riley was
commanded by General Hancock, then at the
head of the Department of the Missouri. He ar-
rived at our post from Fort Leavenworth with
seven companies of infantry and a battery of
artillery. His letters to the Indian agents of the
various tribes give the objects of the march into
the Indian country. He wrote :
” I have the honor to state, for your information,
that I am at present preparing an expedition to
the Plains, which will soon be ready to move.
My object in doing so at this time is, to convince
the Indians within the limits of this Department
that we are able to punish any of them who may
molest travelers across the Plains, or who may
commit other hostilities against the whites. We
desire to avoid, if possible, any troubles with the
Indians, and to treat them with justice, and ac-
A MILITAR Y LE TTER. 473
cording” to the requirements of our treaties with
them ; and I wish especially, in my dealings with
them, to act through the agents of the Indian
Department as far as it is possible to do so. If
you, as their agent, can arrange these matters
satisfactorily with them, we shall be pleased to
defer the whole subject to you. In case of your
inability to do so, I would be pleased to have you
accompany me when I visit the country of your
tribes, to show that the officers of the Government
are acting in harmony. I shall be pleased to talk
with any of the chiefs whom we may meet. I do
not expect to make war against any of the Indians
of your agency, unless they commence war
against us.”
In General Custer’s account, he says that ” the
Indians had been guilty of numerous thefts and
murders during the preceding summer and au-
tumn, for none of which had they been called to
account. They had attacked the stations of the
overland mail-route, killed the employees, burned
the stations and captured the stock. Citizens
had been murdered in their homes on the frontier
of Kansas ; and murders had been committed on
the Arkansas route. The principal perpetrators
of these acts were the Cheyennes and Sioux.
The agent of the former, if not a party to the
murder on the Arkansas, knew who the guilty
474
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
persons were, yet took no steps to bring the mur-
derers to punishment. Such a course would have
interfered with his trade and profits. It was not
to punish for these sins of the past that the
expedition was set on foot, but, rather, by its im-
posing appearance and its early presence in the
Indian country, to check or intimidate the Indians
from a repetition of their late conduct. During
the winter the leading chiefs and warriors had
threatened that, as soon as the grass was up, the
tribes would combine in a united outbreak along
the entire frontier.”
There had been little opportunity to put the ex-
pedition out of our minds for some time previous
to its departure. The sound from the black-
smith’s shop, of the shoeing of horses, the drilling
on the level ground outside of the post, and the
loading of wagons about the quartermaster and
commissary storehouses, went on all day long.
At that time the sabre was more in use than it
was later, and it seemed to me that I could never
again shut my ears to the sound of the grindstone,
when I found that the sabres were being sharp-
ened. The troopers, when mounted, were curio-
sities, and a decided disappointment to me. The
horse, when prepared for the march, barely showed
head and tail. My ideas of the dashing trooper
going out to war, clad in gay uniform and curb-
A CUMBERSOME LOAD.
475
ing a curvetting steed, faded into nothingness be-
fore the reahty. Though the wrapping together
of the blanket, overcoat and shelter-tent is made
a study of the tactics, it could not be reduced to
anything but a good-sized roll at the back of the
saddle. The carbine rattled on one side of the
soldier, slung from the broad strap over his
shoulder, while a frying-pan, a tin-cup, a canteen,
and a haversack of hard-tack clattered and bobbed
about on his other side. There were possibly a
hundred rounds of ammunition in his cartridge-
belt, which took away all the symmetry that his
waist might otherwise have had. If the company
commander was not too strict, a short butcher-
knife, thrust into a home-made leather case, kept
company with the pistol. It was not a murder-
ous weapon, but was used to cut up game or slice
off the bacon, which, sputtering in the skillet at
evening camp-fire, was the main feature of the
soldier’s supper. The tin utensils, the carbine and
the sabre, kept up a continual din, as the horses
seemingly crept over the trail at the rate of three
to four miles an hour. In addition to the cumber-
some load, there were sometimes lariats and iron
picket-pins slung on one side of the saddle, to
tether the animals when they grazed at night.
There was nothing picturesque about this lumber-
ing cavalryman, and, besides, our men did not
476 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
then sit their horses with the serenity that they
eventually attained. If the beast shied or kicked
— for the poor thing was itself learning to do sol-
diering, and occasionally flung out his heels, or
snatched the bit in his mouth in protest — it was a
question whether the newly made Mars would
land on the crupper or hang helplessly among the
domestic utensils suspended to his saddle. How
sorry I was for them, they were so bruised and
lamed by their first lessons in horsemanship.
Every one laughed at every one else, and this
made it seem doubly trying to me. I remembered
my own first lessons among fearless cavalrymen
— a picture of a trembling figure, about as uncer-
tain in the saddle as if it were a wave of the sea,
the hands cold and nerveless, and, I regret to add,
the tears streaming down my cheeks ! These
recollections made me writhe when I saw a soldier
describing an arc in the air, and his self-freed
horse galloping off to the music of tin and steel
in concert, for no such compulsory landing was
ever met, save by a roar of derision from the col-
umn. Just in proportion as I had suffered for their
misfortunes, did I enjoy the men when, after
the campaign, they returned, perfect horsemen
and with such physiques as might serve for a
sculptor’s model.
At the time the expedition formed at Fort Riley,
INDIAN WARFARE A REALITY. 477
I had little realization what a serious affair an In-
dian campaign was. We had heard of the out-
rages committed on the settlers, the attacking of
the overland supply-trains, and the burning of the
stage-stations ; but the rumors seemed to come
from so far away that the reality was never
brought home to me until I saw for myself what
horror attends Indian depredations. Even a dis-
aster to one that seemed to.be of our own fam-
ily failed to implant in me that terror of In-
dians which, a month or two later, I realized to its
fullest extent by personal danger. I must tell my
reader, by going back to the days of the war,
something of the one that first showed us what
Indian warfare really was. It was a sad prepara-
tion for the campaign that followed.
After General Custer had been promoted from
a captain to a brigadier-general, in 1863, his brig-
ade lay quietly in camp for a few days, to recruit
before setting out on another raid. This gave the
unusual privilege of lying in bed a little later in
the morning, instead of springing out before dawn.
For several mornings in succession, my husband
told me, he saw a little boy steal through a small
opening in the tent, take out his clothes and boots,
and after a while creep back with them, brushed
and folded. At last he asked Eliza where on
earth that cadaverous little image came from, and
478 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
she explained that it was ” a poor Uttle picked
sparrow of a chile, who had come hangin’ aroun’
the camp-fire, mos’ starved,” and added, ” Now,
Ginnel, you mustn’t go and turn him off, for he’s
got nowhar to go, and ‘pears like he’s crazy to
wait on you.” The General questioned him, and
found that the boy, being unhappy at home, had run
away. Enough of his sad life was revealed to con-
vince the General that it was useless to attempt to
return him to his Eastern home, for he was a de-
termined little fellow, and there was no question
that he would have fled again. His parents were
rich, and my husband evidently knew who they
were ; but the story was confidential, so I never
knew anything of him, except that he was always
showing signs of good-breeding, even though he
lived about the camp-fire. A letter that my hus-
band wrote to his own home at that time spoke of a
hound puppy that one of his soldiers had given to
him, and then of a little waif, called Johnnie,
whom he had taken as his servant. “The boy,”
he wrote, ” is so fond of the pup he takes him to
bed with him.” Evidently the child began his
service with devotion, for the General adds : ” I
think he would rather starve than to see me go
hungry. I have dressed him in soldier’s clothes,
and he rides one of my horses on the march.
Returning from the march one day, I found John-
DRILLING A SERVANT. ^yg
nie with his sleeves rolled up. He had washed
all my soiled clothes and hung them on the bushes
to dry. Small as he is, they were very well done.”
Soon after Johnnie became my husband’s serv-
ant, we were married, and I was taken down to
the Virginia farm-house, that was used as brigade
headquarters. By this time, Eliza had initiated
the boy into all kinds of work. She, in turn, fed
him, mended his clothes, and managed him, lord-
ing it over the child in a lofty but never unkind
manner. She had tried to drill him to wait on the
table, as she had seen the duty performed on the
old plantation. At our first dinner he was so
bashful I thought he would drop everything.
My husband did not believe in having a head and
foot to the table when we were alone, so poor little
Johnnie was asked to put my plate beside the
General’s. Though he was so embarrassed in this
new phase of his life, he was never so intimidated
by the responsibility Eliza had pressed upon him
that he was absent-minded or confused regarding
one point : he invariably passed each dish to the
General first. Possibly my husband noticed it.
I certainly did not. There was a pair of watchful
eyes at a crack in the kitchen-door, which took in
this little incident. One day the General came
into our room laughing, his eyes sparkling with
fun over Eliza’s description of how she had noticed
480 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Johnnie always serving the General first, and had
labored with him in secret, to teach him to wait
on the lady first. “It’s manners,” she said, be-
lieving that was a crushing argument. But John-
nie, usually obedient, persistently refused, always
replying that the General was the one of us two
that ranked, and he ought to be served first.
At the time of General Kilpatrick’s famous raid,
when he went to take Richmond, General Custer
was ordered to make a detour in an opposite direc-
tion, in order to deceive the Confederate army as
to the real object to be accomplished. This ruse
worked so successfully, that General Custer and
his command were put in so close and dangerous
a situation it was with difficulty that any of them
escaped. The General told me that when the
pursuit of the enemy was hottest, and everyone
doing his utmost to escape, he saw Johnnie driv-
ing a light covered wagon at a gallop, which was
loaded with turkeys and chickens. He had re-
ceived his orders from Eliza, before setting out, to
bring back something for the mess, and the boy
had carried out her directions with a vengeance.
He impressed into his service the establishment
that he drove, and filled it with poultry. Even in
the melee and excitement of retreat, the General
was wonderfully amused, and amazed too, at the
little fellow’s fearlessness. He was too fond of him
A DARING FORAGER. 48 I
to leave him in danger, so he galloped in his direc-
tion and called to him, as he stood up lashing his
horse, to abandon his capture or he would be him-
self a prisoner. The boy obeyed, but hesitatingly,
cut the harness, sprang upon the horse’s un-
saddled back, and was soon with the main column.
The General, by this delay, was obliged to take to
an open field to avoid capture, and leap a high
fence in order to overtake the retreating troops.
He became more and more interested in the
boy, who was such a combination of courage and
fidelity, and finally arranged to have him enlist
as a soldier. The war was then drawing to its
close, and he secured to the lad a large bounty,
which he placed at interest for him, and after the
surrender persuaded Johnnie to go to school. It
was difficult to induce him to leave ; but my hus-
band realized what injustice it was to keep him in
the menial position to which he desired to return,
and finally left him, with the belief that he had
instilled some ambition into the boy.
A year and a half afterward, as we were stand-
ing on the steps of the gallery of our quarters at
Fort Riley, we noticed a stripling of a lad walk-
ing toward us, with his head hanging on his
breast, in the shy, embarrassed manner of one
who doubts his reception. With a glad cry, my
husband called out that it was Johnnie Cisco, and
482 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
bounded down the steps to meet him. After he
was assured of his welcome, he said it was impos-
sible for him to stay away, he longed so con-
stantly to be again with us, and added that if we
would only let him stay, he would not care what
he did. Of course, the General regretted the
giving up of his school ; but, now that he had
made the long journey, there was no help for it,
and he decided that he should stay with us until
he could find him employment, for he was deter-
mined that he should not re-enlist. The boy’s old
and tried friend, Eliza, at once assumed her posi-
tion of “missus,” and, kind-hearted tyrant! gave
him every comfort and made him her vassal,
without a remonstrance from the half-grown man,
for he was only too glad to be in the sole home
he knew, no matter on what terms. Soon after
his coming, the General obtained from one of the
managers of the Wells-Fargo Express Company
a place of messenger ; and the recommendation he
gave the boy for honesty and fidelity was con-
firmed over and over again by the officers of the
express line. He was known on the entire route
from Ogden to Denver, and was entrusted with
immense amounts of gold in its transmission from
the Colorado mines to the States. Several times
he came to our house for a vacation, and my hus-
band had always the unvarying and genuine
A BOY HERO. 483
welcome that no one doubted when once given,
and he did not fail to praise and encourage the
friendless fellow. Eliza, after learning what the
lad had passed through, in his dangers from
Indians, treated him like a conquering hero, but
alternately bullied and petted him still. At last
there came a long interval between his visits, and
my husband sent to the express people to inquire.
Poor Johnnie had gone like many another brave
employee of that venturesome firm. In a coura-
geous defense of the passengers and the company’s
gold, when the stage was attacked, he had been
killed by the Indians. Eliza kept the battered
valise that her favorite had left with us, and
mourned over it as if it had been something hu-
man. I found her cherishing the bag in a hidden
corner, and recalling to me, with tears, how
warm-hearted Johnnie was, saying that the night
the news of her old mother’s death came to her
from Virginia, he had sat up till daybreak to keep
the fire going. ” Miss Libbie, I tole him to go to
bed, but he said, ‘ No, Eliza, I can’t do it, when
you are in trouble : when I had no friends and
couldn’t help myself, you helped me.’ ” After
that, the lad was always ” poor Johnnie,” and
many a boy with kinsfolk of his own is not more
sincerely mourned.
As the days drew nearer for the expedition to
484 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
set out, my husband tried to keep my spirits up
by reminding me that the council to be held with
the chiefs of the war-hke tribes, when they reach-
ed that part of the country infested with the
marauding Indians, was something he hoped
might result in our speedy reunion. He endeav-
ored to induce me to think, as he did, that the
Indians would be so impressed with the magni-
tude of the expedition, that, after the council, they
would accept terms and abandon the war-path.
Eight companies of our own regiment were going
out, and these, with infantry and artillery, made a
force of fourteen hundred men. It was really a
large expedition, for the Plains ; but the recollec-
tions of the thousands of men in the Third
Cavalry Division, which was the General’s com-
mand during the war, made the expedition seem
too small even for safety.
No one can enumerate the terrors, imaginary
and real, that filled the hearts of women on the
border in those desperate days. The buoyancy
of my husband had only a momentary effect in
the last hours of his stay. That time seemed to
fly fast ; but no amount of excitement and bustle
of preparation closed my eyes, even momentarily,
to the dragging hours that awaited me. Such
partings are a torture that it is difficult even to
refer to. My husband added another struggle to
A SILENT COLUMN. 485
my lot by imploring me not to let him see the
tears that he knew, for his sake, I could keep back
until he was out of sight. Though the band
played its usual departing tune, ” The Girl I Left
Behind Me,” if there was any music in the notes,
it was all in the minor key to the men who left
their wives behind them. No expedition goes out
with shout and song, if loving, weeping women
are left behind. Those who have not assumed the
voluntary fetters that bind us for weal or for woe,
and render it impossible to escape suffering while
those we love suffer, or rejoicing while those to
whom we are united are jubilant, felt too keenly
for their comrades when they watched them tear
themselves from clinging arms inside the thresh-
old of their homes, even to keep up the* stream of
idle chaffing that only such occasions can stop.
There was silence as the column left the garrison.
Alas ! the closed houses they left were as still as
if death had set its seal upon the door ; no sound
but the sobbing and moans of women’s breaking
hearts.
Eliza stood guard at my door for hours and
hours, until I had courage, and some degree of
peace, to take up life again. A loving, suffering
woman came to sleep with me for a night or two.
The hours of those first wakeful nights seemed
endless. The anxious, unhappy creature beside
486 TENTmc OS’ rim plains.
me said, gently, in the small hours, ” Libbie, are
you awake ?” ” Oh, yes,” I replied, ” and have
been for ever so long.” ” What are you doing?”
*’ Saying over hymns, snatches of poetry, the
Lord’s Prayer backward, counting, etc., to try to
put myself to sleep.” ” Oh, say some rhyme to
me, in mercy’s name, for I am past all hope of
sleep while I am so unhappy !” Then I repeated,
over and over again, a single verse, written, perhaps,
by someone who, like ourselves, knew little of the
genius of poetry, but, alas ! much of what makes
up the theme of all the sad verses of the world.
” There’s something in the parting hour
That chills the warmest heart ;
But kindred, comrade, lover, friend,
Are fated all to part.
But this I’ve seen, and many a pang
Has pressed it on my mind —
The one that goes is happier
Than he who stays behind.”
Perhaps after I had said this and another similar
verse over and over again, in a sing-song, droning
voice, the regular breathing at my side told me
that the poor tired heart had found temporary for-
getfulness ; but when we came to the sad reality
of our lonely life next day, every object in our
quarters reminded us what it is to ” stay behind.”
There are no lonely women who will not realize
how the very chairs, or anything in common use,
IWILIGHT’S ”SOBER LIVERY,” 487
»
take to themselves voices and call out reminders
of what has been and what now is. Fill up the
time as we might, there came each day, at
twilight, an hour that should be left out of every
solitary life. It is meant only for the happy, who
need make no subterfuges to fill up hours that are
already precious.
CHAPTER XV.
A PRAIRIE FIRE LETTERS FROM THE GENERAL LEND-
ING A DOG FOR A BEDFELLOW BEALTy’s BOWS
AND BEAUX NEGRO RECRUITS TURN THE POST
INTO A CIRCUS LADIES FIRED ON BY A SENTI-
NEL THE SUGAR MUTINY SMALL-POX IN THE
GARRISON GENERAL GIBBS RESTORES ORDER
AN EARTHQUAKE AT FORT RILEY.
T T was a great change for us from the bustle and
excitement of the cavalry, as they prepared
for the expedition, to the dull routine of an infan-
try garrison that replaced the dashing troopers.
It was intensely quiet, and we missed the clatter
of the horses’ hoofs, the click of the curry-comb,
which had come from the stables at the morning
and evening grooming of the animals, the voices
of the officers drilling the recruits, the constant
passing and repassing of mounted men in front of
our quarters ; above all, the enlivening trumpet-
calls ringing out all day, and we rebelled at the
drum and bugle that seemed so tame in contrast.
There were no more long rides for me, for Custis
Lee was taken out at my request, as I feared no
one would give him proper care at the post. Even
A DESOLATE GARRISON. 489
the little chapel where the officers’ voices had
added their music to the chants, was now nearly
deserted. The chaplain was an interesting man,
and the General and most of the garrison had
attended the services during the winter. Only
three women were left to respond, and, as we had
all been reared in other churches, we quaked a
good deal, for fear our responses would not come
in the right place. They did not lack in earnest-
ness, for when had we lonely creatures such cause
to send up petitions as at that time, when those
for whom we prayed were advancing into an
enemy’s country day by day ! Never had the
beautiful Litany, that asks deliverance for all in
trouble, sorrow, perplexity, temptation, born such
significance to us as then. No one can dream, un-
til it is brought home to him, how space doubles,
trebles, quadruples, when it is impossible to see
the little wire that, fragile as it seems, chains one
to the absent. It is difficult to realize, now that
our country is cobwebbed with telegraph lines,
what a despairing feeling it was, in those days, to
get far beyond the blessed nineteenth-century
mode of communication. He who crosses the
ocean knows a few days of such uncertainty, but
over the pathless sea of Western prairie it was
chaos, after the sound of the last horse’s hoof was
lost in the distance.
490
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
We had not been long alone, when a great dan-
ger threatened us. The level plateau about our
post, and the valley along the river near us, were
covered with dry prairie grass, which grows
thickly and is matted down into close clumps. It
was discovered, one day, that a narrow thread of
fire was creeping on in our direction, scorching
these tufts into shrivelled brown patches that were
ominously smoking when first seen. As I begin
to write of what followed, I find it difficult ; for
even those living in Western States and Territo-
ries regard descriptions of prairie-fires as exagger-
ated, and are apt to look upon their own as the
extreme to which they ever attain. I have seen
the mild type, and know that a horseman rides
through such quiet conflagrations in saf-ety. The
trains on some of our Western roads pass harmless
through belts of country when the flames are about
them ; there is no impending peril, because the
winds are moderate. When a tiny flame is dis-
covered in Kansas or other States, where the wind
blows a hurricane so much of the time, there is not
a moment to lose. Although we saw what was
hardly more than a suspicion of smoke, and the
slender, sinuous, red tongue along the ground, we
women had read enough of the fires in Kansas to
know that the small blaze meant that our lives
were in jeopardy. Most of us were then unac-
PRAIRIE GRASS ABLAZE.
491
quainted with those precautions which the experi-
enced Plains-man takes, and, indeed, we had no
ranchmen near to set us the example of caution
which the frontiersman so soon learns. We
should have had furrows ploughed around the en-
tire post in double lines, a certain distance apart,
to check the approach of fire. There was no time
to fight the foe with a like weapon, by burning
over a portion of the grass between the advan-
cing blaze and our post. The smoke rose higher
and higher beyond us, and curling, creeping
fire began to ascend into waves of flame with
alarming rapidity, and in an incredibly short
time we were overshadowed with a dark pall of
smoke.
The Plains were then new to us. It is impossible
to appreciate their vastness at first. The very
idea was hard to realize, that from where we lived
we looked on an uninterrupted horizon. We felt
that it must be the spot where some one first said,
” The sky fits close down all around.” It fills the
soul with wonder and awe to look upon the vast-
ness of that sea of land for the first time. As the
sky became lurid, and the blaze swept on toward
us, surging to and fro in waving lines as it ap-
proached nearer and nearer, it seemed that the end
of the world, when all shall be rolled together as a
scroll, had really come. The whole earth appeared
492
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
to be on fire. The sky was a sombre canopy-
above us, on which flashes of brilUant hght sud-
denly appeared as the flames rose, fanned by a
fresh gust of wind. There were no screams nor
cries, simply silent terror and shiverings of horror,
as we women huddled together to watch the
remorseless fiend advancing with what appeared
to be inevitable annihilation of the only shelter
we had. Every woman’s thoughts turned to her
natural protector, now far away, and longed with
unutterable longing for one who, at the approach
of danger, stood like a bulwark of courage and
defense. The river was half a mile away, and our
feet could not fly fast enough to reach the water
before the enemy would be upon us. There was
no such a thing as a fire-engine. The Government
then had not even provided the storehouses and
quarters with the Babcock Extinguisher. We
were absolutely powerless, and could only fix our
fascinated gaze upon the approachmg foe.
In the midst of this appalling scene, we were
startled anew by a roar and shout from the
soldiers’ barracks. Some one had, at last, pres-
ence of mind to marshal the men into line, and,
assuming the commanding tone that ensures action
and obedience in emergencies, gave imperative
orders. Every one — citizen employees, soldiers
and officers — seized gunny sacks, blankets, poles,
CRUSHING OUT FIRE.
49:
anything available that came in their way, and
raced wildly beyond the post into the midst of the
blazing- grass. Forming a cordon, they beat and
lashed the flames with the blankets, so twisted as
to deal powerful blows. It was a frenzied fight.
The soldiers yelled, swore and leaped frantically
upon beds of blazing grass, condensing a lifetime
of riotous energy into these perilous moments.
We women were not breathless and trembling over
fears for ourselves alone : our hearts were filled
with terror for the brave men who were working
for our deliverance. They were men to whom we
had never spoken, nor were we likely ever to speak
to them, so separated are the soldiers in barracks
from an officer’s household. Sometimes we saw
their eyes following us respectfully, as we rode
about the garrison, seeming to have in them an air
of possession, as if saying, ” That’s our captain’s or
our colonel’s wife.” Now, they were showing their
loyalty, for there are always a few of a regiment
left behind to care for the company property, or
to take charge of the gardens for the soldiers.
These men, and all the other brave fellows with
them, imperiled their lives in order that the
officers who had gone out for Indian warfare,
might come’ home and find “all’s well.” Let
soldiers know that a little knot of women are
looking to them as their saviors, and you will
494 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
see what nerves of iron they have, what inexhaust-
ible strength they can exhibit.
No sooner had the flames been stamped out of
one portion of the plain, than the whole body of
men were obliged to rush off in another direction
and begin the thrashing and tramping anew. It
seemed to us that there was no such thing as
conquering anything so insidious. But the wind,
that had been the cause of our danger, saved us
at last. That very wind which we had reviled all
winter for its doleful bowlings around our quar-
ters and down the chimneys ; that self-same wind
that had infuriated us by blowing our hats off
when we went out to walk, or impeded our steps
by twisting our skirts into hopeless folds about
our ankles — was now to be our savior. Suddenly
veering, as is its fashion in Kansas, it swept the
long tongues of flame over the bluffs beyond us,
where the lonely coyote and its mate were driven
into their lair. By this vagary of the element,
that is never anywhere more variable than in
Kansas, our quarters, our few possessions, and no
doubt our lives, were saved. With faces begrimed
and blistered, their clothes black with soot and
smoke, their hands burnt and numb from violent
effort, the soldiers and citizen employees dragged
their exhausted bodies back to garrison, and
dropped down anywhere to rest.
A SOLDIER’S DEVOTION.
495
The tinge of green that had begun to appear
was now gone, and the charred, smoke-stained
earth spread as far as we could see, making more
desolate the arid, treeless country upon which we
looked. It was indeed a blackened and dismal
desert that encircled us, and we knew that we
were deprived of the delight of the tender green
of early spring, which carpets the Plains for a
brief time before the sun parches and turns to
russet and brown the turf of our Western prairies.
As we sat on the gallery, grieving over this
ruin of spring, Mrs. Gibbs gathered her two boys
closer to her, as she shuddered over another experi-
ence with prairie fire, where her children were in
peril. The little fellows, in charge of a soldier,
were left temporarily on the bank of a creek.
Imagine the horror of a mother who finds, as she
did, the grass on fire and a broad strip of flame
separating her from her children ! Before the
little ones could follow their first instinct, and
thereby encounter certain death by attempting to
run through the fire to their mother, the devoted
soldier, who had left them but a moment, realizing
that they would instantly seek their mother, ran
like an antelope to where the fire-band narrowed,
leaped the flame, seized the little men, and
plunged with mad strides to the bank of the
creek, where, God be praised ! nature provides
496
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
a refuge from the relentless foe of our Western
plains.
In our Western prairie fires the flame is often a
mile long, perhaps not rising over a foot high,
but, sweeping from six to ten miles an hour, it re-
quires the greatest exertion of the ranchmen, with
all kinds of improvised flails, to beat out the fire.
The final resort of a frontiersman, if the flames are
too much for him to overcome, is to take refuge
with his family, cattle, horses, etc., in the garden,
where the growing vegetables make an effectual
protection. Alas, when he finds it safe to venture
from the green oasis, the crops are not only gone,
but the roots are burned, and the ground valueless
from the parching of the terrible heat. When a
prairie fire is raging at ten miles an hour, the hur-
ricane lifts the tufts of loosened bunch grass,
which in occasional clumps is longer than the rest,
carrying it far beyond the main fire, and thus
starting a new flame. No matter how weary the
pioneer may be after a day’s march, he neglects
no precautions that can secure him from fire. He
twists into wisp the longest of the bunch grass,
trailing it around the camp ; the fire thus started is
whipped out by the teamsters, after it has burned
over a sufficient area for safety. They follow the
torch of the leader with branches of the green wil-
low or twigs of cotton-wood bound together.
498 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
The first letters, sent back from the expedition
by scouts, made red-letter days for us. The offi-
cial envelope, stained with rain and mud. bursting”
open with the many pages crowded in, sometimes
even tied with a string by some messenger through
whose hands the parcel passed, told stories of the
vicissitudes of the missive in the difficult journey
to our post. These letters gave accounts of the
march to Fort Larned, where a great camp was
established, to await the arrival of the chiefs with
whom the council was to be held. While the run-
ners were absent on their messages to the tribes,
some effort was made to protect the troops against
the still sharp winds of early spring. The halt
and partly permanent camp was most fortunate ;
for had the troops been on the march, a terrible
snow-storm that ensued would have wrought
havoc, for the cold became so intense, and the
snow so blinding, it was only through great pre-
cautions that loss of life was prevented. The
animals were given an extra ration of oats, while
the guards were obliged to take whips and strike
at the horses on the picket-line, to keep them in
motion and prevent them from freezing. The
snow was eight inches deep, a remarkable fall for
Kansas at that time of the year. As we read over
these accounts, which all the letters contained,
though mine touched lightly on the subject, owing
BORROWING A BEDFELLOW. ^gg
to my husband’s fixed determination to write of
the bright side, we felt that we had hardly a right
to our fires and comfortable quarters. There were
officers on the expedition who could not keep
warm. A number were then enduring their first
exposure to the elements, and I remember that
several, who afterward became stalwart, healthy
men, were then partial invalids, owing to seden-
tary life in the States, delicate lungs or climatic
influences.
In my husband’s letters there was a laughable
description of his lending his dog to keep a friend
warm. The officer came into the tent after dark,
declaring that no amount of bedding had any
effect in keeping out the cold, and he had come
to borrow a dog, to see if he could have one night’s
uninterrupted rest. Our old hound was offered,,
because he could cover such a surface, for he was
a big brute, and when he once located himself he;
rarely moved until morning. My husband forgot,
in giving Rover his recommendation, to mention
a habit he had of sleeping audibly, besides a little
fashion of twitching his legs and thumping his
cumbrous tail, in dreams that were evidently of
the chase, or of battles he was Hving over, in which
” Turk,” the bull-dog, was being vanquished. He
was taken into the neighbor’s tent, and induced
to settle for the night, after the General’s coaxing.
500
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and pretense of going to sleep beside him. Later,
when he went back to see how Rover worked as
• a portable furnace, he found the officer sound
asleep on his back, emitting such nasal notes as
only a stout man is equal to, while Rover lay
sprawled over the broad chest of his host, where
he had crept after he was asleep, snoring with an
occasional interlude of a long-drawn snort, intro-
duced in a manner peculiar to fox-hounds. The
next morning my husband was not in the least
surprised, after what he had seen the night before,
to receive a call from the officer, who presented a
request to exchange dogs. He said that when he
made the proposal, he did not expect to have a
bedfellow that would climb up over his lungs and
crush all the breath out of his body. Instead of
showing proper sympathy, the General threw him-
self on his pallet and roared with laughter.
All these camp incidents brightened up the long
letters, and kept me from realizing, as I read, what
were the realities of that march, undertaken so
early in the season. But as the day advanced,
and the garrison exchanged the news contained
in all the letters that had arrived from the expedi-
tion, I could not deceive myself into the belief
that the way of our regiment had thus far been
easy.
With all my endeavors to divide the day
TIME DRAGS. 5OI
methodically, and enforce certain duties upon
myself, knowing well that it was my only refuge
from settled melancholy, I found time a laggard.-
It is true, my clothes were in a deplorable state,
for while our own officers were with us they looked
to us to fill up their leisure hours. The General,
always devoted to his books, could read in the
midst of our noisy circle ; but I was never permit-
ted much opportunity, and managed to keep up
with the times by my husband’s account of the
important news, and by the agreeable method of
listening to the discussions of the men upon topics
of the hour. If, while our circle was intact, I tried
to sew, a ride, a walk or a game of parlor croquet
was proposed, to prevent my even mending our
clothing. Now that we were alone, it was neces-
sary to make the needle fly. Eliza was set up with
a supply of blue-checked gowns and aprons, while
my own dresses were reconstructed, the riding-
habit was fortified with patches, and any amount
of stout linen thread disappeared in strengthening
the seams ; for between the hard riding and the
gales of wind we encountered, the destruction of
a habit was rapid,
Diana, with the elastic heart of a coquette, had
not only sped the parting, but welcomed the
coming guest ; for hardly had the sound of the
trumpet died away, before a new officer began to
C02 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
frequent our parlor. It was then the fashion for
men to wear a tiny neck-bow, called a butterfly
tie. They were made on a pasteboard founda-
tion, with a bit of elastic cord to fasten them to
the shirt-stud. I knew of no pasteboard nearer
than Leavenw^orth ; but in the curly head there
were devices to meet the exigency. I found
Diana with her lap full of photographs, cutting up
the portraits of the departed beaux, to make ties
for the next. Whether the new suitor ever dis-
covered that he was wearing at his neck the face
of a predecessor, I do not know ; but this I do
remember, that the jagged, frayed appearance
that the girl’s dresses presented when turned
inside out, betrayed where the silk was procured
to make the neck-ties. She had gouged out bits
of the material where the skirt was turned in, and
when we attempted to remodel ourselves and cut
down the voluminous breadths of that time into
tightly gored princess gowns, we were put to it to
make good the deficiencies, and ” piece out ” the
silk that had been sacrificed to her flirtations.
Succeeding letters from my husband gave an
account of his first experience with the perfidy of
the Indians. The council had been held, and it
was hoped that effectual steps were taken to estab-
lish peace. But, as is afterward related, the chiefs
gave them the slip and deserted the village. Even
A
NEGROES AS SOLDIERS.
503
in the midst of hurried preparations to follow the
renegades, my husband stopped, in order that his
departure might not make me depressed, to give
an account of a joke that they all had on one of
their number, who dared to eat soup out of an
Indian kettle still simmering over the deserted fire.
The General pressed the retreating Indians so
closely, the very night of their departure, that
they were obliged to divide into smaller detach-
ments, and even the experienced plainsmen could
no longer trace a trail.
Meanwhile, as our officers were experiencing all
sorts of new phases in life on their first march
over the Plains, our vicissitudes were increasing at
what seemed to be the peaceful Fort Riley. I
had seen with dismay that the cavalry were re-
placed by negro infantry, and found that they
were to garrison the post for the summer. I had
never seen negroes as soldiers, and these raw re-
cruits had come from plantations, where I had
known enough of their life, while in Texas and
Louisiana, to realize what an irresponsible, child’s
existence it was. Entirely dependent on some
one’s care, and without a sense of obligation of any
kind, they were exempt from the necessity of
thinking about the future. Their time had been
spent in following the directions of the overseer
in the corn-field or cotton brake by day, and be-
^
504
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
gulling the night with the coon-hunt or the banjo.
The early days of their soldiering were a reign of
terror to us women, in our lonely, unprotected
homes. It was very soon discovered that the
officer who commanded them was for the first
time accustoming himself to colored troops, and
did not know how to keep in check the boister-
ous, undisciplined creatures. He was a courteous,
quiet man, of scholarly tastes, and evidently enter-
tained the belief that moral suasion would event-
ually effect any purpose. The negroes, doubtless
discovering what they could do under so mild a
commander, grew each day more lawless. They
used the parade-ground, which our officers had
consecrated to the most formal of ceremonies,
like dress-parades and guard-mount, for a play-
ground ; turning hand-springs all over the sprout-
ing grass, and vaulting in leap-frog over the bent
back of a comrade. If it were possible for people
in the States to realize how sacred the parade-
ground of a Western post is, how hurriedly a
venturesome cow or loose horse is marshaled off,
how pompously every one performs the military
duties permitted on this little square ; how even
the color-sergeant, who marches at measured gait
to take down and furl the garrison flag, when the
evening gun announces that the sun has been, by
the royal mandate of military law, permitted to
DESECRATED GROUND.
505
set — they would then understand with what per-
turbation we women witnessed the desecration
of what had been looked upon as hallowed earth.
The sacrilege of these monkey acrobats turning”
somersaults over the ground, their elongated heels
vibrating in the air, while they stood upon their
heads in front of our windows, made us very in-
dignant. When one patted “juba,” and a group
danced, we seemed transformed into a discon-
nected minstrel show. There was not a trace of
the well-conducted post of a short time before.
All this frivolity was but the prelude to serious
trouble. The joy with which the negroes came
into possession of a gun for the first time in their
lives, would have been ludicrous had it not been
extremely dangerous. They are eminently a race
given over to display. This was exhibited in their
attempts to make themselves marksmen in a single
day. One morning we were startled by a shot
coming from the barracks. It was followed by a
rush of men out of the doors, running wildly
to and fro, yelling with alarm. We knew that
some disaster had occurred, and it proved to be
the instant death of a too confiding negro, who
had allowed himself to be cast for the part of
William Tell’s son. His accidental murderer was
a man that had held a gun in his hand that week
for the first time.
5o6
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
They had no sort of idea how to care for their
health. The ration of a soldier is so large that a
man who can eat it all in a day is renowned as a
glutton. I think but few instances ever occur
where the entire ration is consumed by one man.
It is not expected, and, fortunately, with all the
economy of the Government, the supply has never
been cut down ; but the surplus is sold and a com-
pany fund established. By this means, the meagre
fare is increased by buying vegetables, if it hap-
pen to be a land where they can be obtained.
The negroes, for the first time in possession of all
the coffee, pork, sugar and hard-tack they wanted,
ate inordinately. There was no one to compel
them to cleanliness. If a soldier in a white regi-
ment is very untidy the men become indignant,
and as the voluminous regulations provide direc-
tions only for the scrubbing of the quarters and
not of the men, they sometimes take the affair
into their own hands, and, finding from their cap-
tain that they vs^ill not be interfered with, the un-
tidy one is taken on a compulsory journey to the
creek and ” ducked ” until the soldiers consider
him endurable. The negroes at that time had no
idea of encountering the chill of cold water on
their tropical skins, and suffered the consequences
very soon. Pestilence broke out among them.
Small-pox, black measles and other contagious dis-
INFECTED AIR. 507
eases raged, while the soldier’s enemy, scurvy,
took possession. We were within a stone’s-throw
of the barracks. Of course the illest among them
were quarantined in hospital-tents outside the gar-
rison ; but to look over to the infested barracks
and realize what lurked behind the walls, was,
to say the least, uncomfortable for those of us
who were near enough to breathe almost the
same air.
Added to this, we felt that, with so much indis-
criminate firing, a shot might at any time enter
our windows. One evening a few women were
walking outside the garrison. Our limits were not
so circumscribed, at that time, as they were in al-
most all the places where I was stationed afterward.
A sentinel always walked a beat in front of a small
arsenal outside of the post, and, overcome with
the grandeur of carrying a gun and wearing a
uniform, he sought to impress his soldierly quali-
ties on anyone approaching by a stentorian ” Who
comes thar ? ” It was entirely unnecessary, as it
was light enough to see the fluttering skirts of
women, for the winds kept our drapery in con-
stant motion. Almost instantly after his chal-
lenge, the flash of his gun and the whiz of a
bullet past us made us aware that our lives were
spared only because of his inaccurate aim. Of
course that ended our evening walks, and it was
208 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
a great deprivation, as the monotony of a garrison
becomes almost unbearable.
There was one person who profited by the
presence of the negro troops. Our Eliza was
such a belle, that she would have them elevated
into too exalted a sphere to wait on us, had she
not been accustomed to constant adulation from
the officers’ body-servants from the time, as she ex-
pressed it, when she ” entered the service.” Still,
it was a distraction, of which she availed herself
in our new post, to receive new beaux, tire of them,
quarrel and discard them for fresh victims. They
waited on her assiduously, and I suspect they
dined daily in our kitchen, as long as their brief
season of favor lasted. They even sought to
curry favor with Eliza by gifts to me, snaring
quail, imprisoning them in cages made of cracker-
boxes, or bringing dandelion greens or wild-
flowers as they appeared in the dells. For all
these gifts I was duly grateful, but I was very
much afraid of a negro soldier, nevertheless.
At last our perplexities and frights reached a
climax. One night we heard the measured tramp
of feet over the gravel in the road in front of our
quarters, and they halted almost opposite our
windows, where we could hear the voices. No
loud ” Halt, who comes there ! ” rang out on the
air, for the sentinel was enjoined to silence. Be-
MARAUDERS AT NIGHT.
509
ing frightened, I called to Eliza. To Diana and to
me she was worth a corporal’s guard, and could not
be equaled as a defender, solacer and general mana-
ger of our dangerous situations — indeed, of all our
affairs. Eliza ran up-stairs in response to my cry,
and we watched with terror what went on. It
soon was discovered to be a mutiny. The men
growled and swore, and we could see by their
threatening movements that they were in a state
of exasperation. They demanded the command-
ing officer, and as he did not appear, they clenched
their fists, and looked at the house as if they
would tear it down, or at least break in the doors.
It seemed a desperate situation to us, for the
quarters were double, and our gallery had no
division from the neighbors. If doors and windows
were to be demolished, there would be little hope
for ours. I knew of no way by which we could
ask help, as most of the soldiers were colored, and
we felt sure that the plan, whatever it was, must
include them all. »
At last Eliza realized how terrified I was, and
gave up the absorbing watch she was keeping, for
her whole soul was in the wrongs, real or fancied,
of her race. Too often had she comforted me in
my fears to forget me now, and an explanation,
was given of this alarming outbreak.
The men had for some time been demanding
« •
5IO TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the entire ration, and were especially clamorous
for all the sugar that was issued. Very naturally,,
the captain had withheld the supernumerary sup-
plies, in order to make company savings for the
purpose of buying vegetables. A mutiny over
sugar may seem a small affair, but it assumes
threatening proportions when a mob of menacing,
furious men tramp up and down in front of one’s
house, and there is no safe place of refuge, nor
any one to whom appeal can be made. Eliza
kept up a continuous com.forting and reassuring,
but when I reminded her that our door had no
locks, or, rather, no keys, for it was not the cus-
tom to lock army quarters, she said, ” La, Miss
Libbie, they won’t tech you ; you dun wrote too
many letters for ’em, and they’se got too many
good vittels in your kitchen ever to ‘sturb
you.” Strong excitement is held to be the
means of bringing out the truth, and here were
the facts revealed that they had been bountifully
fed at our expense. I had forgotten how much
ink I had used in trying to put down their very
w^ords in love-letters, or family epistles to the
Southern plantation. The infuriated men had to
quiet down, for no response came from the com-
manding officer. They found out, I suppose from
the investigations of one acting as spy, and going
to the rear of the quarters, that he had disap-
A TEMPORARY CALM.
511
peared. To our intense relief, they straggled off
until their growling and muttering was lost in the
barracks, where they fortunately went to bed.
No steps were taken to punish them, and at any
imaginary wrong, they might feel, from the suc-
cess of this first attempt at insurrection, that it
was safe to repeat the experiment. We women
had little expectation but that the summer would
be one of carousal and open rebellion against mili-
tary rule. The commanding officer, though very
retiring, was so courteous and kindly to all the
women left in the garrison, that it was difficult to
be angry with him for his failure to control the
troops. Indeed, his was a hard position to fill,
with a lot of undisciplined, ignorant, ungoverned
creatures, who had never been curbed, except by
the punishment of plantation life.
Meanwhile my letters, on which I wrote every
day, even if there was no opportunity to send
them, made mention of our frights and uncertain-
ties. Each mail carried out letters from the
women to the expedition, narrating their fears.
We had not the slightest idea that there was a
remedy. I looked upon the summer as the price I
was to pay for the privilege of being so far on the
frontier, so much nearer the expedition than the
families of officers who had gone East. With all
my tremors and misgivings, I had no idea of re-
5 I 2 TENTIXG ON THE PLAINS.
treating” to safe surroundings, as I should then
lose my hope of eventually going out to the
regiment. It took a long time for our letters to
reach the expedition, and a correspondingly long
time for replies ; but the descriptions of the night
of the mutiny brought the officers together in
council, and the best disciplinarian of our regiment
was immediately despatched to our relief. I knew
but little of General Gibbs at that time ; my hus-
band had served with him during the war, and
valued his soldierly ability and sincere friendship.
He had been terribly wounded in the Indian wars
before the Civil War, and was really unfit for hard
service, but too soldierly to be willing to remain
at the rear. In a week after his arrival at our
post, there was a marked difference in the state of
affairs. Out of the seemingly hopeless material,
General Gibbs made soldiers who were used as
guards over Government property through the
worst of the Indian country, and whose courage
was put to the test by frequent attacks, where
they had to defend themselves as well as the sup-
plies. The opinion of soldier and citizen alike
underwent a change, regarding negroes as soldiers,
on certain duty to which they were fitted. A
ranchman, after praising their fighting, before the
season was ended said, ” And plague on my cats
if they don’t like it.”
UNCERTAIN TERRA FIRMA.
513
We soon found that we had reached a country
where the weather could show more remarkable
and sudden phases in a given time than any por-
tion of the United States. The cultivation of the
ground, planting of trees, and such causes, have
materially modified some of the extraordinary
exhibitions that we witnessed when Kansas was
supposed to be the great American desert. With
all the surprises that the elements furnished, there
was one that we would gladly have been spared.
One quiet day I heard a great rumbling in the
~ direction of the plateau where we had ridden so
much, as if many prairie-schooners, heavily laden,
were being spirited away by the stampede ot
mules. Next, our house began to rock, the bell to
ring, and the pictures to vibrate on the wall. The
mystery was solved when we ran to the gallery,
and found the garrison rushing out of barracks
and quarters. Women and children ran to the
parade-ground, all hatless, some half-dressed.
Everybody stared at every one else, turned pale,
and gasped with fright. It was an earthquake,
sufficiently serious to shake our stone quarters and
overturn the lighter articles, while farther down
the guUey the great stove at the sutler’s store was
tumbled over and the side of the building broken
^ in by the shock. There was a deep fissure in the
side of the bank, and the waters of the Big Blue
CI4 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
were so agitated that the bed of the river twelve
feet deep was plainly visible.
The usual session of the ” Did-you-evers ” took
place, and resolutions were drawn up — not com-
mitted to paper, however — giving the opinion of
women on Kansas as a place of residence. We
had gone through prairie-fire, pestilence, mutiny,
a river freshet, and finally, an earthquake: enough
exciting events to have been scattered through a
life-time were crowded into a few weeks. Yet in
these conclaves, when we sought sympathy and
courage from one another, there was never a sug-
gestion of returning to a well-regulated climate.
CHAPTER XVL
EXTRACTS FROM GENERAL CUSTEr’s LETTERS THE
MARCH FROM FORT RILEY TO FORT HARKER
DOGS AND HORSES ON THEIR FIRST WESTERN
CAMPAIGN EXPERIENCES IN MESSING IN A COUN-
TRY VOID OF SUPPLIES CHASING JACK-RABBITS.
I
HAVE made selections from General Custer’s
letters, which will give something of an idea
of what the daily life on the march really was.
Of the many long letters that came to me, in spite
of the hundred drawbacks that attended a West-
ern mail, I have only attempted to cull those por-
tions pertaining to the chase, the march, and the
camp life after the tents were pitched for the night.
General Custer, knowing that his official reports
would give the military side, wrote comparatively
little in his home letters on that subject.
“Chapman’s Creek, March 27, 1867.
“We left the bridge at Fort Riley at 2 : 20, I
having to wait for my led horses. We passed
through Junction City without difficulty, the dogs
behaving admirably. We arrived here at 5 : 20,
our wagons reaching camp a few moments after-
ward. I wish you could have seen the three of
5 1 6 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
US eating our dinner of ham, chicken, pickles and
coffee. We all agreed that we had never tasted
more delicious ham — and such biscuit ! I know
you would have been glad to see me eat. One of
our officers says he never saw such an amount of
mess stuff as you have put up for me. We have
a splendid camp, and have found very nice roads
nearly all the way. We are in our tent, and en-
joying a pleasant fire from our Sibley stove. Four
of the dogs, fatigued by the first day’s march, are
snoring round the fire ; they had to begin their
campaigning by swimming the creek. The dogs
do splendidly. The old hound Rover took his
place alongside the table at dinner, as naturally
as if he had been accustomed to it all his life.”
“Abilene Creek, March 28, 1867.
“Your letter by Sergeant Dalton came about
5 o’clock this afternoon. I need not say how
glad I was when I saw him coming toward me,
as I instinctively read ” Letter from somebody ” on
his countenance. We left our camp at Chapman’s
at 8:30 this morning ; the artillery and infantry
left earlier. We passed the infantry about five
miles out. Wasn’t I glad I was not a doughboy,^
as I saw the poor fellows trudging along under
their heavy burdens, while the gay, frolicking
cavalry-man rode by, carelessly smoking his pipe,
and casting a look of pity upon his more unfort-
unate comrades of the infantry. As usual, I
placed my tent up-stream, beyond all the others.
We have a very pleasant camp along the west
* A ” doughboy ” is a small, round doughnut served to sailors on
shipboard, generally with hash. Early in the Civil War the term
was applied to the large globular brass buttons of the infantry
uniform, from which it passed, by a natural transition, to the infan-
trymen themselves.
NIGHT SCENE IN THE TENT
517
bank of the creek ; good water, good ground, and
sufficient wood to make us very comfortable.
Two of us came in advance with several orderlies.
I rode Custis Lee. As soon as I fixed upon our head-
quarters, I unsaddled Lee and turned him loose
to graze. I passed the time in carrying drift and
dry wood for our camp and tent fire, as we knew
wood would be in high demand when the troops
reached the ground. We collected an abundant
supply. Custis Lee, every few moments, as if to
assist in the digestion of the prairie grass he was
eating, would vary the monotony by lying down
and taking a fresh though not hot roll. Finally
he got too near the high bank, or declivity, which
descends to the edge of the creek, and rolled over
the crest, sliding down to the foot, a distance of
several yards ; but doing himself no injury what-
ever, as he found his way back and went to grazing
immediately.
” I wish you could look into my tent at this
moment. One of the officers has just taken his
second apple and bid us good-night. My tent-
mate has wound his watch, and is carefully piling
up his garments near the head of his bed, prepara-
tory to retiring. I am seated at the camp-desk,
writing by candle-light. The cook’s tent is but a
few steps in the rear of mine. It contains an
Irishman, a Dutchman and an Englishman, all
feeling good and trymg to talk at the same
time. As I can hear every word they say,
it is sometimes laughable. All the camp
are asleep, and I am alone — no, not alone, for,
casting your eyes to the side of the tent,
you behold three sleepers, weary and travel-
worn, as their snoring and heavy breathing be-
token. They are stretched calmly upon the lowly
couch of your humble correspondent. Near them,
5 1 8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and on the tent fly used to wrap my bedding, are
two other sleepers, evidently overcome by fatigue.
Their appearance is more youthful, though none
the less striking, than that of the ones first de-
scribed. The names of the latter are Rover,
Sharp and Lu. Rover, being the patriarch of
the group, of course selects his position near the
pillow ; Lu, being somewhat diffident, accepts a
place nearer the foot ; while Sharp, to show him-
self worthy of his name, has crowded in between
the two, knowing it to be the warmest spot he
could find. Rattler and Fanny, being young and
unassuiTiing, have graciously accepted a more
humble abiding-place on the folded tent-fly, near
the head of the bed. I have no doubt, however,
that they Vere induced to adopt this course, not so
much from modesty as owing to the fact that
nearly all the available space in the bed was taken
by their elders. I do not think they have stirred for
the last four hours. This morning I was taking a
nap. Rover, Lu and Sharp being alongside of
me on the narrow bed. Rattler and Fanny near
me, all of us asleep, when General S called.
He laughed heartily at the sight ; but I assure
you they are great company to me, and are as
completely domiciled in the tent, as if ” to the
manner born.” Our dinner to-day was very good
indeed ; but I could tell that Eliza had not been
within several miles of my cook-fire, leastwise the
coffee did not show it. The cook says he put in a
great deal, but that the coffee was burnt too much,
or not enough. But, really, he does remarkably
well for a soldier. We have for dinner apple-frit-
ters, tomatoes, fried eggs, broiled ham, cold bis-
cuit and coffee. For breakfast we are to have
fried onions, baked potatoes, fried eggs, mutton
chops, apple-fritters, and some warm bread. This
CAMP FARE. 5 1 9
full bill of fare will not continue long ; for it is
owing only to your abundant providing of sup-
plies.
“After dinner I told the cook I was very much
pleased with everything except the coffee, which
was not quite strong enough. I suppose Eliza
will laugh at what I next said, because she knows
how I insist upon her giving me a dish I like,
over and over again, till I tire of it. I told the
cook that, as I liked the apple-fritters so much, he
might give them to me at every meal, until
further orders. They are not exactly apple-frit-
ters, but he slices the apples, dips them in batter,
and fries them. Try it. He is very neat thus
far ; the plates come upon the table perfectly
clean.
” There is a tavern (the Pioneer Hotel) about
a mile from here. Three of the officers asked and
received permission to be absent long enough to
get something to eat. If you could see the tavern,,
which does not compare in outward appearance
with any log hut about Riley, you would infer
that the bachelors’ mess was running quite low, to
render such a change necessary.
” I think I am going to see you soon. Don’t
think of ‘ Fox river ;’ it is not in our geography.”*
“Solomon’s Creek, March 29, 1867. 9 p. m.
” My tent-mate has retired, thus leaving me alone
to write to you. My bed is occupied as described
in my last-night’s letter, with a slight change in
names. We left camp this morning at 8, and
reached our present one at 12. Solomon’s
* The allusion to Fox River has the same significance as that old
saying, which General Custer frequently quoted, ” Never cross a
bridge till you come to it.”
520
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Creek at this point is twelve feet deep, and re-
quired a pontoon bridge, the laying of which
delayed us a half-hour or more. The troops had
all crossed safely, and part of the wagon-train,
when the ice from above broke loose and, float-
ing down against the bridge, carried it away,
sinking some of the boats of the pontoon and
sweeping others irrevocably down-stream, thus
verifying General S ‘s prediction, and enabling
him to say ” I told you so” — that the boats would
be carried back to St Louis. We have enough
left, however, to answer all purposes.
“Just as we were moving out of our camp this
morning, we started a jack-rabbit. Sharp, Rover
and the pups saw it. Lu did not, and away we
went, I on Phil Sheridan. Sharp gained on and
almost caught it ; but with doubling and running
up-hill the advantage was in jack’s favor. We
chased it nearly a mile, but did not catch it. Old
Rover, with the stick-to-it-iveness of a fox-hound
when once on a trail, w^as in for making a day’s
work of it if necessary, but I had to call him off
and rejoin the column.
” Our mess is doing very well. The apple
fritters were continued in our next, as requested ;
also fried onions, and I ate one raw. ‘ Make hay
while the sun shines,’ is my motto about onions.
I forgot in my last to say that I expected to hear
from Eliza that ‘ she knew how to make fritters
that way ; they made ’em so in Virginny,” etc., but
tell her I do not believe it.
” The bachelors fare badly as regards messing.
One of the officers dropped in about dinner-time
to see Captain Hamilton and Lieutenant Hale.
They were cooking their own dinners, which con-
sisted of nothing but tomatoes in a can in which
the cooking was going on. I do not know whether
ON THE MARCH. 5 2 I
Captain Hamilton’s distinguished grandfather,
Alexander Hamilton, was ever reduced to the
hardship of partaking of a one – course dmner
cooked m a can, but I am sure he could not have
endured it more uncomplainingly.
” Every officer has spoken to-day of havmg
nearly frozen last night. Several of them tell of be-
ing awakened by the cold at i o’clock, and of not
having slept after that ; but I was comfortable
and slept reasonably well.”
“Saline, March 30, 1867.
” We rose at 5 o’clock this morning, marched at
6 45 and reached camp about i p. m. The roads
were worse than usual to-day ; but we expected
this, as we were crossing over what is called “Ten-
mile bottom,” a very low and wet strip of land.
The dogs are not the slightest trouble, followmg
me through trains, troops and everywhere, and
the moment I get off my horse are all around me.
They are great company for me.”
“I turn both Custis Lee and the mare loose
on the prairie as soon as we go into camp, and
they do not attempt to leave. I found a horse-
shoe to-day, which, according to our old supersti-
tion, means good luck. I tied it to my saddle for
that reason.
” I have written every night, and hope you re-
ceive my letters. I will give this to the stage-
driver, or mail it in Saline in the morning.
Remember me to Mrs. Gibbs, and tell her that
if I come across any nice dogs out here I will ex-
press them to her if she desires it.”^’
* Mrs Gibbs was not especially fond of dogs, and while we were
her neighbors our numerous family of dogs continually annoyed
her, though she never complained.
522
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
“Our dinner to-day — which, by the way, was
most excellent — was prepared over a fire made of
dry weeds, stalks, etc. I am very well. You
know I always feel in the best of health and spirits
when on the march. There is something about a
horse, as you know, that gives to his rider a feel-
ing of independence, of freedom, and lightness of
heart. This, added to the expansion and depth
of soul inspired by contemplating these vast and
apparently boundless prairies, seems to give me
new life and direct my mind into fresh but most
pleasant reveries. There is something grand,
mingled with awe, in the view of this wild and
uncultivated region. But to my enjoyment of
the march and the changing scenery, there is a
most serious drawback. I know how you would
enjoy the novelty of this first experience of life on
the Plains. My hope in the future is strong and
unfaltering. I feel confident you will soon be
with me, a partaker of my pleasures and discom-
forts.
” Often, so very often, when meditating on my
past eventful life, I think of the many reasons why
I, above my fellow-men, should be thankful to
that wise and good Being who has borne me
through so many scenes of danger unharmed, and
through whose beneficence I have been a recipient
of honors and pleasures seldom heaped so bounti-
fully on one so young and unassisted by family,
wealth or political influence. An eternity spent
in gratitude to the great Giver of all things will
not cancel the deep debt I feel.
” Direct your letters to Fort Larned. I hope
soon to write to you, telling you to pack up
and be ready to move upon twenty-four hours’
notice.”
m^ fci \t :
523
524
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
“Plum Creek, Kansas, April 3, 1867.
“To-day the weather has been quite cold, more
so than on any previous day of our march. Nearly
all the officers, except me, have been uncomfort-
able from the cold. General Gibbs was nearly
numb while marching beside me to-day, and when
he found I was perfectly comfortable, exclaimed,
* Well, you a7’e a warm-blooded cuss.’ I have not
been to any one’s tent since we started, but all the
officers have dined with me. I drill every day
while on the march, and the companies are improv-
ing rapidly. Our march was over comparatively
good ground to-day, but at our camp-ground to-
morrow we shall find no wood, I am told, so Stork
is chopping some outside now, to carry along in
our wagon. One armful keeps our tent warm all
the evening. Colonel B made some biscuit,
and sent them in to me at dinner. They were as
good as you will fi^nd on anybody’s table except
Eliza’s.
” I find my horse, Phil Sheridan, incomparable
in a chase ; he enters into the spirit of the sport
as much as his rider, and follows the dogs almost
unguided.”
” Cow Creek, April 4.
“A march of twelve miles brought us to our
present camp on a beautiful, clear stream bearing
the unromantic name of Cow Creek. Little wood
is to be found, and that little is green. We are
upon an old Indian camp, the evidences of which
still remain. They have been here within the past
few weeks. We can see where their lodges stood —
some of the poles still remaining — and also where
they have been dressing buffalo-hides. The scrap-
ings and the remains of one buffalo lie within fif-
teen yards of my tent. On the march to-day we
/
f ^
TENTING ON THE PLAINS
OR
General Custer in Kansas and Texas.
PRAIRIE-DOG VILLAGE. 525
passed the carcasses of a number of buffalo which
have been killed recently, and as we are now in
their country we expe;ct to see some to-morrow.
” To-day we marched through a prairie-dog-
village. I wish you could see Lu and the other
dogs among them. They are quite saucy, standing
up on their little mounds and barking at us until
we arrive within a stone’s-throw of them, when
they pop out of sight. Lu, seeing and hearing
them, would start to run, thinking to catch them.
They would continue to bark, and shake their tails
almost in her face, until just before she reached
them., when out of sight they would go, as if by
magic, completely dumbfounding the domestic
dogs.
“This life is new to most of us ; but there are
some officers with the command who have seen
some frontier duty. One was at one time the
bearer of despatches, and rode from Fort Larned
to Riley, 151 miles in thirty-three hours, without
change of horses.”
“Fort Larned, April 8, 1867.
” I have not written you for the past two days,
for the reason that no mail was to be sent back ;
but one leaves to-n’ght, and I cannot allow the
opportunity to go by unimproved, I am so disap-
pointed when I cannot send you a few lines every
day. One of the officers constantly laughs at me
for writing you so many letters, and predicts that
after I have been married a few years, I will
neither write so often nor such long letters. One
of our officers told him I had been a benedict
some years, and there was as yet no let-up in the
writing. . . We expect to remain at this post
several days, and then move to Fort Dodge,
about forty-five miles distant.
526 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
” On the loth a grand council is to take place
at this point, between General Hancock and the
principal chiefs of the Cheyennes, Sioux, Kiowas,
and Arrapahoes. These tribes are encamped a
few miles from here in large numbers. The ob-
ject of our march to Dodge is to meet two or
three tribes that are congregated there. All this
will consume ten or fifteen days, so that about
the loth or 15th of May the whole command will
be at Fort Hays and prepare for its westward
march. And now comes my budget of news,
which is authentic and of a late date. It is in the
highest degree cheering and encouraging, Mrs.
and others to the contrary notwithstanding.*
” In the first place, General Gibbs’s eyes have
troubled him so much, the last few days, that I
do not consider it prudent for him to continue on
the march, although the General, like the true
soldier he is, persists in saying he is sufficiently
well to do so. I reported his case to General
Hancock and General Smith, both of whom sug-
gested his remaining at Larned until our return ;
but it was finally decided that he go back to Riley
to command that post temporarily, as things
seemed to be going at loose ends there. If he
does come there, ‘ order will reign in Warsaw.’
I am sorry, on my account, as I shall regret the
loss of his assistance and society ; but my loss
will be your gain. He will render you any assist-
ance in his power, in preparing for a move, which
is nearer at hand than you may suppose. He
will be a real loss from our command, as, you
know, he is so witty and entertaining he whiles
away many a tedious hour. This evening my
* These were the women in our garrison who threw cold water
on my hopes of joining my husband in the field.
AN EL DORADO.
527
tent has been full of officers, and he has been
giving a most laughable description of his cross-
ing Dry Creek !
” Now for my second despatch from the
budget. The latest news from ‘ Fox River ‘ is,
that the river has dried up, and travelers can go
over in safety and comfort. I have never doubted
that ‘ Destiny,’ which to me is but another name
for Providence, would in the future, as in the past,
arrange all happily and satisfactorily. For this
reason, I never entertained an anxious thought
regarding our future station or post, believing
that in due time all would be known. Accord-
ingly, I addressed a note to General Hancock,
saying that, without desiring to know anything of
his future plans, I would like to be informed as
much as he deemed proper regarding the probabil-
ity of officers of the Seventh Cavalry, myself in
particular, being enabled to have our families
with us the coming summer, and how soon we
might expect to do this. I inquired nothing
more. You will see by his reply, enclosed, that
he not only answered my inquiries fully and satis-
factorily but added a great deal of other highly
important (to us) and equally pleasant news. If
you have not read his letter, I might inform you
that he is going to assign me to the command of
Fort Garland. I shall have four companies at
first, and more later. Kit Carson, a lieutenant-
colonel, will probably be under my command.
One of the officers with the expedition has been
at Garland, and gives a glowing description of it
as having good quarters, splendid country sur-
rounding, fine climate, abundance of game, two
kinds of bear, black -tailed deer, antelope and
smaller game, while there is splendid trout-fishing
near the post. From everything I hear, Fort
528 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Garland is the post of all others in the Western
country that would suit me, and that I would have
chosen. It is a very important post for that lo-
cality, and I shall have control of the Ute Indians,
a large friendly tribe.* It may be that I have
the sanguine temperament which looks upon the
bright side of everything in too great a degree ;
but I feel as if our affairs, everything considered,
could not be improved very much, even had we
been consulted. We both desire to see the West-
ern country. We shall enjoy it now more than
ever, as we shall see it under most favorable
circumstances, and we shall appreciate a return to
the East only the more for having indulged in
wild Western life with all its pleasures and excite-
ments. You have been dreading an unsettled
future, and perhaps separation ; but General
Hancock said to me to-day, ‘ After you reach
your post, I sha’n’t change you unless you desire
it ; I will give you a chance to become settled.’
“■ Now as to my plans, prospects and intentions,
subject to the revision of Providence and the
military authorities : I hope that we may con-
clude our present operations by the 15th of May,
and that immediately thereafter I may hasten to
you, and we can arrange for our Western tour.
The Indian agents here say the Indians desire
peace ; if so, they can be accommodated. I am
certain I never felt more peaceful in my life.
Particularly do I desire peace, when I know that
war means separation.
” Tell Eliza that Stork has broken the blue mug
and the mustard-glass, lost four forks, and broken
the carving-knife, and that I want her to pack her
* Fort Garland was in the mountainous country of Colorado,
and the Indian difficulties increased so greatly that General Custer
was never sent to that post.
THE TUMBLE OF A CAVALKY-MAN.
529
valise and report without delay, to be assigned to
the command of the Dutchman and Englishman
and the rest of the strikers. “^^ I wouldn’t give
Eliza for all the soldier cooks I ever saw. When
she is here, I never have any trouble ; instead of
losing mess furniture on a march, I generally have
more at its close than at the beginning. One of
our officers dined with me to-day, and complained
that their mess was an * awfully poor lay-out.’
One after another comes to my tent now to ask
to arrange to be assigned to those companies that
are to go with me to Fort Garland. Do not tell
Mrs. Gibbs about the General’s going to Riley, as
something might happen to prevent it, and she
would be disappointed.
“This evening, while Stork was setting the
table, General Gibbs and I desired to write at
the desk at the same time. I said, ‘ It’s a pretty
thing that a man cannot write to his wife with-
out being disturbed,’ and the General replied,
‘ Any man who writes to his wife once a day
deserves to be disturbed.’
” As usual, we had our daily sport with the
dogs, during which I met with a very unusual in-
cident. The hounds started a jack-rabbit, and I
galloped after them on Phil. The saddle, not be-
ing girthed tight enough, turned, and of course
carried me with it. I broke my stirrup in trying
to regain my position, but could not accomplish
it, and the next moment found myself at full
length on the prairie, fortunately without scratch
or bruise. Phil’s legs were scratched consider-
ably by the saddle, but no serious injury inflicted.
That ended my first chase. About five miles
farther on, the dogs started another immense rab-
* ” Striker ” was a name for a soldier servant.
530 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
bit, and away they went over the level prairie, in
full view of the entire command. The chase con-
tinued for more than a mile, a dozen dogs joining
in the pursuit ; Sharp in advance, followed closely
by Lu and three or four strange dogs, then Rover
and the pups. The race was well contested on
both sides. After running three-quarters of a
mile. Sharp and Lu began gaining on the hare,
until the former was apparently close enough to
touch it, when the rabbit suddenly sprang to
one side, and Sharp, unable to check himself, ran
several yards beyond. In this way the rabbit
gained considerably, and soon dogs and game
were both lost to view beyond a roll in the prairie.
They have all returned to camp but Fanny, and
she was seen looking for the wagon-train, so I hope
I shall not lose her.
“I saw many strange and interesting sights to-
day. Here and there was a buffalo skeleton, then
a prairie-dog village with its busy inmates, and
once I saw an owl slowly leaving the entrance of
a prairie-dog’s home, thereby confirming the state-
ment I have often read in natural history, that in
the home of a prairie-dog may be found an owl,
a rattle-snake and the prairie-dog occupying the
same apartment. To-day, also, I saw for the first
time that peculiar natural phenomenon called
* mirage.’ It presents the appearance of a b.eau-
tiful lake at a distance of five or ten miles. It is
generally seen near trees, and the appearance of
the lake is so perfect that the shadow or reflection
of the trees in the water can be plainly seen ; but
go to the supposed lake, and the ground is per-
fectly dry, with nothing to account for the strange
appearance.”
CHAPTER XVII.
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS TO GENERAL CUSTER
CROSSING FOX RIVER ACCOUNT OF THE UNDISCI-
PLINED TROOPS war’s alarms MOURNING FOR
CUSTIS LEE.
TT is with extreme hesitation that I insert here
extracts from letters that are httle more than
the unrestrained outpourings of a very heavy
heart. From the hundreds I have destroyed, some
sentences have been culled, which, though con-
taining trifling detail and vehement expressions,
and, like a school-girl’s letter, flying from one sub-
ject to another, will show, more clearly than any
description that could be written now, our life at
that period.
“Fort Riley, March, 1867.
” I am quite light-hearted to-night, as I have
two letters from you. Though you do say Fox
River is not in our geography, it is with the
greatest difficulty that I keep out of the Slough
of Despond, which one passes in getting to that
stream. I cannot help worrying and bothering, it
frets me so to sit here and hear that General Han-
cock does not intend to allow the Seventh Cavalry
ladies to be with their husbands this summer. He
531
532
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
told the B ‘s so, and Mrs. Gibbs firmly believes
it, but I keep saying to myself that you think I
am to be with you. You are born under a lucky
star, and I’ll try to think I am really going to be
with you soon. Many times a day I go over these
reasonings. Diana goes riding with the infantry
beau every day, but she was so accustomed to fast
riding with our cavalry, she does not know how to
treat a dough-boy. Her escort is lying by for re-
pairs now. His knee is very lame, and he lives
with a jar of cold cream in his hand.
“You would not believe a garrison could go to
rack and ruin so quickly. Affairs are decidedly at
loose ends. The darkies do very well at guard-
mounting, and all alone too. The soldiers of the
Seventh that are left here scare the darkies fright-
fully. Yesterday three of our Seventh prisoners
were out policing under a darkey. They put a pistol
to his head, made him drop his musket, tied his
hands, took him over the river and tied him to a tree,
then after dark they deserted. Was not that high-
handed ? Eliza is afraid, and has moved her room
up-stairs, next to us. I told the messenger that
took my letters to-day to be sure and deliver them
to you himself, and he said he would. Just think !
he is to ride sixty-five miles to-day, and on a mule !
It must be sister to Bet, our Texas guide’s mule.
” I have been to church, and was so afraid I
should cry. I could not hear the sermon, but if I
cry I am ill all next day. When I was trying my
best to keep from boo-hooing, two darkies who
sat behind me began to sing some of the service.
One knew the tune, and shouted in regular camp-
meeting style, but not one word of the hymn
could he utter. If I had not been so forlorn, I
v/ould have thought it too funny to refrain from
laughing at.
■ GARRISON DETAILS. 533
” Eliza dressed up to-night and went to call on
the colored ladies of the command — the laun-
dresses. Miss Eliza Brown is boiling with rage
now, because she heard one husband say, ‘Fanny,
light my pipe.’ Eliza says managing men like
that is too great drudgery to please her. Heaven
knows this loneliness reduces me to such a state
of mind that I’d light pipes and make the fire,
gladly, if I got a chance to name for whom I
wished to play striker.
” I want you to consider what is really the
thickness of the heads of our country’s defenders !
A broken musket was found on the outskirts of
the garrison, and it proved to have been divided
in two by a blow over a darkey’s head. The mus-
ket is ruined, but as yet we have not heard of any
suffering skull. The hours you give me when
others are asleep, I know well how to prize. I am
alone to-night again, but not alone, for I am re-
reading the letters you sat up so late to write.
. . . The wild geese have been screaming as
they flew over our post, and I suppose the rain is
about to descend in bucketfuls. Well, we are
prepared, but I hope you out in camp will be
spared. The darkies are going on as usual, slack
and careless. If they guard our white prisoners,
they say good-naturedly, *Oh, sit down, if you’re
tired. I’ll watch if any one comes.’ Eliza has
some beaux, but is not over-gracious. One of
them, speaking of our bull-dog Turk, said he had
heard that he was ‘ a awful ferocious dog.’
Eliza quickly assured him that it was true ; he
would take hold of any one who came near him.
She never mentioned that Turk’s teeth are so
blunted by constant biting at his rope or chain
that he is not in the least dangerous. Diana’s
beau has begun to read Prescott’s ‘ Philip the
534 TEi^rmc ON” Tim PLAms.
Second,’ so I get some good out of his prolonged
sessions, and it whiles away the tedious time.
“I am so sorry about drinking. It looks
as if he were glad to get his wife safely off in the
States, as he did before he left, so that he could
make a summer of it. If men only knew ‘ how
pleasant, how divinely fair,’ it makes the world
to their wives when they refuse to drink, I do not
believe they would be half so careless.
” How I wish that you were here to enjoy this
bright lire ! The wind is howling and screeching
round the quarters, and it makes me wish so that
you were safely housed.
” I hear to-night that three commissioners have
gone to Washington, from the Department of the
Platte, to petition that no war against the Indians
take place. An officer, a citizen and a Congress-
man compose the commission. Oh ! I do hope
they will be successful.”
” April 4, 1867.
” It is blowing hard, and trying to snow. The
wind makes such noises down chimney, and am
so frightened ! I feel sure it is burglars, and I lie
there so scared I cannot sleep. It isn’t the thing
to be frightened, is it ? But this is such a screechy
place, I cannot help it, and forget all about the
requirements of a soldier’s wife. Your former
enemy, , came upon me so suddenly to-day
that I did not succeed in escaping him as hereto-
fore. I didn’t promise you that I wouldn’t dodge
him on every occasion ; I made a ‘ mental reser-
vation,’ you see. I could not slip away without
his seeing me, and then I was obliged to remember
your wishes and shake hands. You know you did
not tell me that you did not want me to hide,
so I have been very successful in accomplishing
RUMORS OF INDIANS.
535
that heretofore. He hopes for further promotion.
Anything’, I say, that will take him out of the
Seventh. You may beheve all he says about ex-
pecting promotion, but I don’t. I could hardly
refrain from saying sharp things in reply. But
you can rest easy ; I shook hands, held my tongue,
and did the decorous, just as you would ask me
to do if you were here. Still, when Diana ap-
peared at the door, I could not help an implor-
ing glance, which she interpreted at once and
called loudly for me, and I escaped. A citizen
has come into the post from Denver, and says the
Indians are attacking the stage-stations. But I
am determined not to be alarmed. It is sufficiently
difficult for me to battle with the one trouble, this
loneliness and separation (and, oh, it is so hard to
stand it !) without believing in addition every
rumor about Indians.
“■ Tom says he does not have the charge of this
house now, as the colored ordnance sergeant has
assumed the entire responsibility. It is too funny
to see him walking about, having the wood piled
and the yard cleaned. So much for Eliza and her
charms ] “
“April 5, 1867.
” I suppose the streams must have risen and
delayed the mails ; for our river is up, and the
bridge gone, with hourly expectation that the rail-
road bridge will go. The operator here reports
that a despatch from General Hancock has been
sent from him saying that he had a fight with
the Indians near Harker. I do not believe it, but
I am so foolish I cannot help being uneasy. Oh,
dear, what a way to live — one here and the other
so far off ! Won’t you put an end to it, and de-
sert ? How I wish I had the six days with you
536
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
that I spent going to St. Louis for Ristori ! What
a noodle I was to leave you ! An account comes
to us through the Washington Cki’oniclc, of a mas-
sacre at Fort Buford, Dakota. The colonel in
command is reported as having written all winter
for re-inforcements, but said he would fight, if
he was attacked, as long as he could hold out.
And so he did, for eighty men held off three
thousand Indians. When it was no longer pos-
sible to make a further stand, the colonel shot
his wife, and the command were finally all killed.
Is it not horrible, and it makes me so sad, but I
beg you will not think me utterly forlorn. There
is a fate far harder; it is never to have had, as
many have not, the hours that already belong to
us and cannot be taken away.
” You will laugh at my religion, I’m afraid, when
I tell you I hurried out of church, so as not to be
obliged to speak to your enemy ! But do not be
worried ; I will do what you wish ; I will go and
call on his wife, and do the polite.
” The river is something terrific. The oldest in-
habitant says it has never been so high. It is
over the railroad track.
” You should see this post ! It is, everyone says,
the most thoroughly run-down and utterly uncared-
for and shiftless place they ever saw. The one
darkey bugler sounds every call on the board — at
least, at the hour of every call the cavalry used to
hear, the bugler toots something so absurd, and as
much like the true call as a cow’s low. Shots are
fired constantly. You should have seen the parade-
ground this afternoon ! It would have driven
an officer given to order and discipline to the
verge of distraction. The ‘ black-faced and shiney-
eyed ‘ were drilling right on the grass of the
parade-ground, which is just beginning to show
ORDER IN WARSAW.
537
itself green. While the sergeant drilled one squad,
another rolled on the ground, or ran around on all
fours, like apes. Then an old cow has been pas-
turing herself on the parade unmolested. Teams
of luggage, dogs, horsemen, mulemen, cross and
recross at will. Really, if I were not afraid, these
things would be very funny. A lieutenant was
passing the guard-house when a negro sentinel
called out, ‘ Turn out the guard for the command-
ing-officer ! ‘ He was full of amusement, but only
said quietly, ‘ Never mind the guard,’ and then
hurried up to laugh with us about their so saluting
a lieutenant. The sergeant called the darkies
down from the upper porch of the barracks to
reveille — ‘ No, sar, too cold down thar;’ and they
didn’t come. We are glad General Gibbs is
coming to restore order to Warsaw, as you express
it. No one feels safe with the present state of
affairs in the garrison. “
“April i8, 1867.
” General Gibbs has come, and we are delighted
and relieved to have him here. He teases me
about my numerous letters to you ; says you
are all the time writing to me, and that you keep
a letter of mine in your pocket constantly, and
pull it out and read it whenever the least oppor-
tunity offers. But I don’t care if he does make
fun of us ; I shall keep on writing daily. He has
begun to make a change in the condition of the
garrison already. After the darkey shot his com-
rade, all their ammunition was taken from them.
The colored troops no longer dry their clothes on
the parade-ground.
** Our dear Ginnie is so unhappy about her dead
puppies ; Eliza declares she has been trying to
bury herself to-day. She did dig two holes, and
538 – TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
tried to lay herself out flat in each one. Dog sor-
rows are pretty hard, as well as human troubles.
The setter puppies are doing well, and Turk looks
so fine that people want to buy him. The Gibbs
boys, Alfred and Blair, are the dearest, most capti-
vating children. Don’t forget the arrows for them.
Mrs. Gibbs had a tin-type taken in Junction
City, and the boys posed themselves. What do you
think ! Each boy had placed one hand on the
mother’s shoulder. We said they were her brevets.
‘1 here could be no shoulder-straps more lovely
than those dimpled hands. Blair lisps and asks,
‘Mother, what is a brevet; is it a make-believe
soldier ?’ and the manner in which they are admin-
istered to men who never smelled powder, makes
me feel that it is a good definition sometimes.
” In your two last letters you caution me not to
feel any anxiety about the news of your pursuit of
the Indians ; but my nature would be changed
indeed if I did not feel worried. You know what
I have at stake, and I cannot control my feelings.
What a miserable, treacherous set the Indians
are ! All that is left me is to implore the kind
Father to hold you in the hollow of His hand, as
He has done in times past. I am glad you wrote
me about your intended pursuit of the Indians,
for you know I shall have to hear all sorts of gar-
bled reports, which alarm me far more than the
plain statement you make in your letter. I am
going at myself with whip and spur, and shall
take up such work as will keep me from being
utterly forlorn. But, oh, what thoughts get
sewed into my work !”
“April 20, 1867.
” My letters from you do not come regularly —
two or three at a time, and days intervening with-
A GLOOMY PREDICTION’. 539
out any. Oh ! what a shattering of hopes each
day, when one is subjected to the uncertainty of a
mail by stage.
” Our Seventh Cavalry band is going to be
splendid, under General Gibbs’s organization. It
seems good to hear the clank of sabres, as the
men passed. Almost the only cavalrymen we
see are in the hospital, which we visit. We are
trying to make out a list of music for the band.
The best notes I hear now are those of a
little bird that sits on a branch of a tree on the
parade-ground, and sings as if his throat would
burst, even at his go-to-sleep song. But there is
a great ache that keeps up since the receipt of the
news of your pursuit of the Indians. Just think
how hard it is for me, when an old officer who
was passing through here and called, told me he
thought, now you had started in pursuit, you
were not likely to be in till October ! His opinion is
based on his forty years’ experience in the West.
He is a lovely old man, even if he does talk so
discouragingly, and I intend to ask him to dine
before he goes — that is, if I get good news from
you.
” We do get such glimpses of brightness from
the band-practice, and Diana has kept one beau
at the East in a sufficiently deluded state to send
her a box of candy by mail. Nothing brightens
me up long, nowadays, I feel so old, and such an
apathy comes over me for the events of daily life,
now that I am so anxious.
” Tom thinks himself abused, because all day
long I keep asking him for the time — the day
seems so long. At night I write to you, and
Diana is so taken up with her infantry man that
time does not drag in the least. Tom is forgot-
ten, and grumbles audibly. He pretends to
540
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
be afraid to come down-stairs at night, since
Diana has loaded her pistol to protect us. He
fears we will not discriminate between a negro
and a brother! “
“April 22, 1867.
” I confess to being very unhappy. My hopes
and fears agitate me so, for fear of the sudden de-
camping of those treacherous rascals will keep you
chasing them, and going farther and farther from
me, leaving the summer to drag on without you !
I am tormented with anxieties that I cannot over-
come. I look out so startled, if a mounted man
passes our house, fearing he is the bearer of bad
tidings. It exasperates me and fills me with sus-
pense, to hear people going up and down the steps
of the commanding officer’s house next door, for
I constantly think it is an orderly with a letter.
” I am put out with the quartermaster from De-
partment Headquarters. I asked him about the
application that you made to buy an ambulance.
‘ Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘ it had come, but was waiting
for the commanding officer to sign it.’ The delay
is vexatious, for it is so necessary to have a wagon
ready in case I can get a chance to go to
you. He promised to ‘ look it up,’ How little he
cares, in his comfortable, safe quarters at Leaven-
worth, whether an anxious wife gets a wagon tc
go to her husband ! I am disappointed about not
getting the mail. Your letters are the life of my
day. The river is so high that nothing can cross ;
consequently, as you may surmise, Fox River has
risen also. I found a horse-shoe in our walk to-
day, and I am trying to remember that you con-
sider it a harbinger of good times. My birth-
day was not the gay, happy affair that it is
when you are here. Diana gave me a book of
A PROBLEMATIC WORD.
54^
poetry, which one of her citizen beaux had given
to her — someone she’s tired of. But I enjoy the
book, all the same.
“I have been answering two of Eliza’s letters
to-night, to her brunette beaux.
“This is such a country to live in. At Whisky
Point, near here, a man shot his wife. He then
called in the neighbors, threatened to kill them if
they advanced, disposed of his property, and shot
himself. A few days afterward a man who kept
the mess-house, near the stables, went over to
Whisky Point and cut his throat from ear to ear.
” Since I began my doleful epistle, three great
gorgeous letters have come from you, and it
makes me feel good all over.”
“April 23, 1867.
“This morning Eliza came before I was up and
said, ‘ Miss Libbie, here’s a letter ! ” I was up in
a twinkling, but so provoked to find it was not
from you that I crept into bed again. Finally,
I arose and found it was from Colonel W ,
whom, it seems, you asked to write me. The
writing was particularly hieroglyphic, and I was
enraged at such carelessness. One word, which I
wished to know of all others, I cannot make out,
neither can the General, the adjutant, Tom, or
Diana. It says, ‘Your husband reports the
Indians 3 if uandeved, and will return in two
days, when we will then go on to Fort Dodge.’
Was there ever anything so exasperating ? The
very word I am all anxiety to know, whether the
Indians have surrendered or if they have fled be-
yond recall, or if it means war all summer. Mine
is the only letter giving any news, and here we
are unable to make it out. It was very good of
him to write, but how can I wait to know what
542
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
his letter really means ? While I am writ-
ing, Tom comes in with a startling account
of the Indians having drawn off all our troops
by a feint, a small number of their own showing
themselves, while the main body came in behind
and captured Fort Larned. Oh, dear ! if these
hateful reports would not get circulated as they
do, life would not be so hard.
” We have heard rumors, also, of the burning of
the stage-station beyond Fort Hays. But are there
any stampeders like stage people and teamsters ?
My mind is full of miserable conjectures, and I
cannot help impatience and fretting at living in a
country with no railroad or telegraph.
“I have just heard, through a letter received in
garrison, that you shot Custis Lee in a buffalo-
hunt.
” Do not be troubled for fear I shall be inconsol-
able over my dear horse. You well know what a
loss he is to me. I shall never become so attached
to an animal again. It was so strange that a
dumb brute could seem to be so in sympathy with
me as he did. Can’t you see him when you would
say, ‘ Give Custis Lee the rein, Libbie,’ and I would
repeat the message to him, following up the
slackening of the bridle with my hand on his
beautiful glossy neck, to tell him by a loving pat
that we were to do our best, how he shot off over
the level road, enjoying the speed as much as we
did ? To tell you the truth, he won me first when
I found we shared our scares together. He did
not bound to one side and leaving me anywhere
in the air, as Phil does when he is frightened ; he
is so selfish he has all his scare to himself, but
Custis Lee stood quivering under me, trying to
face danger for my sake just as faithfully as if
he was a reasoning being, and knew well that he
A DISCOA’SOLATE LOOKOUT.
54:
carried a bundle of quivers and tremors on his
back, which tried to encourage him, though in a
very unsteady voice. I do not hesitate to own to
genuine grief for my dear old nag, but oh, when
we are both in such an anxious, uncertain state of
mind over the graver question of our separation,
the danger of the campaign, grief over the horse
is secondary !
” General Gibbs finds garrison duty so dull he
would far rather be on the campaign, but he tries
to enliven our evenings. He and the Madame
have just been in, and he made me laugh in spite
of the wretched uncertainty I am in, by describ-
ing you as so enthusiastic about hunting before he
left, that you raced out of your tent after a jack-
rabbit in your nightgown !
” I am very unhappy ; I cannot help it. There
are some people here who talk all on the dark
side about the summer campaign. I would you
were in the humble employment of Hutchins, the
pound-master at home, and I the happy Mrs.
Hutchins, rather than living in this inhuman, un-
natural, heart-rending manner ! “
“April 26, 1867.
” Since I received your letter this week, saying
you would set out after the Indians, there has been
nothing but misery; and a perfect whirlwind of
anxiety possesses me. The atmosphere of the
post is gloomy in the extreme. All sorts of
rumors come to us. Every day we have fresh ac-
counts of troubles that have actually occurred
with the Indians, or descriptions of those that are
anticipated. I try not to believe them, but still I
have no peace of mind. I was so agitated about
you, that even the excitement of the earthquake
left scarcely any effect on my mind. Our separa-
544
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
tions grow more hopeless to me. Even when I
was in Washington, with no friends about me, it
was not so hard as the anxiety now is. Colonel
B has arrived from Dodge, and gives very de-
pressing accounts of the Indians. He says every
one, from Dodge here, is in daily terror of at-
tack, and one of the stage stations is already
abandoned. I am in terror to think you are to go
off in pursuit. I did not think they would send
lieutenant-colonels on scouts.
*’ Do you not think I can get out to you and meet
you on your return ? You know how I thrive in a
tent. The wind is frantic to-day ; it shrieks and
moans about the house in the most desolate man-
ner. I hate wind ! Now, remember, I want to be
sent for as soon as possible. There seems to be
not even the faintest prospect of going. There
isn’t an ambulance at the post, but nevertheless I
am getting my gray gown ready for traveling.
Can’t you send one of your own wagons as far as
the termination of the railroad for me, and I can
manage the rest of the way ? The troops tempo-
rarily here were brought out to muster this morn-
ing, and we had a little of the pomp and circum-
stance to vary the day. A number of Indians —
Kaws, I believe — came to witness the perform-
ance, and to beg, of course. I could scarcely
contain myself ; I wanted to fly out and maul and
throttle them. I know it must distress you to
have Sifrau in such a fury, but I can’t help it.
“I know you are wondering why this letter is
cut up so. Well, I began to try and cut out the
tear-stains, for I know I ought not to send such
doleful letters, but I had to give up the cutting as
a bad job, for I would soon have had nothing at
all to give the messenger.”
A LOST OPPORTUNITY.
545
”May I, 1867.
” Lieutenant Cook has just arrived, and brings
messages from you, and he is anxious to take me
back ; but until I hear from you that it is best, I
will not venture. This is our first warm day, and
the soldiers are holy-stoning our porch, while Gen-
eral Gibbs is staking the parade into walks, and
planting grass-seed again, to cover up the destruc-
tion the darkies made of the sod.”
“May 2.
“Two long letters have come from you. Oh,
how hard it is to know that, but for Diana, I could
return with Lieutenant Cook. I will not let her
know it, but I did mention that you hesitated
about letting us return with Lieutenant Cook,
because of the risk that she must necessarily run,
and that her parents might blame you. She says
she is not in the least afraid ; would like to live in
a tent ; so please let us take her at her word.
We are invited to stay over night at Harker when
we go, and shall not mind the eighty miles to
Hays, if once we get the transportation from
there. When I think that the snail-like mail takes
six days, and this letter must be so long going, it
exasperates me. A messenger left hurriedly to-
day. General Gibbs had no opportunity to send
me word, and T missed my chance for a letter to
you. The courier will ride night and day, to in-
form General Hancock of the killing of six men
by Indians up on Republican River.”
” May 4.
Generals Sherman, Hancock and Smith meet
here in conference to-morrow, and I hope out of it
will come some favorable results for us. I send
you your supplies and the box of cake by Lieuten-
546 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ant C . So sorry I couldn’t get your barrel of
onions, but Junction City had none. Eliza’s darkey
beaux planted us a little garden, and I let them do
it to please them, feeling sure in my heart, though,
that I should have something better than gardens,
by the time the seed came up, for I v/as certain I
would be with you. But the seeds are coming up.
I hate them !”
” On the Cars — en route to Leavenworth.
“May 7, 1867.
” I hasten to write a few words to send back by
the conductor, who will mail this at Saline, the
termination of the railroad. General Hancock
has been in the car to see me. He is in Mr. Shoe-
maker’s private car. I told him I was going to
Leavenworth for supplies for our new post, Gar-
land. He said you were off for a fifteen days’
scout, but on your return you would come to Riley
to take me back to Hays. I did not ask him, much
as I wanted to do so, but when he said, ‘ Are you
going to join your husband soon ? ‘ I said I would
be glad to do so, if he had no objections. He
said, ‘ None whatever !’ Just think of that ! He
praised you mightily, and that pleased me, as you
may imagine. He spoke in praise of you as a
husband, and commended your habits. I suppose
he thought this would prepare me, and sweeten a
bitter pill, for he continued, ‘ Custer will have to
do the fighting and marching and scouting;’ and
added, * I do not know what we would do with-
out Custer ; he is our reliance.’ He spoke splen-
didly of you. He said that as they marched
back from Fort Hays to Harker, he asked what
those courier-stations were for, and General
Smith said, ‘Why, I suppose it’s Custer writing
to his wife,’ and so on ; and as he was talkmg to
EN ROUTE 10 CAMP.
547
the bishop of the State, and everybody in the car
was hstening, there was a great laugh. He says
he does not know whether an Indian war will take
place or not. If it does not. we shall go to Fort
Garland in August. If there is war, the summer
will be spent in roaming, and the winter at Mar-
ker, Hays or Riley. I will try not to worry about
your scouting trip, but shall be so thankful to see
you again. When I once get out there, I will try
and be content to be left alone in your absence.
General Hancock has treated me with remarkable
politeness. I begin to think that those who make
efforts to be with their wives will always find
officers to help them.”
Fort Harker, e7i route to Fort Hays.
” At last I am here, safe and sound. I received
your letters from Hays, telling me to come on with
General Smith, after I returned from Leavenworth
Saturday night ; but General Sherman asked me,
and I determined to take the first chance, as you
wrote me to. So here I am. I am detained here
against my will. I cannot induce General Gibbs
to let me set out for Hays to-night. He considers
it dangerous ; but I am so impatient, so disap-
pointed, I am in a fume. I am not too tired to
start to-night, and oh, I can hardly wait. I have
only a small trunk and my roll of bedding, and
can go in light marching order.”
” Back at Fort Riley again,
” June 27, 1867.
” I have never been in a more uncertain frame
of mind about you, than since I returned here.
First I hear rumors that you may return to the
Department, and yet, when I left Hays, it was cer-
tain that you would remain in the Platte during
^/j.8 TEyriXG OV ‘iHE PLAIXS.
the summer. Oh, how exasperated it makes me,
especially when I see by your letter that you al-
most hope to meet me at Fort Wallace. General
Wright asked me to go with him, and if there had
been a shadow of a chance of my seeing you when
I did reach Wallace, or any way by which I could
have returned, I would have gone, and hardly
given the Indians a thought.
” It was impossible for me to remain at Hays.
You know you told me to remain, even if I moved
off from the Reservation. But the post is removed
sixteen miles, and so few troops are left there that
the place is unsafe. But we had no choice, as we
were sent away. At dark, a week ago Sunday,
we were told to be ready to move at 9 o’clock that
night. We started at 12 p. m. Rumors and true
reports came in so fast to General Smith that he
knew he ought to be at Harker, and that we
w omen ought to be in a safe place. We left in
an amazing hurry, and had rather a trying march.
The drunkenness of the escort kept one of the
officers on the look-out constantly. Packing our
traps so hurriedly — for all our baggage came after
we’ arrived — tired me out. But now we are safely
here with them, I am ready to start for you at a
moment’s notice, with little or no baggage this
time.
” General Sherman sent word to me that I had
best remain quietly at Riley, as my husband will
be on the march all summer. Quietly ! He may
talk about living quietly, but I cannot. The
road between Hays and Harker grows more and
more unsafe, and the officers say we came away
just in time.
” After the freshets, the hot sun and rain, living
under wagon-covers, in tents, the house seems
very comfortable, but our things are dreadfully
TERRORS ARE FORGOTTEX. 549
broken up, as I have had them packed in wagons
three times in the past three weeks. We have
had some things stolen. Everybody has been
kind to us, helping us move and pack. I try not
to despair about getting to you again. I am
ready to set out for Hays, or any point where I
can see you, at fifteen minutes’ notice. Remem-
ber, I am not afraid of Indians, or anything else,
if you are at the end of the trip.
If I can only get out there for a brief visit, I
will be so thankful I
“The mail no longer leaves, and it seems use-
less to write, but I keep watching for courier or
any one that leaves here to go West, trying for
everv chance to eet off a letter to vou.”
L
CHAPTER XVIII.
GRATITUDE A GREAT SNOW-STORM THE SIBLEY TENT
GENERAL CUSTER DEFINES HIS AMBITION
THE COOK DEVISES STRANGE ADDITIONS TO THE
BILL OF FARE GENERAL HANCOCK HOLDS A
COUNCIL WITH THE CHIEFS OF THE CHEYENNES
THE INDIAN NOBILITY REQUEST THAT THEIR
SUPPER BE SERVED BEFORE THE TALK THE
PIPE OF PEACE A HINT FOR FURTHER REFRESH-
MENTS GENERAL CUSTER VISITS THE VILLAGES
OF SIOUX, APACHES AND CHEYENNES A DEPU-
TATION OF THREE HUNDRED WARRIORS AND
CHIEFS IN BATTLE LINE THE GENERAL’s DE-
SCRIPTION OF THEM CIVILIZED AND BARBAROUS
W^ARFARE CONFRONTING EACH OTHER FLIGHT
OF THE INDIANS GENERAL CUSTER AND HIS
REGIMENT ARE SENT IN PURSUIT EXTRACTS
FROM GENERAL CUSTER’s LETTERS W^RITTEN
FROM FORT EARNED.
“Fort Larned, April 9, 1867.
T AST evening I finished my letter to you of
J–/ twenty-one pages, but this morning- 1 find my
pen again in my hand, to convey more thoughts,
wishes and impressions. Oh, hov^ often the
thought passes through my mind, that of all men
I have cause to be most happy, most grateful and
A CONTENTED HEART.
551
most contented — contented because I am happy
— happy because I have my highest desires grati-
fied— and grateful for these blessings. One might
inquire upon what I base my happiness. True, I
have neither broad acres nor untold wealth in
store ; but these of themselves would not satisfy
me, neither would their loss, if I possessed them,
dishearten me. My happiness is based upon some-
thing higher, more elevating, more ennobling,
more refining. . . This is a reality, proven and
thoroughly tested after an extended experience
with the world. I may be enthusiastic and san-
guine, but my enthusiasm never overshadows
my judgment.
” We are in the midst of a most terrible snow
and hail storm. The snow has fallen several
inches deep to-day, mingled with hail, and is now
drifting. I do not think we had any severer
weather at Riley the whole winter than we are
now experiencing. It is terrible upon our horses,
after they have been in comfortable stables all
winter. I have been a little worried about my
own horses, but have made them comparatively
comfortable for the night (it is now 8 p. m.). I
have a blanket on each, then on top of that is a
wagon-cover, folded so as to cover each horse,
from his ears back. Great fears are entertained
that many of the company horses, unprotected by
blankets, will be frozen in the morning. If Gen-
eral Gibbs were not sharing my tent, I would
take the mare, ‘ Fanchon ‘ in with me to-night.
” You need not be anxious regarding my com-
fort. I have not been uncomfortable a moment,
while others are suffering. I rode to the fort to-
day, on duty, through the thickest of the storm,
and was not affected by it. General Gibbs is
temporarily tenting with me, on account of his
552
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
having a wall-tent. Nearly all the officers have
been staying with me to-day, as my Sibley is
more comfortable than their wall-tents. It’s a
great pity, on some accounts, that the Sibley tent
has been given up by the Government. You will
be glad that I secured this old one for the march.*
I have not been obliged to wear my overcoat,
in spite of the cold. I have worn the worsted
cardigan and my ever-present dressing-gown, in
which I am now writing. Captain has been
at Fort Garland, and is very anxious to go there
again, and hints constantly to that effect. You
know how he objects to men being detailed from
his company. Well, the cook for our mess belongs
to his company, and he told the adjutant, in his
droll way, when the dinner was being praised,
that it was encouraging for his company, as of
course we would not want to part with the cook
and separate him entirely from his troop. Of
course this is joking, as such a small thing as de-
tailing a soldier would have no weight in the
assigning of a company.”
”Fort Larned, April lo, 1867.
” I shall have another chance to send a letter
to-day, as the stage from the West is still due,
delayed doubtless by the storm. In the mail to-
day I had three letters from you. No newspapers
came, but I am contented with what the day has
brought me. … I have so much to be thank-
ful for in my life, God grant that I may always
prove as deserving as I am grateful to Him for
what He has given me. In years long numbered
with the past, when I was merging upon man-
*The Sibley tent was conical, modeled after an Indian tepee,
and admitted of a fire on the ground in the centre, the smoke escap-
ing from an aperture at the top.
AMBITION DEFINED.
55,
hood, my every thought was ambitious — not to
be weaUhy, not to be learned, but to be great. I
desired to Unk my name with acts and men, and
in such a manner as to be a mark of honor, not
only to the present, but to future generations.
My connection with the war may have gained
this distinction ; but my course during the last
five or six years has not been directed by ambi-
tion so much as by patriotism, and I now find
myself, at twenty-seven, with contentment and
happiness bordering my path.
” My ambition has been turned into an entirely
new channel. Where I was once eager to acquire
worldly honors and distinctions, I am now con-
tent to try and modestly wear what I have, and
feel grateful for them when they come, but my
desire now is to make of myself a man worthy
of the blessings heaped upon me.”
” Fort Larned, April lo, 1867.
” The weather, which was so severe last night,
has moderated, and is now quite comfortable.
Had we not been in camp, we could not have
escaped without loss of life, I fear. The ration of
oats for the horses was doubled, to prevent as
much as possible their feeling the intensity of
the weather ; but even then the guard were kept
walking along the picket-line all night, whipping
the horses to keep them in motion, as otherwise
they would have frozen.
” Tell Eliza I discovered a new dish by accident
the other day, but she need not try it, unless she
wants to throw it away afterward. I told the
cook I wanted him to cook some onions and pota-
toes together, meanmg that I wanted him to fry
them for breakfast. But, dinner being the next
meal, and the soldier prompt to obey orders — even
554
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
if it were to make a mince-pie out of polecat and
corn meal, with red peppers for raisins — set about
preparing, I suppose for the first time, a dish of
onions and potatoes. He boiled and mashed the
potatoes, then sliced his onions, and mashed pota-
toes and onions together ; and of all the odd-tast-
ing dishes, that was one of them. We could not
eat it.
” As Harrison’s intentions were good, and in
consideration of his youth (?) and inexperience, I
said nothmg about it to him, except when he
asked next day if I liked his onions and potatoes.
I said yes, but did not want any just then. I think
he comprehended that my reply was a jest. If
Eliza had prepared such a dish, I would have
asked her to go hunt a whip and prepare for her
reward. But, notwithstanding the mixture of
onions and potatoes, the man does very well,
much better than I expected, and I know of no
one in the command who lives as well as we do.
” I suppose that you and Eliza will both be in-
terested and delighted to know that your old
friend, J , whom you both begged out of the
guard-house and had placed on parole, is here with
his company. I sent for him to-day, more for
your sake than anything else, and scarcely knew
him as he entered my tent. He is much fleshier
than while at Riley, and in his nice new, neatly
fitting uniform, with new boots (tell Eliza), he
looked much handsomer than when, in his ragged
clothes, he did police duty with the prisoners about
the post. I suppose if you and Eliza were here I
would have no peace until J was detailed at
headquarters. If detailing him for headquarter
duty would bring you both here, I believe, as Tom
says, ‘ by Jocks, I’d do it.’ The lieutenant of his
company says he gave him a horse and two
BUO YANT ANTICIPA TIONS.
555
blankets the first day after leaving Riley, and
took good care of him ; he wants you to know, as
you had asked him to remit the sentence and put
him on parole. He also says that he is one of the
best and neatest soldiers he ever saw.”
” Camp near Fort Larned,
“April 12, 1867.
“This letter I am sending by General Gibbs
will be comparatively short, as it is now after 10,
and reveille sounds at 5 to-morrow, and we start
on our march for Fort Dodge, fifty miles dis-
tant. Nearly all the officers of the Seventh were
present at a council General Hancock held with
the chiefs of the Cheyennes, who came into camp
this evening. The address to them, and their
reply, were repeated to each side by an interpreter.
The council has just ended. Harpei^’s Weekly
will contain illustrations of this expedition, as
Theodore Davis, one of their artists, is with the
expedition.
” I hope you have received my letters descrip-
tive of Fort Garland. One can stand in the door
of the quarters and behold the mountain-tops in
the distance, covered with snow, even when the
sun is pouring down its hot rays upon the post.
The quarters are ‘ adobe,’ nothing more or less
than sun-dried brick, made and dried after the ex-
act method followed by the children of Israel,
over which they labored and of which they after-
ward complained. We shall have an opportunity
to hear Spanish spoken there, and I intend to send
for my grammar and dictionary, and we can both
study the language.
“I am glad you found a horse-shoe. They are
almost invariably harbingers of good luck. Did
you not get a letter or two with considerable sat-
556
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
isfactory intelligence, soon after finding your
horse-shoe ? I tied mine to my saddle, and carried
it till one of my men made use of it in camp.”
“Pawnee Fork, Kansas, April 14, 1867.
” Three miles beyond our present camp there is
a large encampment of Sioux, Apaches and
Cheyennes. A considerable number of them came
into our camp last night, several of the principal
chiefs remaining all night, occupying a tent that
General Hancock had pitched for them. I should
have written to you last night, but no messenger
was to be sent back. I can tell you there is a
‘ somebody ‘ who swears vengeance upon the
mail-carriers and stage-routes, if each mail does
not contain at least one letter from you. As I
could not write to you, I concluded to study the
Indian character a little. Accordingly, in my
ever-present morning-gown and broad hat, I
walked down to the tent of the chiefs. A senti-
nel had been placed near, to prevent the soldiers
from approaching too closely, from curiosity or
other motives, so that the Indians were kept quite
secluded. I went to their tent soon after dark
and remained until after 10 o’clock. No other
officers or soldiers were present. A guide and
interpreter were there a part of the time ; also Mr.
Davis, of Harpa-‘s Weekly. The Indians were
preparing their supper from meat and hard-tack
furnished them by our commissary. Instead of a
Sibley stove, they merely built their fire in the
centre of the tent and broiled or toasted their
meat. Each one had a pointed stick about eight-
een inches in length. Upon this they place their
ration of meat (two or three pounds each), and
thrust the other end of the stick into the ground
just outside the fire, but inclined in such a man-
558 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
ner that the meat is exposed to the heat of the
embers. When it was cooked, they of course ate
in quite a primitive style — with their fingers — each
gnawing at his bone as voraciously as if he had
not tasted food for three days. I went to the
tent, opened it and entered — unbidden, of course,
as not one of them could speak a word of English,
and my education in Sioux, Cheyenne or Apache
had been equally neglected. My entrance and
presence did not seem to disturb their stoicism
or equanimity in the least. All were seated around
the circumference of the tent upon buffalo robes. I
made my way through the smoke to a vacant
robe, and joined the circle, but did not ‘swing
round’ it. I took my place between two chiefs,
one of whom was White Horse, a head chief of
the Cheyennes and the other a chief of the
Apaches. There were perhaps a dozen chiefs in
the tent, and several Indians of a lower grade, who
seemed to act as strikers for the rest, attending to
the cooking of the meat, and so on. The chiefs
were in full-dress costume, with all the Indian
paraphernalia — paint, ornaments, etc. Some had
earrings as large as ordinary dog-collars, with
chains and shells attached, making a pendant
reaching to their waists. On their breasts were
plates of silver, generally of a half-moon shape
and as large in diameter as a wash-basin. Their
arms and fingers were also profusely ornamented
with shells and silver bands. Attached to the
scalp-lock would be a string of ornaments, so long,
in some instances, that the end would almost
touch the ground when the wearer was seated on
his pony. This ornament consisted of a succes-
sion of silver plates, forty or more, the one on top
and nearest the head being as large as a saucer,
the size of the others gradually diminishing to the
AN INDIAN TEPEE.
559
last, which would be the size of the bottom of a
cup. While sitting, or, rather, lying, on the buffalo
robe, surrounded as I was by this strange and
picturesque looking group, I could not but wonder
what your sensations would be, if you could peer
through the smoke of the Indian fire and see me,
dressed as at home, surrounded by a dozen or
more of these dusky and certainly savage-looking
chiefs. I smiled silently as I thought of the strange
position in which I found myself. Neither could
I help a shudder running through me, as a thought
darted into my mind, ‘ What if Libbie should ever
fall into the hands of such savages !’
” The two that acted as strikers for the rest
could not be said to be in full-dress costume, un-
less you would term it low neck and short sleeves.
True, the neck might be regarded very low, and
the sleeves very scant, as no garment of any de-
scription was worn above the waist. I discovered
advantages for this costume, particularly for cooks
and table-waiters : their sleeves never get into the
food or dishes. Tell Eliza to try it, as it is also a
comfortable dress for summer, particularly in the
shade. I am going to send her a pattern.
” An order has just come to strike tents and
move a few miles nearer the Indian encampment.
I will finish my letter there.”
” 5 P- M.
” ‘ Howdy: ‘ — We are located within a short dis-
tance of a large Indian encampment. A deputa-
tion of three hundred warriors and chiefs met us
this morning soon after we left camp. I wish you
could have seen them as we approached. They
were formed in line, with intervals, extending
about a mile. The sun was shining brightly, and
as we arrived the scene was the most picturesque
560
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and novel I ever witnessed. Many officers pro-
nounced it the most beautiful sight they ever saw ;
but beauty is an improper name to apply to it, in
my mind. What rendered the scene so striking
and so magnificent were the gaudy colors of the
dress and trappings of the chiefs and warriors.
Added to this was a profuse intermingling of sil-
ver ornaments. The whole scene reminded me
of descriptions I have read of Moorish or Oriental
cavalcades.”
” Pawnee Fork, April 15, 1867.
” 20 minutes to 3 o’clock a. m.
” Our council with the Indians did not take
place, as I said it would in my letter of to-day,
for the reason that the Indians gave us the slip
immediately after dark this evening. One of the
guides, a half-breed, reported this fact, or, rather,
that they were saddling up to leave about sunset.
General Hancock sent for me, and it was deter-
mined that I, with the Seventh Cavalry, should
surround the village and keep the Indians from
leaving. I advised against delay. I obeyed my
order, and completely surrounded the Indian en-
campment about 1 2 o’clock to-night. The village
numbered about two hundred and fifty lodges,
but the bird had flown, leaving his lodges behind,
and evidently flying in great haste. They feared
us ; feared another massacre like Chivington’s. I
am to pursue them at daylight with the Seventh,
and my orders are, to overtake them and bring
them back if possible and hold the council. If
they refuse to come, and are disposed to fight, I
am to accommodate them. I may end at Forts
Hays, Wallace or Dodge, most probably at Hays.
If so, this will be more in our favor for meeting
each other. I do not anticipate war, or even diffi-
THE INDIANS ESCAPE.
561
culty, as the Indians are frightened to death, and
only ran away from fear. If I can overtake them,
which I beUeve I can, their horses being in very
poor condition, I can at least try to disabuse t^clr
minds of an idea of harm, so that you need not
fear war. I am strongly for peace. Now you
need not worry in the least about me ; I do not
think we shall have war. It is now after 3 in the
morning, and the breakfast is being put upon the
table, so I must say good-night.”
CHAPTER XIX.
EXTRACTS FROM GENERAL CUSTER’s LETTERS FROM
FORT HAYS AND FORT WALLACE AN ACCOUNT OF
KILLING HIS FIRST BUFFALO-CALF THE DEATH
OF CUSTIS LEE EXTRACT FROM A LETTER WRIT-
TEN BY GENERAL HANCOCK ON THE INDIAN DEPRE-
DATIONS RIDING TO MEET THE MAIL THE DOC-
TOR EATS INDIAN SOUP IN THE VILLAGE SOME
ITEMS REGARDING A MATCH BUFFALO-HUNT.
^^ ‘ “Fort Hays, April 20, 1867.
IF you have received my last two letters, you
will not be surprised at seeing this dated at
Fort Hays. I reached here yesterday afternoon.
We could be seen from the fort a long distance
off, and were supposed to be Indians advancing” in
force to attack the post. The long roll was beaten,
every man sprang to his arms, the cannon were
loaded, and our coming was awaited in breathless
anxiety. No doubt a second edition of the Phil
Kearney massacre was anticipated. When we had
approached near enough for them to see our
wagons and flags, their fears and doubts were
dispelled, and an officer of the garrison came rid-
ing out to meet us. It appears that the first alarm
was given by two of the sutler’s clerks, who had
been out about five miles from the fort, in the
direction in which we were, buffalo-hunting. They
saw us several miles off advancing toward the
562
TRAVELING IN A CIRCLE. 563
fort, and at once surmised that we were an over-
whelming force of Indians bent upon capturing
the fort. They at once scampered for the post,
some five miles off, as fast as their horses could
carry them, when the alarm was given and prep-
aration made for a desperate resistance. The
scene as described was of the most exciting char-
acter, and now furnishes material for many good
jokes and hearty laughs.
” I marched one hundred and fifty miles in four
days and a half, an average of over thirty-three
miles a day. One night we were marching till
daylight. They have a good joke on Lieutenant
H , who, as you know, having been over the
Smoky Hill stage-route, professes to know every
inch of the way, as well as to have much Plains
knowledge, of which we, having never crossed
the Plains, are supposed to be ignorant. As I
desired to send an officer and detail of men to
Downer’s Station, ten miles distant, I assigned the
duty to Lieutenant H , supposing, from his
conversation, that he would be perfectly familiar
with the route. About an hour after he set out,,
an officer came into my tent and said he believed
Lieutenant H was returning, as he saw a party
of men a few miles off that appeared to be his.
After watching them some time, we discovered
that they were moving neither toward us nor in
the direction of Downer’s Station, but in a totally
different way. We could only explain his move-
ments by supposing that he had discovered a
party of Indians and was going to them. He soon
passed out of sight, and we saw nothing more of
him until his return several hours afterward. It
was then developed, from his own story, that he
had not been to Downer’s, but, after leaving our
camp, had become lost, and in wandering around,,
2 64 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
it seems in circles all the time, trying to find the
Station, had again come in sight of our camp.
Believing us to be Indians, he made preparations to
creep up to us, to reconnoitre our numbers. This,
too, at the particular time when other officers and
I were in front of my tent, trying to make out what
his strangle movements could mean. All such
occurrences, though ever so trifling in themselves,
serve to while away a few moments of the march,
and furnish subjects for conversation.
” We have seen immense quantities of game,
consisting of buffalo, antelope, wolves, elk, geese
ducks, etc. The first member of the buffalo
family that I saw was a calf about four week old.
I was riding alone with one of the Delaware Ind-
ians we employ as scouts, and had the dogs
with me. The calf jumped up out of the tall
grass and started to run off. The dogs all fol-
lowed and soon overtook it, each one taking hold,
while the calf set up a terrible bellowing ; and
they held it till I rode up, dismounted, and killed
it. I took off one quarter with my hunting-knife,
and left the remainder on the ground. Just then
one of my guides, a half-breed Cheyenne, came
up, and before the blood had ceased flowing,
while the carcass was still warm, he cut out the
heart and kidneys and ate them at once, without
any preparation or dressing whatever, just as you
would eat an apple. I had a delightful dish of
broiled veal for dinner that day.
” And now I am called upon to relate a most
unfortunate occurrence, and one, too, that you will
deeply regret. That noble animal, ever faithful
and true to the last moment, Custis Lee, is no
more. I killed him last Tuesday while buff’alo-
hunting. . . Soon after leaving camp in the
morning, I took the dogs, and with Sergeant King.
FIRST BUFFALO CHASE. 565
the chief bugler, rode in advance of the cokimn,
but still in sight. On a bluff upon our left flank
I saw several antelope grazing. Desiring to test
the speed of the greyhounds, Lu and Sharp, I
galloped toward them. The dogs soon saw them,
and away they went. Sharp tired down after
running about a mile, but Lu, much to my sur-
prise, outran Sharp and continued the chase
about four miles, overhauling the antelope but
unable to detain it alone. Rover and Ratler took
the trail of one, and were soon beyond my sight
and hearing. I feared to trust Ratler on the
prairie, as I knew that he would lose himself if
once out of sight. The result of this chase was,
that I called Lu and Sharp off at once ; old Rover
joined me several miles off, three hours afterward.
Ratler never joined me, and never will, as I sup-
pose some wolf has killed him ere this. I regret
his loss extremely, as this is the first time he has
ever joined in the chase and followed the trail
himself, and he did very well. But his loss was
neither the last nor the greatest misfortune to be-
fall me that day. Sergeant King had vainly en-
deavored to keep up with me, and had fallen so
far behind as to be lost to view. I saw a buffalo
about three-quarters of a mile in front, the first
large one I had seen so near, so, taking Lu and
Sharp, I galloped in pursuit. The buffalo soon
saw me, and started at full speed across the
country. Sharp overtook him and succeeded in
delaying him somewhat, so that after a run of
about three miles I was within pistol-shot of him.
. . . I drew one of my revolvers and started
full tilt for the buffalo, intending to ride alongside
and kill him. He was completely blown, his tongue
protruding, and evidently unable to continue
the chase at the same gait much longer ; so that
5 66 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
when he saw me coming- toward him he suddenly
halted and turned upon me. I was too near to
stop or turn short. I therefore gave Lee the spurs,
and passed just in advance of the buffalo. The
chase was then resumed. I, being on the right of
the buffalo, passed over to the left and was soon
near him again. I was close to him, had my pis-
tol cocked and aimed at his side, and was about
to pull the trigger, when the buffalo again turned
on me and so suddenly as to cause Lee to veer to
the left. I drew up my pistol, intending to use
both hands in controlling the horse, when, just as
my hand was raised to the reins, my finger acci-
dentally and in the excitement of the moment,
pressed the trigger and discharged the weapon,
the ball entering Lee’s neck near the top of his
head and penetrating his brain. Both horse and
buffalo had been at full speed. The shot pro-
duced instant death ; not even a struggle ensued
after he fell. . . .
“• You can imagine what the effect would be
upon me, the horse running his best, to fall in a
single leap. I was thrown heels over head, clean
over Lee, but, strange to say, I received not a
scratch or bruise. This is the second dangerous
fall I have had within ten days. I did not lose
my presence of mind for a moment, and, expect-
ing the buffalo to charge upon me at once, I had
retained my revolver in my hand, and in an in-
stant was on my feet, ready for a fight or a foot-
race. Fortunately the buffalo, whether surprised
at the sudden turn affairs had taken, or deeming
my position bad enough, concluded to call it a
drawn battle, and, after looking me in the eyes a
few moments, went galloping off over the prairie,
leaving me in possession of the battle-field, which
I believe always belongs to the victor. But now
mMim
567
5 68 TENTING ON THE PLAINS,
came the time to try men’s soles. I can recall many,
many much more agreeable circumstances in
which to be placed than those surrounding me at
that time. I was dismounted, which to a cavalry-
man is not the most pleasant thing in the
world ; I was alone, and several miles from
anybody, and the direction in which I was
to find that anybody was still to be determined.
I will confess that in hours past, have deeply
enjoyed the solitude of my own thoughts,
and there have been times when I would
gladly have torn myself from some crowded
throng in order to be left alone in my glory. Un-
fortunately for me at this time, so favorable for
seclusion and meditation, I was somewhat in a
social mood, and would have greeted almost any
man, or even woman, that I ever knew, not
excepting .””” There was no time for
regrets, no time to cry over spilt milk, much as I
felt disposed so to do, and no time either for Fox
River. If I did think of it, I intended to ford it,
I cast but a single look at poor Lee, and that look
satisfied me that he was dead. A moment’s re-
flection convinced me that I must abandon saddle,
bridle and overcoat, and alone in the wide, wide
world, which never looked half as wide before, set
out on my ‘tramp, tramp, tramp’ toward the
‘ boys,’ who, I am sorry to say, were ‘ marching.’
” I knew I was a good woodsman, quick at find-
ing roads, good in keeping directions, etc.; but all
these qualities had only been exercised before
within the limits of civilization. Now it was dif-
ferent: not a tree was to be seen, not a rock nor a
bush ; not a single living thing was in sight, the
*This reference was to an enemy of his, whom, of course, I bit-
terly disliked, but to whom my husband never referred.
LOST ON THE PLAINS. 569
dogs having fallen far behind. Yes, there was a
living object still in view, and that was my friend
the buffalo. After placing about half a mile be-
tween himself and me, he stopped and took time
for breathing. Finding himself no longer pursued,
he coolly stopped, and watched my proceedings
with the greatest interest, apparently saying to
himself, ‘ Who got the worst of that ? ‘
” I now tried to remember something of my
course while chasing the buffalo, and also the dis-
tance I had passed over, and concluded, after look-
ing at the sun, that I had galloped about five miles
in a semicircle, around the head of the column, j
had set out on the left, and must now be about
two miles in front, and to the right the same dis-
tance. Accordingly, with^oor Lee as a starting-
point, and also, a point of reference, I set out in
the supposed direction, frequently looking around
to see where the horse lay. If G. P. R. James had
been sufficiently near, he might have described a
solitary horseman (on foot, unfortunately) slowly
proceeding in the direction of he was not positive
where. I walked, with busy thoughts, you may be
sure, about two miles, and until Lee dwindled to
a small dark spot on the prairie. Still no signs of
the command approaching. A slight doubt as to
the correctness of my course began to arise, when
1 saw the tops of the wagons as they were making
their way up a small ravine. They were then
some two miles distant, so I patiently sat down
and awaited their coming. You should have seen
the surprise of the officers when they found me
entirely alone on the prairie, without a horse being
in sight. An explanation followed, an officer sent
a party after my saddle, bridle and coat, and a
horse was loaned me, as I had left Phil and Fan-
chon with General Smith.
570
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
” So endcth the first lesson in buffalo-chasing.
But the second is not like unto it. On the horse
that was loaned me I again set out, this time nearer
the command. I soon saw a couple of buffalo
near by, and gave chase ; was alongside in no time,
and began pouring the contents of a revolver into
the side of one of them. My second shot brought
him down, but he was on his feet almost immedi-
ately and going off at a good rate. Again I was
alongside, and brought him to bay with another
shot, killing him readily.
” You have doubtless heard of the massacre of
the three men at the stage-station (Lookout Sta-
tion) about twenty miles from this post. The
station and hay-stables were burned, and the men
so badly burned as scarcely to be recognizable.
I was the first of the command to reach them, as
I was looking for a camp. Seme men had been up
the day before (the i6th; the massacre was on the
15th) and partly buried the corpses. ‘But the
wolves had been there, uncovered the bodies, and
eaten the flesh from the legs. The hair was burned
from their heads. It could not be determined
whether they had been burned alive^or after being
killed. The flesh was roasted and crisped from
their faces and bodies, and altogether it was one
of the most horrible sights imaginable.”
” Near Fort Hays, April 22, 1867.
” The inaction to which I am subjected now,
in our present halt, is almost unendurable. It re-
quires all the buoyancy of my sanguine disposition
to resist being extremely homesick. Hitherto I
have been comparatively contented, and able to
divert my thoughts from home to incidents and
occurrences of the march, but even that poor pre-
text is denied me here. You little imagine how
HOSTILITIES PRODUCE WAR. 571
great the sacrifice is to me. . . . Our train
from Harker will probably arrive to-night, and
we shall leave, soon after it reaches us, for Dodge.
A note from headquarters last night said General
Hancock was moderating in his desire for war.
God grant it may be true ! . . . I can hardly
devote the proper time and attention to my daily
duties. … I am almost determined that,
come what may, you must and shall join me
wherever I am this summer.
” If Indian hostilities should be the result of this
expedition, and I am sent off independently dur-
ing the summer, as I am at present, I believe you
can go with me. The fatigues of the march will
be all that you will have to contend against, and
these will not be greater than those encountered
in going through Texas. As for overtaking the
Indians, it is almost an impossibility. Our horses
cannot endure the marching that their ponies can,
fed upon nothing buf prairie-grass.”
“Fort Hays, April 23, 1867.
” Yesterday two couriers came from headquar-
ters, bringing with them an order assigning me
to the command of all the troops and posts on the
Smoky Hill route. My command extends west as
far as Denver, and north and south as far as I choose
to go. I can now have you with me very soon.
” War has been declared against the Sioux and
Cheyennes ; but you need not let this fact give
you any unnecessary trouble or anxiety, as I be-
lieve the hostile Indians are going north, beyond
the limits of this Department. The present state of
affairs was all anticipated when I sent you General
Hancock’s letter ; but, with the hope that open
hostilities might be averted, I refrained from re-
ferring to that. However, the Indians, by their
572
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
late cold-blooded and heartless massacres, have
precipitated a war, the consequences of which
must rest with them. Two companies of the
Seventh had a fight a few days since, near Cim-
maron Crossing. Six Indians were killed. We
had two men killed and an infantry officer
wounded. I have ordered a line of couriers to
be established between here and Fort Barker,
consisting of six non-commissioned officers, so
that we can have a mail three times a week, and
but about ten hours between here and Harker.
This post is not a regular mail-station, and some-
times our mail is carried on to Denver and back.
Our couriers will obviate this difficulty.”
“Fort Hays, April 25, 1867.
” Oh, I was so tempted and provoked to-day !
The Superintendent of the Overland Route called
upon me, on his way from, Denver to Junction
City. He and the Division Superintendent had a
car to themselves, and he offered me a seat in it.
Only think ; in thirty hours I would have been at
Riley ! I was tempted with the offer, and pro-
voked at my inability to accept it. . . . The
Superintendent called to consult with me regard-
ing the protection of the Overland Route. I
have issued orders for the infantry to move out
to-morrow, and there will be five men at each
mail-station, while in addition there will be five
road employees, all well armed. If you were
alone, I would have the Superintendent bring you
back with him. Now, are you sorry you did not
go home like the other ladies, to spend the sum-
mer ? I need not ask, for I know nothing would
induce you to go so far away that you would lose
the chance of coming to camp.
” I have not been a hundred yards from my
r y^ TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
tent since we reached here, not even to the post,
half a mile away. I was lying on my pallet to-day,
thinking over my blessings, and I could not help
uttering a prayer of gratitude to God, for all that
he has bestowed on me, and asking that I might
be made worthy, and be led to pursue such a moral
life that others might be benefited by my example.,
” I read most of the time, and through the Doc-
tor I have enjoyed some interesting books. I have
been absorbed to-day in a scientific book entitled
‘ Origin of the Stars.’ In reading a book of poems,
I came across the following lines, which so nearly
express my views, and also what I endeavor to
make my rule of thought, that I copy them for
you :
” ‘ Blest, indeed, is he who never fell.
But blest much more, who from the verge of hell
Climbs up to Paradise; for sin is sweet,
Strong is temptation, willing are the feet
That follow pleasure; manifold her snares,
And pitfalls lurk beneath our very prayers.
Yet God, the clement, the compassionate,
In pity of our weakness, keeps the gate
Of pardon open, scorning not to wait
Till the last moment when His mercy throws
A splendor from the shade of Azrael’s wings.
. . . O Man ! be charity thy aim,
Praise cannot harm, but weigh thy words of blame,
Distrust the virtue that itself exalts.
And turn to that which doth avow its faults.
Pardon, not wrath, is God’s best attribute.’ “
“Near Fort Hays, April 30, 1867.
” Letters from you have not reached me as they
should. ‘ Something wrong seemed a-brewing.’ In
all my life I do not remember anything that has been
so unceasingly on my mind; but to-day Richard was
himself again : I received your letter of Tuesday,
A SPECK ON THE HORIZON.
575
The irregularity of the mails is terribly trying.
After your letter came, I felt like a ride; so, order-
ing my horse, slinging my field-glass over my
shoulder, and strapping my revolver about my
waist, I galloped off to a fine knoll, about a mile
and a half distant, from which, I rightly conject-
ured, an extensive view of the surrounding coun-
try might be obtained. Arriving there, I dis-
mounted, and throwing the rein over my arm,
began admiring the landscape. I looked long and
with increasing interest until, far toward the East,
I discovered two dark specks apparently approach-
ing. I waited long enough to distinguish that
they were two buggies — a most unusual sight in
these regions. I became interested, for I knew it
was not the coach, whose arrival was expected.
To reach the road and intercept them, it was
necessary to traverse about two miles of prairie.
Who knows, I said, but there may be news for
me ! To entertain this thought was to act upon
it, and in a moment I was in the saddle and head-
ing for the road, as if on ‘ the ride for life.’ Lu,
Sharp and Rover vainly endeavored to keep up
with me. Arriving at the road just in time, whom
should I see but the Division Superintendent and
express messenger! Who will deny that ‘there is a
destiny that shapes our ends ‘? After handshaking,
the first words were inquiries of Riley, and the mes-
senger answered, ‘ I have letters for you.’ We then
rode on together to camp. Although glad to see
them I could hardly wait till they took their de-
parture, so eager was I to devour my letters. . .
” I have sent for Comstock, the scout, to join me.
He is delighted at the idea, and has an A tent
directly in rear of mine. Yesterday several of the
officers were out buffalo-hunting, and one of them
accidently shot his horse, and also a large buffalo-
576
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
dog belonging to Company E, which at the time
had the buffalo by the nose. The dog will recover.
Four of the hunting-party were lost, wandered
about all night, and finally arrived at a station ten
miles away. I am still confident of seeing you ;
for I cannot believe that affairs will assume that
shape which will separate us this summer.
“Take a dark view of it, and grant that we
have an Indian war : we must have a base of
supplies, to which we shall go at brief intervals;
and at such a place you could be safe. All will
yet be well. You will find some more horse-shoes.
“Tell Eliza I am on the search for an Indian
husband for her — one that won’t bother her much
to sew buttons on his shirts or trousers, and his
washing won’t be heavy, and one dish will satisfy
him for one meal, provided it is stewed puppies.
” I have the funniest pet now. It is a young
beaver. He is quite tame ; runs about the tent,
follows me, and when I lie down on the bed to
read, he cuddles up under my gown or on my arm
and goes to sleep. He cries exactly like a baby
two days old. A person outside the tent would
think there was a nursery in here, if he could hear
it about 2 o’clock in the morning. I feed it from
my hand at the table. Its tail is perfectly flat. I
am going to tell Eliza that it used to be round,
but a wagon ran over it. Its hind feet are webbed
like a duck’s ; its fore feet are like hands.”
“Near Fort Hays, May 2, 1867.
” It never rains but it pours : I have had nine
letters to-day. Did you ever read of a man at
death’s door being restored to life, of a drowning
man saved, or of a person long imprisoned in dark-
ness given back to light and liberty ? No miser
A CANINE STEW.
^77
with his gold ever gloated over his possessions as
I do to-day. You cannot imagine or realize the
state I have been in for the last ten days. As
General Gibbs has told you that I darn the holes
in my socks by tying knots, I shall forward charges
of slander against him. Tell him, as he wants
men for the band, as soon as the other companies
arrive, I will send him every man that ever played
on any instrument, from a curry-comb to a thresh-
ing-machine, including , who I know can play
on an instrument called poker, that is, if he can
find the music for this instrument.
” I thought of Alfred and Blair when we sur-
rounded the Indian camp,’at the time we supposed
the village occupied. There were dogs of all ages,
sexes and sizes. In one of the lodges we found
young puppies, in another we found in a camp-
kettle a mess of stewed dogs. The Indians ran
off so hurridly they left all their cooking-utensils
and meat, some of which was being prepared for
the evening meal. Dr. C was the victim of a
good joke. He is of an inquiring turn of mind,
always anxious to see everything and judge for
himself, and he was about the first to discover the
camp-kettle containing the dogs. ‘ Fortunate occur-
ence,’ thought the Doctor; ‘ here is an opportunity
seldom found, of judging of the Indian mode of
preparing buffalo-meat to be eaten. Happy
thought !’ The Doctor fished out of the kettle a
large piece of the supposed buffalo-meat, and with
an apparently good appetite fell to and ate heartily.
There is no means of telling how long his enjoy-
ment might have continued, had not my half-
breed guide come up at that moment and exam-
ined the contents of the kettle. Taking out a
portion, he exclaimed, ‘ It is dog ! ‘ The Doctor
took the laugh quite coolly, remarking, ‘ I don’t
5 78 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
care ; it’s good, any how.’ I forgot, also, to tell you
in a former letter about the only occupant of the
Indian camp. It was a little half-breed girl. We
found her half naked. She was perhaps eight or
nine years old. It is all true that you have heard
about the Indians’ treatment of the httle creature.
I had the Doctor make an examination, and he
found she was in a horrible condition. She was
almost insensible when we discovered her, and
after recovering sufficiently to talk she said ‘ the
Indian men did her bad.’
” Wo be unto these Indians, if ever I overtake
them ! The chances are, however, that I shall not
see any of them, it being next to impossible to
overtake them when they are forewarned and
expecting us, as they now are. I wrote a very
strong letter, a week or ten days ago, against an
Indian war, picturing, as strongly as I could, the
serious results that must follow, in the way of put-
ting a stop to travel on the overland route, and
interfering with the work of the Pacific Railroad,
all of which would be a national calamity. I re-
garded the outrages that have been committed
lately as not the work of a tribe, but of small and
irresponsible parties of young men, who are eager
for war. The stampede of the Indians from the
village, I attributed entirely to fear. I closed with
the hope that my opinion would be received in
the light intended, and that, if a war was finally
to be waged, none would enter it more determined
or earnest than I. My opinion is, that we are not
yet justified in declaring war.
“This evening I notified the companies that on
Saturday, the 4th, we would have a foot-race, up-
on the following conditions : Distance, three
hundred yards ; the company producing the win-
ner to be excused from guard and fatigue duty
DIVERSIONS FOR IDLE MEN.
579
one week, the winner to be excused from the same
duty twenty days. I had orderly call sounded,
and the sergeant-major notified the eight first-
sergeants of the race. They went back to their
companies, and the excitement began when they
set about ascertaining who was the fastest man
in each company. There was constant cheering,
clapping of hands, and laughing until dark. All
seemed deeply interested in the event. I intro-
duced it to give the men exercise, innocent amuse-
ment, and something to do to keep them out of
mischief.
” It is also proposed that the officers of the
Seventh and those of the post united, divide into,
two parties, and each go buffalo-hunting, the
party that kills the smallest number of buffalo to
pay the expenses of a supper for the entire num-
ber. So you see we are endeavoring to pass the
time as pleasantly as possible.
” I wish you were here to go buffalo-hunting.
I know you will enjoy it. You will be carried
away with excitement. Nothing so nearly ap-
proaches a cavalry charge and pursuit as a buffalo-
chase. I am so glad that you have been so pru-
dent and thoughtful as to provide a sheet-iron
stove. It will be invaluable to us. There are
times during high winds, rains or storms, when it
is impossible to cook by an out-door fire. Where
did you learn all this ? If I had not known you,
I would imagine that you had crossed the Plains
several times. Comstock messes with me. I like
to have him with me, for many reasons. He is a
worthy man, and I am constantly obtaining valu-
able mformation from him regarding the Indians,
their habits, etc. He brought a large dog with
him, which he values highly and calls ‘ Cuss,’ an
abbreviation of Custer.”
580 tenting on the plains.
” Half-past i in the Morning,
” Near Fort Hays, May 4, 1867.
” I have this minute returned from General
Hancock’s tent, where I have been since dark. Fie
leaves for Leavenworth in the morning, General
Smith accompanying- him. You can return with
the latter. He is delighted with the idea of bring-
ing you, and will do anything in his power to
render your trip comfortable. We have a beauti-
ful camp, and you will be delighted with the
country. Have a box made for the chickens, to
fasten on behind the wagons. You had better
have Turk, the bull-dog, and the setters led
through the town. Bring plenty of calico dresses.
1 hope to see you before the 20th of May. Where
is Fox River now ?
” To Mrs. General Custer,
” Fox River Station.”
“Near Fort Hays,
” May 6, 1867.
” I must tell you about the foot-race. After
dinner we walked up on the hill to see the eight
picked men test their speed. It was quite excit-
ing. The men wore only their shirts, drawers,
and stockings. The race was won by an A Com-
pany man. An E Company man was in ad-
vance, but tripped, and fell just before reaching
the goal. Everybody seemed interested. After
that came a horse-race, one quarter of a mile,
between an H Company horse on the part of the
cavalry, and an infantry horse from the post.
The infantry was very sanguine of success, their
horse never having been beaten ; but, as fortune
favors the brave, the cavalry horse won hand-
somely.”
AN ORDER FOR “DOUBLE-QUICA:” 58 I
“9:30 P. M. Near Fort Hays, May 7, 1867.
” Will you be contented with a brief letter, as
our hunt came off to-day, and I have ridden fifty
miles ? The other party competing goes out to-
morrow. Our party of seven officers killed
twelve buffalo. One of the officers of the other
party has been here, trying to find out how many
we killed. But we shall hide the tongues, which
it was agreed should be the tally, and keep our
day’s work a secret till they return.
” I cannot help regretting that I did not think
of what you suggested in time ; that is, that I
send to Saline for your household goods. It
would expedite your coming. Oh, how I wish we
had telegraphic communication ! Send letters
by the stages that pass you on your march here.
Let nothing delay you a single day. Leave Gen-
eral Smith, if he is delayed, and come on in
advance, if you have an opportunity. Do not let
the grass grow under your feet.”
“Fort McPherson, June 17, 1867.
“I have delayed writing to you until I could
learn from General Sherman something positive
regarding my future movements. I now know.
Be brave ! ‘ It is always darkest just before day.’
General Sherman says I may not return to the
Smoky Hill route until nearly winter, but he says
that you can come to me here, and wondered
why I did not bring you. General Sherman says
he will direct the quartermaster at Omaha to
arrange for passes ; but do not for the world let
that detain you. Money is no consideration !
” I am fully aware of the great undertaking be-
fore you. Perhaps you had better await a des-
patch from me at Sedgwick ; but if either Gen-
eral Hancock or General Smith will give you the
582
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
assistance you need, you will avoid delay. If
General Smith should send a company on a scout
to Fort McPherson, you could come with them.
If you can get a chance to come to Wallace, I
will send a squadron there to meet you. I like
this last plan best of all. I only fear you may
not have your saddle with you. I trust so, as
you will have considerable marching on horse-
back to do. The ranchmen along the Platte are
so stampeded that General Sherman thinks the
Seventh should remain here until all difficulties are
settled, and this may not be until winter ; but
General Sherman says that General Hancock
may make a fuss about taking me away from
him, and ask to have me back. If you see Gen-
eral Hancock, ask him to make a fuss at once ;
in that case, you would await me on the Smoky
Hill route. I am on a roving commission, going
nowhere in particular, but where I please. I can-
not advise as to which course you should pursue.
Your judgment will meet the crisis. Once here,
you will stay, even if we have nothing but a
shelter-tent. Now that General Sherman says
you can come, do not let General Hancock or
General Smith have any peace until they send you
to Wallace.”
” Forks of the Republican River,
“Twenty-five Miles from Fort Wallace,
” June 22, 1867.
” You cannot imagine my anxiety regarding
your whereabouts, for the reason that, if you are
now at Wallace, you can join me in about six
days, and we can be together all summer. I wrote
twice from McPherson, telling you how to reach
me by way of Wallace. I am expected to keep
the Indians quiet on the Platte route to Denver.
THE APPROACH OF A REUNION. 583
They are pretty well scared. I have already
made peace with ‘ Pawnee Killer’ and his band of
Sioux — the same that owned the lodges that were
destroyed. It was intended that I should draw
my supplies from Fort Sedgwick, but I am now
equidistant from there and Wallace, and Com-
stock reports the road from here to Sedgwick al-
most impassable for trains, owing to the scarcity
of water, while that to Wallace is good. I there-
fore send to Wallace. Mr. Cook will set out this
evening at sunset, with twelve wagons and a com-
pany of cavalry as escort, a second company
going half-way and there awaiting his return.
Mr. Cook will return in six days, so you see what
a splendid opportunity this is to join me. I hear
that General Hancock is at Wallace. If so, Gen-
eral Smith is doubtless with him, and has taken
you along. I never was so anxious in my life. I
will remain here until Mr. Cook returns with the
rations — and you, I hope. Now, to prepare for
emergencies, you may still be at Hays. I hope
not, but, thinking you might, I will act accord-
ingly. I want Comstock to see General Smith,
and will send him to Hays. If you are still there,
Comstock will take this letter to you and bring
your reply.
” Tell me when you can be at Wallace, and I will
send a squadron there for you. Our marching
will not be hard for you ; although we sometimes
make thirty-five miles a day, it is not usual.”
CHAPTER XX.
SACRIFICES AND SELF-DENIAL OF PIONEER DUTY POOR
WATER AND ALKALINE DUST VAGARIES OF WEST-
ERN WATER-WAYS DIGGING IN SUNKEN STREAM-
BEDS FOR WATER RIVERS UNFRINGED BY TREES
OR SHRUBS THE ALLURING MIRAGE A SHORT
TRIBUTE TO THE WESTERN PIONEERS THEIR EN-
DURANCE, PATIENCE AND COURAGE THE GOV-
ERNOR OF A WESTERN TERRITORY SHINES AS A
COOK AS WELL AS A STATESMAN THE GENERAL
WRITES OF HIS FIRST BUFFALO-HUNT AN ACCI-
DENTAL DISCHARGE OF HIS PISTOL KILLS MY HORSE,
CUSTIS LEE GENERAL SHERMAN AS A SPECIAL PROV-
IDENCE THE WESTERN TOWN ON A MOVE GOV-
ERNMENT MAKES NO PROVISION FOR ARMY WOMEN
TO SAY THEIR PRAYERS JOURNEY TO FORT HAYS
THE MATCH HUNT OF THE REGIMENT SUPPER
GIVEN BY THE VANQUISHED TO THE VICTORS RECEP-
TION GIVEN BY THE ELEMENTS ON OUR ARRIVAL
THE TENT GOES DOWN A SCOUT TO FORT m’pHER-
SON A SENTINEL FIRES ON HIS FRIENDS BY MIS-
TAKE GENERAL CUSTER SENDS ESCORT TO TAKE
US TO HIS CAMP CAPTAIN ROBBINS AND COLONEL
COOK ATTACKED, AND FIGHT FOR THREE HOURS.
TT is a source of regret, as these pages grow daily
under my hand, that I have not the power to
place before the country the sacrifices and noble
584
THE HEATED EARTH. egc
courage endured by the officers and soldiers of
our army in their pioneer work. I can only por-
tray, in the simplest manner, what I saw them en-
dure unmurmuringly, as I was permitted to follow
in the marches and campaigns of our regiment. I
find that it is impossible to make the life clear to
citizens, even when they ask me to describe
personally something of frontier days, unless they
may have been over the Plains in their journeys
to and from the Pacific coast. Even then, they
look from the windows of the Pullman car on to
the desert, white with alkali, over which the heat
rises in waves, and upon earth that struggles to give
even life to the hardy cactus or sage-brush. Then
I find their attention is called to our army, and I
sometimes hear a sympathetic tone in their voices
as they say, ” Ah ! Mrs. Custer, when I rode over
that God-forgotten land, I began to see what none
of us at the East ever realize— the terrible life that
our army leads on the Plains.” And only lately,
while I was in the West, a citizen described to me
seeing a company of cavalry, that had made a ter-
rific march, come in to the railroad at some point
in Arizona. He told me of their blistered faces,
their blood-shot, inflamed eyes— the result of the
constant cloud of alkali dust through which they
marched — the exhaustion in every limb, so notice-
able in men of splendid vigor, with their broad
586 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
chests, deep throats, and muscular build, because
it told what a fearful strain it must have been
to have reduced such stalwart athletes to weak-
ness. What effect it would have to introduce a
body of such indomitable men in the midst of an
Eastern city, tired, travel-stained, but invincible !
After all, if we who try to be their champions
should succeed in making this transfer by some
act of necromancy, the men would be silent about
their sufferings. Among the few officers who
have written of Plains life, there is scarcely a
mention of hardships endured. As I read over
my husband’s magazine articles for the first time
in many years, I find scarcely a reference to the
scorching sun, the stinging cold, the bleak winds.
His narrative reads like the story of men who
marched always in sunshine, coming across clear
streams of running water and shady woods in
which to encamp. I have been there : through
and through the breezy, buoyant tale I see the
background — a treeless, arid plain, brackish, mud-
dy water, sandy, sterile soil. The faces of our
gallant men come up to me in retrospection, blis-
tered and swollen, the eyes streaming with moist-
ure from the inflaming dust, the parched lips
cracked with fever of unquenched thirst, the hands
even puffed and fiery with the sun-rays, day
after day.
A PERSISTENT FOE. 587
It seems heartless to smile in the midst of this vis-
ion, recalled to me, of what I myself have seen, but
I hear some civilian say, as they have often asked
me equally inconsistent questions, ” Well, why
didn’t they wear gloves ?” Where all the posses-
sions of a man are carried on the saddle, and the
food and forage on pack-mules, it would be im-
possible to take along gloves to last from early
spring till the stinging cold of late autumn.
Thirst is an unconquerable foe. It is one of those
enemies that may be vanquished on one field and
come up, supported by legions of fresh desires, the
very next day. I know nothing but the ever-
present selfishness of our natures that requires
such persistent fighting. Just fancy, for a mo-
ment, the joy of reaching a river or a stream on
the Plains ! How easy the march seemed beside
its banks. At any moment one could descend,
fill the canteen, and rejoin the column. It is true the
quality of the water was not of the best, but there
comes a time, out there, when quantity triumphs.
It seems so good to have enough of anything, for
the stinted supplies of all sorts make life seem
always meagre in a country with no natural re-
sources. But woe be to the man who puts his
faith in a Western stream ! They used to take
themselves suddenly out of sight, down some-
where into the bowels of the earth, and leave the
588 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
bed dry as dust, winding its tortuous way for
miles, aggravating us by the constant reminder
of where water ought to be, but where it unfort-
unately was not. This sudden disappearance of
water is supposed to be due to the depression of
the rocky beds of the streams. A deep sand ab-
sorbs the moisture from the surface, and sucks
down into its depths all the stream. When the
bed again rises nearer the surface, the stream
comes to sight once more. Whoever, after the
water disappeared, found that he must drink or
die, was obliged to stop and dig away at the dry
bed of the river until he found moisture. It was a
desperate man that attempted it; one whose throat
had become voiceless, whose mouth and lips
ached with the swelling veins of over-heated
blood ; for, if one delayed behind the column for
ever so short a time, he was reminded of his inse-
curity by a flash from a pile of stones or a bunch
of sage-bush on the summit of a low divide.
The wily foe that lurks in the rear of a marching
column has no equal in vigilance.
And then, what a generous being a soldier is !
How often I have seen them pass the precious
nectar — it seemed so then, in spite of its being
warm and alkaline ; and I speak from experience,
for they have given me a chance also — flavored
with poor whisky sometimes, as that old tin re-
A TREELESS LAND. ego
ceptacle which Government furnishes holds
coffee, whisky or water, whichever is attainable.
I fear that, had I scratched and dug slowly into
the soil with the point of a sabre, and scooped
up a minimum of water, my eye on the bluff
near, watching and in fear of an Indian, I should
have slaked my own thirst and let the whole
American army go dry. But I am thankful to
say the soldier is made of different stuff. It is
enough to weld strongest bonds of friendship,
like those in our army, when it is share and share
alike ; and I am reminded of a stanza of soldier
poetry :
” There are bonds of all sorts in this world of ours,
Fetters of friendship and ties of flowers,
And true-lover’s knots, I ween :
The boy and the girl are bound by a kiss,
But there’s never a bond of old friends like this —
We have drunk from the same canteen.”
I have, among our Plains photographs, a picture
of one of the Western rivers, with no sort of tree
or green thing growing on its banks. It is the
dreariest picture I ever saw, and as it appears
among the old photographs of merry groups taken
in camp or on porches covered with our garrison
family, it gives me a shudder even now. Among
the photographs of the bright side of our life, this
is the skeleton at the feast, which comes up so
persistently.
590 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
Since all rivers and streams in the States are
fringed with trees, it is difficult to describe how
strange some of our Western water-ways appeared
without so much as a border of shrubs or reeds.
In looking over the country, as we ascended to a
divide higher than the rest, the stream lay before
us, winding on in the curving lines of our own
Eastern rivers, but for miles and miles not a ves-
tige of green bordered the banks. It seemed to
me for all the world like an eye without an eye-
lash. It was strange, unnatural, weird. The
white alkali was the only border, and that spread
on into the scorched brown grass, too short to
protect the traveler from the glare that was
heightened by the sun in a cloudless sky. A tree
was often a landmark, and was mentioned on the
insufficient maps of the country, such as ” Thou-
sand-mile Tree,” a name telling its own story ; or
” Lone Tree,” known as the only one within eighty
miles, as was the one in Dakota, where so many
Indians buried their dead.
What made those thirsty marches a thousand
times worse was the alluring, aggravating mirage.
This constantly deceived even old campaigners,
and produced the most harrowing sort of illusions.
Such a will-o’-the-wisp too ! for, as we believed
ourselves approaching the blessed water, imagined
the air was fresher, looked eagerly and expect-
THE FRONTIERSMEN.
591
antly for the brown, shrivelled grass to grow
green, off floated the deluding water farther and
farther away.
As I try to write something of the sacrifices of
the soldier, who will not speak of himself, and for
whom so few have spoken, there comes to me an-
other class of heroes, for whom my husband had
such genuine admiration, and in whose behalf he
gave up his life — our Western pioneer. A desper-
ate sort of impatience overcomes me w^hen I real-
ize how incapable I am of paying them proper
tribute. And yet how fast they are passing away,
with no historians ! and hordes of settlers are
sweeping into the western States and Territories,
quite unmindful of the soldiers and frontiersmen,
who fought, step by step, to make room for the
coming of the overcrowded population of the East.
My otherwise charming journeys West now are
sometimes marred by the desire I feel for calling
the attention of the travelers, who are borne by
steam swiftly over the Plains to the places where
so short a time since men toilsomely traveled in
pursuit of homes. I want to ask those who journey
for pleasure or for a new home, if they realize
what men those were who took their lives in their
hands and prepared the way.* Their privations
* My father went to Michigan early in 1800, and his long journey
was made by stage, canal-boat and schooner. He was not only a
592 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
are forgotten, or carelessly ignored, by those who
now go in and possess the land. The graphic
pens of Bret Harte and others, who have written
of the frontier, arrest the attention of the Eastern
man, and save from oblivion some of the noble
characters of those early days. Still, these poets
naturally seized for portraiture the picturesque,
romantic characters who were miners or scouts —
the isolated instances of desperate men who had
gone West from love of adventure, or because of
some tragic history in the States, that drove them
to seek forgetfulness in a wild, unfettered exist-
ence beyond the pale of civilization.
Who chronicles the patient, plodding, silent
pioneer, who, having been crowded out of his
home by too many laborers in a limited field, or,
because he could no longer wring subsistence from
a soil too long tilled by sire and grandsire ; or
possibly a returned volunteer from our war, who,
finding all places he once filled closed up, was
compelled to take the grant of land that the Gov-
ernment gives its soldiers, and begin life all over
great while in making the trip, but subject to privations, illness
and fatigue, even when using the only means of travel in those
early days. The man who went over the old California trail fared
far worse. His life was in peril from Indians all the distance, be-
sides his having to endure innumerable hardships. Those who
pioneer in a Pullman car little know what the unbeaten track held
for the first comers.
A SOLDIER’S SYMPATHY.
593
again, for the sake of wife and children ! There is
Httle in these hves to arrest the poetical fancy of
those writers who put into rhyme (which is the
most lasting of all history) the lives otherwise lost
to the world.
How often General Custer rode up to these weary,
plodding yeomen, as they turned aside their wagons
to allow the column of cavalry to pass ! He was
interested in every detail of their lives, admired
their indomitable pluck, and helped them, if he
could, in their difficult journeys. Sometimes,
after a summer of hardships and every sort of dis-
couragement, we met the same people returning
East, and the General could not help being
amused at the grim kind of humor, that led these
men to write the history of their season in one
word on the battered cover of the wagon —
“Busted.”
We were in Kansas during all the grasshopper
scourge, when our Government had to issue
rations to the starving farmers deprived of every
source of sustenance. What a marvel that men
had the courage to hold out at all, in those exasper-
ating times, when the crops were no sooner up
than every vestige of green would be stripped
from the fields ! Then, too, the struggle for water
was great. The artesian wells that now cover the
Western States were too expensive to undertake
594
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
with the early settlers. The windmills that now
whirl their gay wheels at every zephyr of the
Plains, and water vast numbers of cattle on the
farms, were then unthought of. … A would-be-
settler in Colorado, in those times of deprivation
and struggle, wrote his history on a board and set it
up on the trail, as a warning to others coming
after him : “Toughed it out here two years. Re-
sult : Stock on hand, five towheads and seven
yaller dogs. Two hundred and fifty feet down to
water. Fifty miles to wood and grass. Hell all
around. God bless our home.”
It would be too painful to attempt to enumerate
the ravages made by the Indians on the pioneer;
and God alone knows how they faced life at all,
working their claims with a musket beside them
in the field, and the sickening dread of returning
to a desolated cabin ever present in their heavy
hearts. There are those I occasionally meet, who
went through innumerable hardships, and over-
came almost insurmountable obstacles, and who
attained to distinction in that land of the
setting sun ; but I find they only remember the
jovial side of their early days. Not long since I
had the privilege of talking with the Governor of
one of our Territories. He was having an interview
with some Mexican Senators by means of an in-
terpreter, and after his business was finished, he
MEETING IMMIGRANTS. 595
turned to our party to talk with enthusiasm of his
Territory. No youth could be more sanguine than
he over the prospects, the climate, the natural ad-
vantages of the new country in which he had just
cast his lines. All his reminiscences of his early
days in other Territories were most interesting to
me. General Custer was such an enthusiast over
our glorious West, that I early learned to look upon
much that I would not otherwise have regarded
with interest, with his buoyant feeling. … I
must qualify this statement, and explain that I
could not always see such glowing colors as did
he, while we suffered from climate, and were sigh-
ing for such blessings as trees and water ; but we
were both heart and soul with every immigrant we
came across, and I think many a half-discouraged
pioneer went on his way, after encountering my
husband on the westward trail, a braver and more
hopeful man.
How well I remember the lonof wait we made
on one of the staircases of the Capitol at Wash-
ington, above which hung then the great picture
by Leutze, ” Westward the Course of Empire
Takes its Way.” We little thought then, hardly
more than girl and boy as we were, that our lives
would drift over the country which the admirable
picture represents. The General hung round it
with delight, and noted many points that he
596 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
wanted me to enjoy with him. The picture made
a great impression on us. How much deeper
the impression, though, had we known that we
were to hve out the very scenes depicted !
Coming back to the Governor : I cannot take
time to write his well-told story. The portion of
the interesting hour that made the greatest im-
pression on me was his saying that the hap-
piest days of his life were those when, for fifteen
hundred miles, he walked beside the wagon con-
taining his wife and babies, and drove the team from
their old home in Wisconsin to a then unsettled
portion of Ohio. The honors that had come to
him as senator, governor, statesman, faded beside
the joys of his first venture from home into
the wilderness. I saw him, in imagination, as I
have often seen the pioneer, looking back to the
opening made in the front of the wagon by the
drawing over of the canvas cover to the puckered
circle, in which were framed the woman and
babies for whom he could do and dare. I fall to
wondering if there is any affection like that which
is enhanced or born of these sacrifices in each
other’s behalf. I wonder if there can be anything
that would so spur a man to do heroic deeds as
the feeling that he walked in front of three de-
pendent beings, and braved Indians, starvation,
floods, prairie-fire, and all those perils that beset a
REMINISCENCES OF THE BORDER. 597
Western trail; and to see the bright, fond eyes
of a mother, and the rosy cheeks of the httle ones,
looking uncomplainingly out upon the desert before
them — why, what could nerve a man’s arm like
that ? Love grows with every sacrifice, and I
believe that many a youthful passion, that might
have become colorless with time, has been deep-
ened into lasting affection on those lonely tramps
over the prairies.
It has also been my good fortune lately to re-
call our Western life with an ex-governor of
another Territory, a friend of my husband’s in
those Kansas days. What can I say in admira-
tion of the pluck of those Western men ? Even
in the midst of his luxuriant New York life, he
loves better to dwell on the early days of his
checkered career, when at seven years of age he
was taken by his parents to the land of the then
great unknown. He had made a fortune in Cali-
fornia, for he was a Forty-niner, and returned East
to enjoy it. But as he lost his all soon afterward,
there was nothing left for him to do but to start
out again. His wife could have remained in com-
fort and security with her friends, but she pre-
ferred to share the danger and discomforts of her
husband’s life. Their first trip over the old trail
to Denver (our stamping-ground afterward) was
a journey from Missouri, the outfitting place at
598 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the termination of the last railway going West,
taking sixty-four days to accomplish. The wife,
brave as she was, fell ill, and lay on the hard
wagon-bed the whole distance. The invincible
father took entire care of her and of his children,
cooking for the party of eleven on the whole
route, and did guard duty a portion of every
night. The Indians were hovering in front and
in rear. Two of the party were too old to walk
and carry a musket, so that on the five men de-
volved the guarding of their little train. Nine
times afterward he and his wife crossed that long
stretch of country before the railroad was com-
pleted, always in peril, and never knowing from
hour to hour when a band of hostiles would sweep
down upon them. He taught his children the use
of fire-arms as soon as they were large enough to
hold a pistol. His daughter learned, as well as
his sons, to be an accurate marksman, and shot
from the pony’s back when he scampered at full
speed over the prairies. For years and years, all
his family were obliged to be constantly vigilant.
They lived out a long portion of their lives on the
alert for a foe that they knew well how to dread.
But the humorous comes in, even in the midst
of such tragic days ! How I enjoyed and appre-
ciated the feelings of the Governor’s wife, whom
I had known as a girl, when she rebelled at his
A GASTRONOMIC SUCCESS.
599
exercising his heretofore valuable accomplishment
as cook, after he became Governor ! How like a
woman, and how dear such whimsicalities are,
sandwiched in among the many admirable quali-
ties with which such strong characters as hers are
endowed ! It seems that on some journey over
the Plains they entertained a party of guests the
entire distance. The cook was a failure, and as
the route of travel out there is not lined with
intelligence-offices, the only thing left to do for
the new-made Governor, rather than see his wife
so taxed, was to doff his coat and recall the culi-
nary gifts acquired in pioneer life. The madame
thought her husband, now a Governor, might
keep in secrecy his gifts at getting up a dinner.
But he persisted, saying that it was still a
question whether he would make a good Gov-
ernor, and as he was pretty certain he was a
good cook, he thought it as well to impress
that one gift, of which he was sure, upon his
constituents.
The next letter from the expedition brought me
such good news, that I counted all the frights of the
past few weeks as nothing, compared with the
opportunity that being in Fort Riley gave me of
joining my husband. He wrote that the cavalry
had been detached from the main body of the
command, and ordered to scout the stage-route
6oO TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
from Fort Hays to Fort McPherson, then the
most infested with savages. A camp was to be
estabUshed temporarily, and scouting parties
sent out from Fort Hays. To my joy, my hus-
band said in his letter that I might embrace any
safe opportunity to join him there. General
Sherman proved to be the direct answer to my
prayers, for he arrived soon after I had begun to
look confidently for a chance to leave for Fort
Hays.
With the grave question of the summer cam-
paign in his mind, it probably did not occur to
him that he was acting as the envoy extraordi-
nary of Divine Providence to a very anxious, lonely
woman. While he talked with me occasionally
of the country, about which he was an enthusiast
— and, oh, how his predictions of its prosperity
have come true already ! — I made out to reply
coherently, but I kept up a very vehement, enthu-
siastic set of inner thoughts and grateful ejacula-
tions, blessing him for every breath he drew,
blessing and thanking Providence that he had
given the commander-in-chief of our forces a
heart so fresh and warm he could feel for others,
and a soul so loyal and affectionate for his own wife
and family that he knew what it was to endure
suspense and separation. He had with him some
delightful girls, whom w^e enjoyed very much. I
A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 6oi
cannot remember whether, in my anxiety to go to
my husband, my conversation led up to the sub-
ject— doubtless it did, for I was then at that
youthful stage of existence when the mouth
speaketh out of the fullness of the heart — but I do
remember that the heart in me nearly leaped out
of my body when he invited me to go in his car
to Fort Harker, for the railroad had been com-
pleted to that next post.
Diana crowded what of her apparel she could
into her trunk, and I had a valise, but the largest
part of our luggage was a roll of bedding, which
I remember blushing over as it was handed into
the special coach, for there was no baggage-car.
It looked very strange to see such an ungainly
bundle as part of the belongings of two young
women, and though I was perfectly willing to
sleep on the ground in camp, as I had done in
Virginia and Texas, I did not wish to court hard-
ships when I knew a way to avoid them. Though
we went over a most interesting country. Gen-
eral Sherman did not seem to care much for the
outside world. He sat in the midst of us, and
entered into all our fun ; told stories to match ours,
joined in our songs, and was the Grand Mogul of
our circle. One of the young girls was so capti-
vating, even in her disloyalty, that it amused us
all immensely. When we sang war-songs, she
6o2 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
looked silently out of the window. If we talked
of the danger we might encounter with Indians,
General Sherman said, slyly, he would make her
departure from earth as easy as possible, for he
would honor her with a military funeral. She
knew that she must, in such a case, be wrapped
in the Stars and Stripes, and he did not neglect
to tell her that honor awaited her if she died,
but she vehemently refused the honor. All
this, which would have been trying from a
grown person, was nothing but amusement
to us from a chit of a girl, who doubtless took
her coloring, as the chameleon-like creatures of
that age do, from her latest Confederate sweet-
heart.
In retrospection, I like to think of the tact and
tolerance of General Sherman, in those days of
furious feeling on both sides, and the quiet manner
in which he heard the Southern people decry
the Yankees. He knew of their impoverished
and desolated homes, and realized, living among
them as he did in St. Louis, what sacrifices they
had made ; more than all, his sympathetic soul
saw into the darkened lives of mothers, wives and
sisters who had given, with their idea of pat-
riotism, their loved ones to their country. The
truth is, he was back again among those peo-
ple of whom he had been so fond, and no
General sherman’s outlook. 603
turbulent expressions of hatred and revenge could
unsettle the underlying- affection. Besides, he has
always been a far-seeing man. Who keeps in
front in our country’s progress as does this war
hero? Is he not a statesman as well as a soldier ?
And never have the interests of our land been nar-
rowed down to any prescribed post where he may
have been stationed, or his life been belittled by
any temporary isolation or division from the rest
of mankind. Every public scheme for our advance-
ment as a nation meets his enthusiastic welcome.
This spirit enabled him to see, at the close of
the war, that, after the violence of wrath should
have subsided, the South would find themselves
more prosperous, and capable, in the new order
of affairs, of immense strides in progress of all
kinds.
I remember a Southern woman, who came to
stay with relatives in our garrison, telling me of
her first encounter with General Sherman after
the war. He had been a valued friend for many
years ; but it was too much when, on his return
to St. Louis, he came, as a matter of course, to
see his old friends. Smarting with the wrongs of
her beloved South, she would not even send a
message by the maid ; she ran to the head of the
stairs, and in an excited tone, asked if he for one
moment expected she would speak, so much as
604 . TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
speak, to a Yankee ? The General went on his
peaceful way, as unharmed by this peppery as-
sault as a foe who is out of reach of our short-
range Government carbines, and I can recall with
what cordiality she came to greet him later in the
year or two that followed. No one could main-
tain wrath long against such imperturbable good-
nature as General Sherman exhibited. He remem-
bered a maxim that we all are apt to forget, ” Put
yourself in his place.”
Along the line of the railroad were the deserted
towns, and we even saw a whole village moving
on flat cars. The portable houses of one story
and the canvas rolls of tents, which would soon
be set up to form a street of saloons, were piled up
as high as was safe, and made the strangest sort
of freight train. The spots from which they had
been removed were absolutely the dreariest of
sights. A few poles, broken kegs, short chimneys
made in rude masonry of small round stones,
heaps of tin cans everywhere, broken bottles
strewing the ground, while great square holes
yawned empty where, a short time before, a can-
vas roof covered a room stored with clumsy
shelves, laden with liquor. Here and there a
smoke-stained barrel protruded from the ground.
They were the chimneys of some former dug-outs.
I cannot describe how startled I was when I first
THE HOMES OF OFFICERS. 605
came near one of these improvised chimneys, and
saw smoke pouring out, without any other evi-
dence that I was walking over the home of a
frontier citizen. The roof of a flat dug-out is
level with the earth, and as no grass consents to
grow in these temporary villages, there is nothing
to distinguish the upturned soil that has been used
as a covering for the beams of the roof of a dwell-
ing from any of the rest of the immediate
vicinity. A portion of this moving village had
already reached the end in the railroad, and
named itself Ellsworth, with streets called by
various high-sounding appellations, but marked
only by stakes in the ground.
At Fort Barker we found a forlorn little post — a
few log houses bare of every comfort, and no trees
to cast a shade on the low roofs. The best of the
quarters, belonging to the bachelor commanding
officer, were offered to General Sherman and his
party. We five women had one of the only two
rooms. It seems like an abuse of hospitality, even
after all these years, to say that the floor of un-
even boards was almost ready for agricultural
purposes, as the wind had sifted the prairie sand
in between the roughly laid logs, and even the
most careful housewife would have found herself
outwitted if she had tried to keep a tidy floor. I
only remember it because I was so amused to see
6o6 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the dainty women stepping around the Httle space
left in the room between the cots, to find a place
to kneel and say their prayers. I had given up,
and gone to bed, as often before I had been com-
pelled to tell my thanks to the Heavenly Father
on my pillow, for already in the marches I had
encountered serious obstacles to kneeling. The
perplexed but devout women finally gave up at-
tempting a devotional attitude, turned their faces
to the rough wall, and held their rosaries in their
fingers, while they sent up orisons for protection
and guidance. They were reverential in their
petitions ; but I could not help imagining how
strange it must seem to these luxuriously raised
girls, to find themselves in a country where not
even a little prayer could be said as one would
wish. It must have been for exigencies of our
life that Watts wrote the comforting definition
that ” Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,” ” The
upward lifting of an eye,” etc., and so set the
heart at rest about how and where the supplica-
tion of the soul could be offered.
At Fort Harker we bade good-by to our de-
lightful party, the frolic and light-heartedness
departed, and the serious side of existence ap-
peared. I had but little realization that every
foot of our coming march of eighty miles was
dangerous. We had an ambulance lent us,
6o8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and accompanied a party that had an escort.
There were stage-stations every ten or fifteen
miles, consisting of rude log or stone huts, hud-
dled together for safety in case of attack. The
stables for the relays of horses were furnished with
strong doors of rough-hewn timber, and the win-
dows closed with shutters of similar pattern. The
stablemen and relays of drivers lived in no better
quarters than the horses. They were, of course,
intrepid men, and there was no stint in arming
them with good rifles and abundance of ammu-
nition. They were prepared for attack, and could
have defended themselves behind the strong
doors — indeed, sustained a siege, for the supplies
were kept inside their quarters — had not the
Indians used prepared arrows that could be
shot into the hay, and thus set the stables on
fire. These Plainsmen all had ” dug-outs ” as
places of retreat in case of fire. They were very
near the stables, and connected by an under-
ground passage. They were about four feet deep.
The roof was of timbers strong enough to hold
four or five feet of earth, and in these retreats a
dozen men could defend themselves, by firing
from loop-holes that were left under the roof-
beams. Some of the stage stations had no regu-
lar buildings. We came upon them without being
prepared by any signs of human life, for the dug-
A ”ducout:’
609
outs were excavated from the sloping banks of
the creeks. A few holes in the side-hill, as openings
for man and beast, some short chimneys on the
level ground, were all the evidence of the dreary,
Columbarium homes. Here these men lived, facing
death every hour rather than, earn a living in the
monotonous pursuit of some trade or common-
place business in the States. And at that time
there were always desperadoes who would pursue
any calling that kept them beyond the reach of
the law.
This dreary eighty miles over a monotonous
country, varied only by the undulations that rolled
away to Big Creek, was over at last, and Fort
Hays was finally visible — another small post of
log huts, like Fort Harker, treeless and desolate,
but the stream beyond was lined with white can-
vas, which meant the tents of the Seventh
Cavalry.
Again it seemed to me the end of all the
troubles that would ever enter into my life
had come, when I was lifted out of the
ambulance into my husband’s tent. What a
blessing it is that there is a halcyon time
in sanguine youth, when each difficulty van-
quished seems absolutely the last that will ever
come, and when one trouble ends, the stone is
rolled against its sepulchre with the conviction
6lO TENTING ON THE PLAINS. .
that nothing will ever open wide the door again.
We had much to talk about in camp. The
first campaign of a regiment is always important
to them, and in this case, also, the council, the
Indian village, and its final destruction, were real-
ly significant events. The match hunt to which
the General refers in his letters was still a subject
of interest, and each side took one ear in turn, to
explain why they won, or the reasons they lost.
Mr. Theodore Davis, the artist whom the Harpers
sent out for the summer, was drawing sketches in
our tent, while we advised or commented. It
seemed well, from the discussions that followed,
that rules for the hunt had been drawn up in ad-
vance. It was quite a ranking affair, when two
full majors conducted the sides. As only one
day was given to each side, the one remaining in
camp watched vigilantly that the party going out
held to the rule, and refrained from starting till
sunrise, while the same jealous eyes noticed that
sunset saw all of them in camp again. One of
the rules was, that no shots should be counted
that were fired when the man was dismounted.
This alone was a hard task, as at that time the
splendid racing of the horse at breakneck speed,
with his bridle free on his neck, and both hands
busy with the gun, was not an accomplished feat.
The horses were all novices at buffalo-hunting.
KEEPING TALLY.
6ii
j^q THE TONquE^ av,.. …….
..Vt^ytf^lii^p^
GATHERING AND COUNTING THE
TONGUES.
also, and the game was
thin at that season, so
thin that a bison got
over a great deal of ter-
ritory in a short time. I
remember the General’s
telling me what an art
it was, even after the
game was shot, to learn
to cut out the tongue.
It was wonderful that
there was such success
with so much to en-
counter. The winning party kept their twelve
tongues very securely hidden until the second day,
6 1 2 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
when the losers produced the eleven they had
supposed would not be outdone. My husband
was greatly amused at one of our officers, who
hovered about the camp-fires of the opposite party
and craftily put questions to ascertain what was
the result of the first day.
All this was told us with great glee. Diana’s
interests were centred in the success of that party
with whom her best beloved, for the time, hunted.
The officers regretted our absence at their great
” feed,” as they termed it, and it must indeed have
been a treat to have for once, in that starving
summer, something palatable. Two wall-tents
were put together so that the table, made of rough
boards, stretching through both, was large enough
for all. Victors and vanquished toasted each
other in champagne, and though the scene was the
plainest order of banquet, lighted by tallow
candles set in rude brackets sawed out of cracker-
box boards and fastened to the tent-poles, and the
only draping a few cavalry guidons, the evening
brightened up many a dreary day that followed.
Gallant Captain Louis McLane Hamilton, who
afterward fell in the battle of the Washita, was
the hero of the hour, and bore his honors with his
usual modesty. Four out of twelve buffaloes was
a record that might have set a less boastful tongue
wagging over the confidences of the evening camp-
Convivial life.
6i
fire. I do not think he would have permitted Mr.
Davis to put his picture in the illustration if he
r,-^/J C”‘^
.^\^i,.
<f’f^W^$&%
SUPPER GIVF.N BY THE VANQUISHED
TO THE VICTORS OF THE MATCH
BUFFALO HUNT.
could have helped it.
He was gifted with his pencil also ;
‘f^ f JKe ^AKQu£-f he drew caricatures admirably, and
after a harmless laugh had gone the
rounds, he managed, with the utmost adroitness, to
get possession of the picture and destroy it, thus
6 14 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
taking way the sting of ridicule, which constant
sight of the caricature might produce. How I came
into possession of one Httle drawing, is still a mys-
tery, but it is very clever. Among our officers was
one who had crossed the Plains as a citizen a year
or two previous, and his habit of revealing mines
of frontier lore obtained on this one trip was some-
what tiresome to our still inexperienced officers. At
last, after all had tried chasing antelope, and been
more and more impressed in their failures with the
fleetness of that winged animal. Captain Hamilton
made a sketch representing the boaster as shoot-
ing antelope with the shot-gun. The speck on the
horizon was all that was seen of the game, but the
booted and spurred man kneeling on the prairie
was admirable. It silenced one of the stories,
certainly, and we often wished the pencil could
protect us further from subsequent statements
airily made on the strength of the one stage-
journey.
I had arrived in the rainy season, and such an
emptying of the heavens was a further develop-
ment of what Kansas could do. But nothing
damped my ardor ; no amount of soakings could
make me think that camping-ground was not
an Elysian field. The General had made our
tent as comfortable as possible with his few be-
longings, and the officers had sent in to him, for
WIND, RAIN AND LIGHTNING. 6 I 5
me, any comfort that they might have chanced
to bring along on the march. I was, it seemed,
to be especially honored with a display of what
the elements could do at night when it was too
dark to grope about and protect our tent. The
wind blew a tornado, and the flashes of lightning
illumined the tent and revealed the pole sway-
ing ominously back and forth. A fly is an outer
strip of canvas which is stretched over the tent to
prevent the rain from penetrating, as well as to
protect us in the daytime from the sun. This
flapped and rattled and swung loose at one end,
beating on the canvas roof like a trip-hammer, for
it was loaded with moisture; and the wet ropes
attached to it, and used to guy it down, were now
loose, and lashed our rag house in an angry, vin-
dictive manner. My husband, accustomed to the
pyrotechnic display of the elements, slept soundly
through the early part of the storm. But light-
ning ” murders sleep” with me, and consequently
he was awakened by a conjugal joggle, and on ask-
ing, ” What is it ? ” was informed, ” It lightens ! “
Often as this statement was made to him in his
sudden awakenings, I do not remember his ever
meeting it with any but a teasing, laughing reply,
like : ” Ah ! indeed ; I am pleased to be informed
of so important a fact. This news is quite unex-
pected,” and so on, or ” When, may I inquire, did
6l6 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
you learn this ? ” On this occasion, however,
there was no attempt to quiet me or delay pre-
cautions. Feeling sure that we were in for it for
the night, he unfastened the straps that secured
the tent in front, and crept out to hammer down
the ten-pins and tether the ropes. But it was of
no earthly use. After fruitless efforts of his own,
he called the guard from their tents, and they went
energetically to work with the light of our lantern.
Ropes wrenched themselves away from the tent-
pins, straps broke, whole corners of the tent were
torn out, even while the men were hanging with
all their might to the upright poles to try and
keep the ridge-pole steady, and clinging to the
ropes to keep them from loosening entirely and
sailing off in the air with the canvas.
In the midst of this fracas, with the shouts of
the soldiers calling to one another in the inky
darkness, the crash of thunder and the howling
or the tempest, the wife of a brave soldier was
hiding her head under the blankets, and not one
sound emerged from this temporary retreat. The
great joy of getting out to camp at last was too
fresh to extract one word, one whimper, of fear
from under the bedding. The sunniest day at
Fort Riley could not be exchanged, could not
even be mentioned in the same breath, with that
tornado of wind and rain.
MIDNIGHT HOSPITALITY. 6 1 7
The stalwart arms of the soldiers failed at last.
Their brawny chests were of no more use, thrust
against the tent-poles, than so many needles.
Over went the canvas in a heap, the General and
his men hanging on to the ridge-pole to clear it
from the camp bed and save any accident.
The voices of officers in an adjoining tent called
out to come over to them. One, half dressed,
groped his way to us and said there was yet room
for more in his place, and, besides, he had a floor.
It was a Sibley, which, having no corners with
which those Kansas breezes can toy, is much
more secure. I was rolled in the blankets and
carried through the blinding rain to our hospitable
neighbors’. The end of a tallow dip gave me a
glimpse only of many silent forms rolled in blan-
kets and radiating from the centre like the spokes
of a wagon wheel. The officer owning this tent
had taken the precaution, while at Leavenworth,
to have a floor made in sections, so that it could
be easily stowed away in the bottom of a prairie-
schooner in marching.
My husband laid me down, and we were soon
two more spokes in the human wheel, and asleep
in a trice. Next morning I wakened to find my-
self alone, with a tin basin of water and a towel
for my toilet beside me. My husband had to
dress me in his underclothing, for everything I
6 1 8 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
had was soaked. My shoes were hopeless, so I
was dropped into a pair of cavalry boots, and in
this unpicturesque costume, which I covered as
best I could with my wet dress, I was carried
through the mud to the dining-tent, and enthron-
ed, a la Turk, on a board which the cook produced
from some hiding-place, where he had kept it for
kindlings. There were not a few repetitions of
this stormy reception in the years that followed,
for Kansas continued its weather vagaries with
unceasing persistency, but this, being my first, is
as fresh in my mind as if it occurred but yes-
terday.
The tent might go down nightly, for all I cared
then. Every thought of separation departed, and
I gave myself up to the happiest hours, clamping
about the tent in those old troop boots, indifferent
whether my shoes ever dried. The hours flew too
fast, though, for very soon preparations began for
a scout, which my husband was to command. It
took a great deal of comforting to reconcile me
to remaining behind. The General, as usual, had
to beg me to remember how blessed we were to
have been permitted to rejoin each other so early
in the summer. He told me, over and over again,
that there was nothing, he felt, that I would not
encounter to come to him, and that if he was de-
tained, he would send for me. Eliza and a faith-
WHEEDLING WOMEN. 619
ful soldier were to be left to care for us. The
cavalry departed, and again the days lengthened
out longer and longer, until each one seemed forty-
eight hours from sun to sun. We could scarcely
take a short walk in safety. The Indians were all
about us, and daily the sentinels were driven in,
or attempts were made to stampede the horses
and mules grazing about the post. The few offi-
cers remaining, in whose care we were placed,
came or sent every day to our tents, which were
up the creek a short distance, to inquire what they
could do for our comfort. Mrs. Gibbs, with her
boys, had joined her husband, and we were their
neighbors.
It seemed, sometimes, as if we must get outside
of our prescribed limits, the rolling bluffs beyond,
tinged with green and beginning to have prairie
flowers, looked so tempting. One evening we
beguiled an officer, who was sitting under our
tent fly, which was stretched in front for a shade,
to take us for a little walk. Like many another
man in the temporary possession of wheedling
women, he went with us a little, and “just a little
farther.” Diana would have driven all thouaht of
everything else save herself out of the gravest
head. At last our escort saw the dark coming
on so fast he insisted upon going home, and we
reluctantly turned. As we came toward the post,
620 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
the shadows were deepening in the twilig-ht, and
the figures of the sentinels were not visible. A
flash, followed by a sound past our ears, that old
campaigners describe as never to be forgotten
when first heard, was the warning that we three
were taken for Indians and fired upon by the
sentinel. Another flash, but we stood rooted to
the spot, stunned by surprise. The whiz and zip
of the bullet seemed to be only a few inches from
my ear. Still we were dazed, and had not the
officer gained his senses our fate would have been
then and there decided. The recruit, probably
himself terrified, kept on sending those deadly
little missives, with the terrible sound cutting the
air around us. Our escort shouted, but it was too
far for his voice to carry. Then he told us to run
for our lives to a slight depression in the ground,
and throw ourselves on our faces. I was coward
enough to burrow mine in the prairie-grass, and
for once in my life was devoutly grateful for
being slender. Still, as I lay there quaking with
terror, my body seemed to rise above the earth in
such a monstrous heap that the dullest marksman,
if he tried, might easily perforate me with bullets.
What ages it seemed while we waited in this pros-
trate position, commanded by our escort not to
move ! The rain of bullets at last ceased, and
blessed quiet came, but not peace of mind. The
”LYING low:’ 621
officer told us he would creep on his hands and
knees through the hollow portions of the plain
about the post, approach by the creek side, and
inform the sentinels along the line, and as soon
as they all knew who we were he would return
for us. With smothered voices issuing from the
grass where our faces were still crushed as low as
we could get them, we implored to be allowed to
creep on with him. We prayed him not to leave
ns out in the darkness alone. We begged him to
tell us how he could ever find us again, if once he
left us on ground that had no distinctive features
by which he could trace his way back. But he
was adamant, we must remain ; and the ring of
authority in his tone, besides the culprit feeling we
had for having endangered his life, kept us still
at last. As we lay there, our hearts’ thumping
seemed to lift us up in air and imperil anew our
wretched existence. The pretty, rounded contour
of the girl, which she had naturally taken such de-
light in, was now a source of agony to her, and
she moaned out, ” Oh ! how high I seem to be
above you ! Oh, Libbie, do you think I lie as flat
to the ground as you do ? ” and so on, with all the
foolish talk of frightened women.
When at last our deliverance came, my relief at
such an escape was almost forgotten in the morti-
fication I felt at having made so much trouble ;
622 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
and I thought, with chagrin, how quickly the Gen-
eral’s gratitude to find we had escaped the bullets
would be followed by temporary suspension of
faith regarding my following out his instructions
not to run risks of danger and wander away from
the post. I wrote him an abject account of our
hazardous performance. I renewed every prom-
ise. I asked to be trusted again, and from that
time there were no more walks outside the beat
of the sentinel.
An intense disappointment awaited me at this
time, and took away the one hope that had kept
up my spirits. I was watching, from day to day,
an opportunity to go to my husband at Fort Mc-
Pherson, for he had said I could come if any
chance offered. I was so lonely and anxious, I
would gladly have gone with the scout who took
despatches and mail, though he had to travel at
night and lie in the ravines all day to elude the
sharp eyes of the Indians. I remember watching
Wild Bill, as he reported at the commanding offi-
cer’s tent to get despatches for my husband, and
wishing with all my heart that I could go with
him. I know this must seem strange to people
in the States, whose ideas of scouts are made up
from stories of shooting affrays, gambling, lynch-
ing and outlawry. I should have felt myself safe
to go any distance with those men whom my hus-
REVERENCE OF A SO-CALLED RUFFIAN. 62
O
band employed as bearers of despatches. I have
never known women treated with such reverence
as those whom they honored. They were touched
to see us out there, for they measured well every
danger of that country; and the class that followed
the moving railroad towns were their only idea of
women, except as they caught glimpses of us in
camp or on the march. In those border-towns, as
we were sometimes compelled to walk a short dis-
tance from the depot to our ambulance, the rough
characters in whom people had ceased to look for
good were transformed in their very attitude as
we approached. Of course, they all knew and
sincerely admired the General, and, removing
their hats, they stepped off the walk and cast such
looks at me as if I had been little lower than the
angels. When these men so looked at me, my
husband was as proud as if a President had mani-
fested pleasure at sight of his wife, and amused
himself immensely because I said to him, after
we were well by, that the outlaws had seemed to
think me possessed of every good attribute, while
to myself my faults and deficiencies appeared to
rise mountains high. I felt that if there was a
Christian grace that my mother had not striven to
implant in me, I would cultivate it now, and try
to live up to the frontier citizen’s impression of U5
as women.
624 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
I think the General would have put me in the
care of any scout that served him, just as readily
as to place me in the keeping of the best officer
we had. There was not a trust he reposed in
them that they did not fulfill. Oh, how hard it
was for me to see them at that time, when start-
ing with despatches to my husband, swing them-
selves into the saddle and disappear over the
divide ! I feel certain, with such an end in view
as I had, and with the good health that the tough-
ening of our campaigns had given me, I could
have ridden all night and slept on the horse-
blanket in the ravines daytimes, for a great dis-
tance. Had I been given the opportunity to join
my husband by putting myself in their charge,
there would not have been one moment’s hesita-
tion on my part. I knew well that when ” ojfF
duty ” the scout is often in affrays where lynching
and outlawry are every-day events of the Western
towns ; but that had no effect upon these men’s
sense of honor when an officer had reposed a trust
in them. Wild Bill, California Joe, Buffalo Bill,
Comstock, Charlie Reynolds, and a group of in-
trepid men besides, who from time to time served
under my husband, would have defended any of
us women put in their charge with their lives.
I remember with distinctness what genuine ad-
miration and gratitude filled my heart as these
A TRIBUTE TO SCOUTS.
625
intrepid men rode up to my husband’s tent to
receive orders and despatches. From my woman’s
standpoint, it required far more and a vastly
higher order of courage to undertake their jour-
neys than to charge in battle. With women,
every duty or task seems easier when shared by
others. The most cowardly of us might be so
impressionable, so sympathetic, in a great cause
that we saw others preparing to defend, that it
would become our own ; and it is not improbable
that enthusiasm might take even a timid woman
into battle, excited and incited by the daring of
others, the bray of drums, the clash of arms, the
call of the trumpet. But I doubt if there are
many who could go off on a scout of hundreds of
miles, and face death alone. It still seems to me
supreme courage. Imagine, then, my gratitude,
my genuine admiration, when my husband sent
scouts with letters to us, and we saw them in re-
turning swing lightly into the saddle and gallop
off, apparently unconcerned, freighted with our
messages of affection.
Something better than such a journey awaited
me, it seemed, when two of our Seventh Cavalry
officers, Captain Samuel Robbins and Colonel
William W. Cook, appeared in camp at the head
of a detachment of cavalry and a small train of
wagons for supplies. The General had told them.
626 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
to bring me back, and an ambulance was with the
wagons, in which I was to ride. It did not take
me long to put our roll of bedding and my valise
in order ; and to say anything about the heart in
me leaping for joy, is even a tame expression to
describe the delight that ran through every vein
in my body. To ascend such heights of joy,
means a corresponding capability of descent into
a region of suffering, about which I do not, even
now, like to think, for the memory of my disap-
pointment has not departed after all these years.
The commanding officer of the department was at
the post temporarily, and forbade my going.
There is a hateful clause in the Army Regulations
which gives him control of all camp-followers as
well as troops. I ran the whole gamut of insub-
ordination, mutiny and revolt, as I threw myself
alone on the little camp-bed of our tent. This
stormy, rebellious season, fought out by myself,
ended, of course, as everything must that gives
itself into military jurisdiction, as I was left be-
hind in spite of myself ; but I might have been
enlisted as a soldier for five years, and not have
been more helpless. I put my fingers into my
ears, not to hear the call ” Boots and Saddles ! “
as the troops mounted and rode away. I only
felt one relief ; the officers would tell the General
that nothing but the all-powerful command for-
A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT.
627
bidding them to take me had prevented my doing
what he knew I would do if it was in my power.
I had time also to use my husband as a safety-
valve, and pour out my vials of wrath against the
officer detaining me, in a long letter filling pages
with regret that I was prevented going to him.
The Indians were then at their worst. They
roamed up and down the route of travel, burning
the stations, running off stock, and attacking the
stages. General Hancock had given up all ag-
gressive measures. The plan was, to defend the
route taken for supplies, and protect the stage
company’s property so far as possible. The rail-
road building was almost entirely abandoned. As
our officers and their detachment were for a time
allowed to proceed quietly on their march to Mc-
Pherson, they rather flattered themselves they
would see nothing of the enemy. Still, every eye
watched the long ravines that intersect the Plains
and form such fastnesses for the wily foe. There
is so little to prepare you for these cuts in the
smooth surface of the plain, that an unguarded
traveler comes almost upon a deep fissure in the
earth, before dreaming that the lay of the land
was not all the seeming level that stretches on to
sunset. These ravines have small clumps of
sturdy trees, kept alive in the drought of that arid
climate by the slight moisture from what is often
628 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
a buried stream at the base. The Indians know
them by heart, and not only he in wait in them,
but escape by these guUies, that often run on,
growing deeper and deeper till the bed of a river
is reached.
In one of these ravines, six hundred savages in
full war-dress were in ambush, awaiting the train
of supplies, and sprang out from their hiding-
place with horrible yells as our detachment of
less than fifty men approached. Neither officer
lost his head at a sight that was then new to him.
Their courage was inborn. They directed the
troops to form a circle about the wagons, and in
this way the little band of valiant men defended
themselves against attack after attack. Not a
soldier flinched, nor did a teamster lose control of
his mules, though the effort to stampede them
was incessant. This running fight lasted for
three hours, when suddenly the Indians withdrew.
They, with their experienced eyes, first saw the
reinforcements coming to the relief of our brave
fellows, and gave up the attack.
The first time I saw Colonel Cook after this
affair, he said : “The moment I found the Ind-
ians were on us, and we were in for a fight, I
thought of you, and said to myself, ‘ If she were
in the ambulance, before giving an order I would
ride up and shoot her.” ” Would you have given
A PROMISE DEMANDED. 629
me no chance for life,” I replied, “in case the
battle had gone in your favor ?” “Not one,” he
said. ” I should have been unnerved by the
thought of the fate that awaited you, and I have
promised the General not to take any chances,
but to kill you before anything worse could
happen.” Already in these early days of the regi-
ment’s history, the accounts of Indian atrocities
perpetrated on the women of the frontier ranches,
had curdled the blood of our men, and over the
camp-fire at night, when these stories were dis-
cussed, my husband had said to the officers that
he should take every opportunity to have me
with him, but there was but one course he wished
pursued ; if I was put in charge of any one in the
regiment, he asked them to kill me if Indians
should attack the camp or the escort on the
march. I have referred in general terms to this
understanding, but it was on this occasion that
the seriousness with which the General’s request
was considered by his brother officers first came
home to me.
CHAPTER XXI.
ENCAMPED ON BIG CREEK PREPARATION FOR STORMS
A FLOOD AT FORT HAYS KANSAS LIGHTNING
SOLICITUDE ABOUT A CLOTHES-LINE WOMEN TO
THE RESCUE MEN SAVED FROM DROWNING A
NEW KIND OF FERRY-BOAT CATLING GUNS AS
ANCHORS GHASTLY LIGHTS — ELIZA S NARRATIVE
FLORA m’fLIMSY ON THE
TREAT TO A PRAIRIE DIVIDE.
-FLORA m’fLIMSY ON THE FRONTIER THE RE-
T3EFORE General Custer left for Fort McPher-
son, he removed our tents to a portion of
that branch of Big Creek on which the post was
established. He selected the highest ground he
could find, knowing that the rainy season was not
yet over, and hoping that, if the camp were on a
knoll, the ground would drain readily and dry
quickly after a storm. We were not a great dis-
tance from the main stream and the fort, but still
too far to recognize anyone that might be walking
in garrison. The stream on which we were located
was tortuous, and on a bend above us the colonel
commanding, his adjutant and his escort were
established. Between us and the fort, General
630
A CANl’AS HOME. 63 I
and Mrs. Gibbs were camped, while the tents
of a few officers on detached duty were still
farther on. The sentinel’s beat was along a line
between us and the high ground, where the Ind-
ians were likely to steal upon us from the bluffs.
This guard walked his tour of duty on a line parallel
with the stream, but was too far from it to observe
the water closely. Each little group of tents made
quite a show of canvas, as we had abundance of
room to spread out, and the quartermaster was not
obliged to limit us to any given number of tents.
We had a hospital tent for our sitting-room, with
a wall-tent pitched behind and opening out of the
larger one, for our bed-room. There was a wall-
tent for the kitchen, near, and behind us, the ” A “
tent for the soldier whom the General had left to
take care of us in his absence. We were as safely
placed, as to Indians, as was possible in such a
country. As is the custom in military life, the
officers either came every day, or sent to know if
I could think of anything they could do for my
comfort. The General had thought of everything,
and, besides, I did my best not to have any wants.
I was as capable of manufacturing needs as any-
one, and could readily trump up a collection in
garrison, but 1 was rendered too wary by the un-
certainty of my tenure of that (to me) valuable
little strip of ground that held my canvas house,
632 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
to allow my presence to be brought home to those
gallant men, as a trouble or a responsibility. The
idea that I might have to retreat eastward was a
terror, and kept m subjection any passing wish I
might indulge to have anything done for me. I
would gladly have descended into one of the
cellar-like habitations that were so common in
Kansas then, and had my food handed down to
me, if this would have enabled the officers to for-
get that I was there, until the expedition returned
from the Platte. Yet the elements were against
me, and did their best to interfere with my desire
to obliterate myself, as far as being an anxiety to
others was concerned.
One night we had retired, and were trying to
believe that the thunder was but one of those
peculiar menacing volleys of cloud-artillery that
sometimes passed over harmlessly ; but we could
not sleep, the roar and roll of thunder was so
alarming. There is no describing lightning on
the Plains. While a storm lasts, there seems to
be an incessant glare. To be sure, there is not
the smallest flash that does not illumine the tent,
and there is no way of hiding from the blinding
light. In a letter written to my husband while
the effect of the fright was still fresh on my mind,
I told him ” the heavens seemed to shower down
fire upon the earth, and in one minute and a half
TIVO TERRIFIED WOMEN; ^-ti
we counted twenty-five distinct peals of thunder.”
There seemed to be nothing for us to do but to
he quaking and terrified under the covers. The
tents of the oflScers were placed at some distance
from ours intentionally, as it is impossible to
speak low enough, under canvas, to avoid being
heard, unless a certain space intervenes. It is
the custom to allow a good deal of ground to in-
tervene, if the guard is so posted as to command
the approach to all the tents. The result was,
that we dared not venture to try to reach a neigh-
bor ; we simply had to endure the situation, as
no cry could be heard above the din of the con-
stantly increasing storm. In the midst of this
quaking and misery, the voice of some officers
outside called to ask if we were afraid. Finding
that the storm was advancing to a tornado, they
had decided to return to us and render assistance
if they could, or at least to quiet our fears. The
very sound of their voices calmed us, and we
dressed and went into the outer tent to admit
them. The entrance had been made secure by
leather straps and buckles that the General had
the saddler put on ; and in order to strengthen
the tents against these hurricanes, which we had
already learned were so violent and sudden, he
had ordered poles at each corner sunk deep into
the ground. These, being notched, had saplings
634 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
laid across either side, and to these the tent-ropes
were bound. We were thus seemingly secured
between two barriers. He even went further in
his precautions, and fastened a picket-rope, which
is a small cable of itself, to either end of the
ridge-pole, stretching it at the front and rear, and
fastening it with an iron pin driven into the
ground. As we opened two or three of the straps
to admit the officers and Eliza, who always over-
came every obstacle to get to me in danger, the
wind drove in a sheet of rain upon us, and we
found it difficult to strap the opening again. As
for the guy-ropes and those that tied the tent at the
sides, all this creaking, loosening cordage proved
how little we could count upon its stability.
The great tarpaulin, of the heaviest canvas made,
which was spread over our larger tent and out in
front for a porch, flapped wildly, lashing our poor
little ” rag house ” as if in a fury of rage. In-
deed, the whole canvas seemed as if it might
have been a cambric handkerchief, for the man-
ner in which it was wrenched and twisted above
and on all sides of us. The tallow candle was
only kept lighted by surrounding it with boxes
to protect its feeble flame from the wind. The
rain descended in such sheets, driven by the hur-
ricane, that it even pressed in the tent-walls ; and
in spite of the trenches, that every good campaign-
THE SOAKED EARTH. 635
ner digs about the tent, we were almost inundated
by the streams that entered under the lower edge
of the walls.
The officers, finding we were sure to be drenched,
began to fortify us for the night. They feared
the tent would go down, and that the ridge-pole
of a hospital-tent, being so much larger than that
of a wall-tent, would do some fatal injury to us.
They piled all the available furniture in a hollow
square, leaving a little space for us. Fortunately,
some one, coming down from the post a few days
before, had observed that we had no table. There
was no lumber at the post, and the next best thing
was to send us a zinc-covered board which had
first served for a stove ; secondly, with the addition
of rude supports, as our table, and now did duty in
its third existence as a life-preserver; for the ground
was softening with the moisture, and we could not
protect our feet, except for the narrow platform
on which we huddled. At last the booming of
the thunder seemed to abate somewhat, though
the wind still shrieked and roared over the wide
plain, as it bore down upon our frail shelter. But
the tent, though swaying and threatening to break
from its moorings, had been true to us through
what we supposed to be the worst of the tempest,
and we began to put some confidence in the cord-
age and picket-pins. The officers decided to re-
636 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
turn to their tents, promising to come again should
there be need, and we reluctantly permitted them
to go. Eliza put down something on which we
could step over the pools into the other tent, and
we fell into bed, exhausted with terror and excite-
ment, hardly noticing how wet and cold we and
the blankets were.
Hardly had we fallen into a doze, when the
voice of the guard at the entrance called out to
us to get up and make haste for our lives; the
flood was already there ! We were so agitated
that it was difficult even to find the clothes that
we had put under the pillow to keep them from
further soaking, much more to get into them. It
was then impossible to remain mside of the tent.
We crept through the opening, and, to our horror,
the lightning revealed the creek — which we had
last seen, the night before, a little rill- in the bot-
tom of the gully — now on a level with the high
banks. The tops of good-sized trees, which fringed
the stream, were barely visible, as the current
swayed the branches in its onward sweep. The
water had risen in that comparatively short time
thirty-five feet, and was then creeping into the
kitchen tent, which, as usual, was pitched near
the bank. I believe no one attempted to account
for those terrific rises in the streams, except as
partly due to water-spouts, which were common
PROTECTING HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS. 637
in the early days of Kansas. I have seen the Gen-
eral hold his watch in his hand after the bursting
of a rain-cloud, and keep reckoning for the soldier
who was measuring with a stick at the stream’s
bed, and for a time it recorded an inch a minute.
Of course the camp was instantly astir after the
alarm of the guard. But the rise of the water is
so insidious often, that a sentinel walking his beat
a few yards away will sometimes be unconscious
of it until the danger is upon the troops. The
soldiers, our own man, detailed as striker, and
Eliza, were not so ” stampeded,” as they expressed
it, as to forget our property. Almost everything
that we possessed in the world was there, much
of our property being fortunately still boxed. I
had come out to camp with a valise, but the
wagon-train afterward brought most of our things,
as we supposed we had left Fort Riley forever.
The soldiers worked like beavers to get every-
thing they could farther from the water, upon a
little rise of ground at one side of our tents. Eliza,
the coolest of all, took command, and we each
carried what we could, forgetting the lightning in
our excitement.
The officers who had come to us in the early
part of the tempest now returned. They found
their own camp unapproachable. The group of
tents having been pitched on a bend in the
638 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
crooked stream, which had the advantage of the
circle of trees that edged the water, was now
found to be in the worst possible locality, as the
torrent had swept over the narrow strip of earth
and left the camp on a newly made island, per-
fectly inaccessible. The lives of the men and
horses stranded on this little water-locked spot
were in imminent peril. The officers believed
us when we said we would do what we could to
care for ourselves if they would go at once, as they
had set out to do, and find succor for the soldiers.
It was a boon to have something that it was
necessary to do, which kept us from absolute
abandonment to terror. We hardly dared look
toward the rushing torrent ; the agony of seeing
the water steal nearer and nearer our tent was
almost unendurable. As we made our way from
the heap of household belongings, back and forth
to the tent, carrying burdens that we could not
even have lifted in calmer moments, the light-
ning became more vivid and the whole arc above
us seemed aflame. We were aghast at what the
brilliant light revealed. Between the bluffs that
rose gradually from the stream, and the place
where we were on its banks, a wide, newly made
river spread over land that had been perfectly dry,
and, as far as any one knew, had never been inun-
dated before. The water had overflowed the
INUNDA TIONS. 639
banks of the stream above us, and swept across
the sHght depression that intervened between our
ground and the hills. We were left on that nar-
row neck of land, and the water on either side of
us, seen in the lightning’s glare, appeared like
two boundless seas. The creek had broken over
its banks and divided us from the post below,
while the garrison found themselves on an island
also, as the water took a new course down there,
and cut them off from the bluffs. This was a mis-
fortune to us, as we had so small a number of
men and sorely needed what help the post could
have offered.
While we ran hither and thither, startled at the
shouts of the officers and men as they called to
one another, dreading some new terror, our hearts
sinking with uncontrollable fright at the wild
havoc the storm was making, the two dogs that
the General valued, Turk the bull-dog, and Rover
his favorite fox-hound, broke their chains and flew
at each other’s throat. Their warfare had been
long and bloody, and they meant that night to
end the contest. The ferocity of the bull-dog was
not greater than that of the old hound. The sol-
diers sprang at them again and again to separate
them. The fangs of each showed partly buried
in the other’s throat, but finally, one powerful man
choked the bull-dog into relaxing his hold. The
640 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
remnants of the gashed and bleeding- contestants
were again tied at a secure distance, and the sol-
diers renewed their work to prevent the tents from
falling. I remember that in one gale, especially-
furious, seventeen clung to the guy-rope in front
and saved the canvas from downfall.
But, after all, something worse awaited us than
all this fury of the elements and the dread of
worse to come to ourselves ; for the reality of the
worst that can come to anyone was then before
us without a warning. There rang out on the air,
piercing our ears even in the uproar of the tem-
pest, sounds that no one, once hearmg, ever for-
gets. They were the despairing cries of drowning
men. In an instant our danger was forgotten ;
but the officers and men were scattered along
the stream beyond our call, and Eliza was now
completely unnerved. We ran up and down
the bank, wringing our hands, she calling to me,
” Oh, Miss Libbie ! What shall we do ? What shall
we do ?” We tried to scream to those dark forms
hurrying by us, that help might come farther
down. Alas ! the current grew more furious as
the branch poured into the main stream, and we
could distinguish, by the oft-repeated glare of the
lightning, the men waving their arms imploringly
as they were swept down with tree-trunks, masses
of earth, and heaps of rubbish that the current
HUMANITY AND FRUGALITY. 64 1
was drifting by. We were helpless to attempt
their rescue. There can be few moments in exist-
ence that hold such agonizing suffering as those
where one is appealed to for life, and is powerless
to give succor. I thought of the ropes about our
tent, and ran to unwind one ; but they were
lashed to the poles, stiff with moisture, and tied
with sailors’ intricate knots. In a frenzy, I tugged
at the fastenings, bruising my hands and tearing
the nails. The guy-ropes were equally unavail-
able, for no knife we had could cut such a cable.
Eliza, beside herself with grief to think she
could not help the dying soldiers, with whom she
had been such a favorite, came running to me
where I was insanely struggling with the cordage,,
and cried, ” Miss Libbie, there’s a chance for us
with one man. He’s caught in the branches of a
tree ; but I’ve seen his face, and he’s alive. He’s
most all of him under water, and the current is
a-switchin’ him about so he can’t hold out long.
Miss Libbie, there’s my clothes-line we could take,
but I can’t do it, I can’t do it ! Miss Libbie, you
wouldn’t have me to do it, would you ? For
where will we get another ? ” The grand human-
ity that illumined the woman’s face, full of the
nobility of desire to save life, was so interwoven
with frugality and her inveterate habit of protect-
ing our things, that I hardly know how the con-
642 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
troversy in her own mind would have ended, if I
had not flown to the kitchen tent to get the
clothes-Hne. The current swayed the drowning
man so violently he was afraid to loosen his hold
of the branches to reach the rope as we threw it
to him over and over again, and it seemed mo-
mentarily that he must be torn from our sight.
The hue of death was on his face — that terrible
blue look — while the features were pinched with
suffering, and the eyes starting from their sockets.
He was naked to the waist, and the chill of the
water, and of those hours that come before dawn,
had almost benumbed the fingers that clutched
the branches. Eliza, like me, has forgotten noth-
ing that happened during that horrible night, and
I give part of her story, the details of which it is
so difficult for me to recall with calmness :
” Miss Libbie, don’t you mind when we took
the clothes-line an’ went near to him as we could
get, he didn’t seem to understan’ what we was
up to. We made a loop and showed it to him,
when a big flash of lightnin’ came and made a
glare, and tried to call to him to put it over his
head. The noise of the water, and the crashin’
of the logs that was comin’ down, beside the
thunder, drownded out our voices. Well, we worked
half an hour over that man. He thought you and
me, Miss Libbie, couldn’t pull him in ; that we
A GENEROUS WOMAN. 643
wasn’t strong enough. He seemed kind o’ dazed-
like ; and the only way I made him know what the
loop was for, I put it on over my body and made
signs. Even then, he was so swept under that
part of the bank, and it was so dark, I didn’t think
we could get him. I could hear him bubbhn’,
bellowin’, drownin’ and gaggin’. Well, we pulled
him in at last, though I got up to my waist
in water. He was cold and blue, his teeth chat-
terin’ ; he just shuck and shuck, and his eyes was
perfectly wild. We had to help him, for he could
hardly walk to the Cook tent. I poured hot coffee
down him ; and. Miss Libbie, you tore aroun’ in
the dark and found your way to the next tent for
whisky, and the lady that never was known to
keep any before, had some then. And I wrapped
the drownded man in the blouse the Ginnel give
me. It was cold and I was wet, and I needed it,
Miss Libbie ; but didn’t that man, as soon as ever
his teeth stopped a-chatterin’, jest get up and
walk off with it ? And, Miss Libbie, the Ginnel
wrote to you after that, from some expedition, that
he had seen the soldier EHza gave her clothes-line
to save, and he sent his thanks and asked how I was,
and said I had saved his life. I just sent back
word, in the next letter you wrote the Ginnel,
to ask if that man said anything about my blouse
he wore off that night. You gave one of the Gin-
644 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
nel’s blue shirts to a half-naked drownded man..
We saved two more and wrapped ’em in blankets,,
and you rubbed ’em with red pepper, and kept the
fire red-hot, and talked to them, tryin’ to get the
shiver and the scare out of ’em. I tell you, Miss
Libbie, we made a fight for their lives, if ever any-
one did. The clothes-line did it all. One was
washed near to our tent, and I grabbed his
hand. We went roun’ with our lanterns, and it
was so dark we ‘spected every moment to step into
a watery grave, for the water was so near us, and
the flashes of lightnin’ would show that it was a-
comin’ on and on. Turk and Rover would fight
just by looking at each other, and in all that mess
they fell on each other, an’ I was sure they
was goin’ to kill each other, and, oh, my, the
Ginnel would have taken on so about it ! But
the soldiers dragged them apart.”
Seven men w^ere drowned near our tent, and
their agonizing cries, when they were too far out
in the current for us to throw our line, are sounds
that will never be stilled. The men were from
the Colonel’s escort on the temporary island
above us. The cavalrymen attempted, as the
waters rose about them, to swim their horses to
the other shore ; but all were lost who plunged
in, for the violence of the current made swimming
an impossibility. A few negro soldiers belonging
m PERIL OF DROWNING. 645
to the infantry were compelled to remain where
they were, though the water stood three feet in
some of the tents. When the violence of the
storm had abated a little, one of the officers swam
the narrowest part of the stream, and, taking a
wagon-bed, made a ferry, so that with the help of
soldiers that he had left behind holding one end
of the rope he had taken over, the remaining
soldiers were rescued and brought down to our
little strip of land. Alas ! this narrowed and nar-
rowed, until we all appeared to be doomed. The
officers felt their helplessness when they realized
that four women looked to them for protection.
They thought over every imaginable plan. It was
impossible to cross the inundated part of the
plain, though their horses were saddled, with the
thought that each one might swim with us through
the shallowest of the water. They rode into this
stretch of impassable prairie, but the water was
too swift, even then, to render it anything but
perilous. They decided that if the water contin-
ued to rise with the same rapidity we would be
washed away, as we could not swim nor had we
strength to cling to anything. This determined
them to resort to a plan, that happily we knew
nothing of until the danger was passed. We were
to be strapped to the Gatling guns as an anchor-
age. These are, perhaps, the lightest of all artillery,
646
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
but might have been heavy enough to resist the
action of what current rose over our island. There
would have been one chance in ten thousand of
rescue under such circumstances, but I doubt if
being pinioned there, watching the waves closing
around us, would have been as merciful as per-
mitting us to float off into a quicker death.
While the officers and men with us were work-
ing with all their might to save lives and property,
the little post was beleaguered. The flood came
so unexpectedly that the first known of it was the
breaking in of the doors of the quarters. The
poorly built, leaky, insecure adobe houses had been
heretofore a protection, but the freshet filled them
almost instantly with water. The quarters of the
laundresses were especially endangered, being
on even lower ground than the officers’ houses.
The women were hurried out in their night-dresses,
clasping their crying children, while they ran to
places pointed out by the officers, to await orders.
Even then, one of our Seventh Cavalry officers,
who happened to be temporarily at the garrison,
clambered up to the roof of an adobe house to
discover whether the women of his regiment were
in peril. The same plan for rescue was adopted
at the post that had been partly successful
above. A ferry was improvised out of a
wagon-bed, and into this were collected the women
A BOAT MADE OF A WAGON-BED.
647
and children. The post was thus emptied in
time to prevent loss of life. First the women,
then the sick from the hospital, and finally the
drunken men ; for the hospital Hquor was broken
into, and it takes but a short time to make a
soldier helplessly drunk. The Government prop-
erty had to be temporarily abandoned, and a great
deal was destroyed or swept away by the water.
It was well that the camp women were inured to
hardship, for the condition in which the cold, wet,
frightened creatures landed, without any protec-
tion from the storm, on the opposite bank, was
pitiful. One laundress had no screams of terror
or groans of suffering over physical fright ; her
wails were loud and continuous because her sav-
ings had been left in the quarters, and facing
death in that frail box, as she was pulled through
the turbid flood, was nothing to the pecuniary
loss. It was all the men could do to keep her
from springing into the wagon-bed to return and
search for her money.
On still another branch of Big Creek there was
another body of men wrestling with wind and
wave. Several companies, marching to New
Mexico, had encamped for the night, and the
freshet came as suddenly upon them as upon all
of us. The colonel in command had to seize his
wife, and wade up to his arms in carrying her to a
648 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
safe place. Even then, they were warned that the
safety was but temporary. The ambulance was
harnessed up, and they drove through water that
almost swept them away, before they reached
higher ground. There was a strange coincidence
about the death, eventually, of this officer’s wife.
A year afterward they were encamped on a
Texas stream, with similar high banks, betokening
freshets, and the waters rose suddenly, compelling
them to take flight in the ambulance again ; but
this time the wagon was overturned by the current,
and the poor woman w^as drowned.
When the day dawned, we were surrounded by
water, and the havoc about us was dreadful. But
what a relief it was to have the rain cease, and
feel the comfort of daylight. Eliza broke up her
bunk to make a fire, and we had breakfast for
everybody, owing to her self-sacrifice. The water
began to subside, and the place looked like a vast
laundry. All the camp was flying with blankets,
bedding and clothes. We were drenched, of
course, having no dry shoes even, to replace those
in w^hich we had raced about in the mud during
the night. But these were small inconveniences,
compared with the agony of terror that the night
had brought. As the morning advanced, and the
stream fell constantly, we were horrified by the
sight of a soldier, swollen beyond all recognition,
THE STORM RISES AGAIN: 649
whose drowned body was imbedded in the side
of the bank, where no one could reach it, and where
we could not escape the sight of it. He was one
who had implored us to save him, and our failure
to do so seemed even more terrible than the night
before, as we could not keep our fascinated gaze
from the stiffened arm that seemed to have been
stretched out entreatingly.
Though we were thankful for our deliverance,
the day was a depressing one, for the horror of
the drowning men near us could not be put out
of our minds. As night came on again, the clouds
began to look ominous; it was murky, and it
rained a little.
At dark word came from the fort, to which
some of the officers had returned, that we must
attempt to get to the high ground, as the main
stream, Big Creek, was again rising. All the
officers were alarmed. They kept measuring the
advance of the stream themselves, and guards
were stationed at intervals, to note the rise of the
water and report its progress. The torch-lights
they held were like tiny fire-flies, so dark was the
night. An ambulance was driven to our tent to
make the attempt to cross the water, which had
abated there slightly, and, if possible, to reach the
divide beyond. One of the officers went in ad-
vance, on horseback, to try the depth of the water.
650 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
It was a failure, and the others forbade our going,,
thinking it would be suicidal. While they were
arguing, Diana and I were wrapping ourselves in
what outside garments we had in the tent. She
had been plucky through the terrible night, writ-
ing next morning to the General that she never
wished herself for one moment at home, and that
even with such a fright she could never repay us
for bringing her out to a life she liked so much.
Yet as we tremblingly put on our outside things,
she began to be agitated over a subject so ridicu-
lous in such a solemn and dangerous hour, that I
could not keep my face from what might have
been a smile under less serious circumstances.
Her trepidation was about her clothes. She ask-
ed me anxiously what she should do for dresses
next day, and insisted that she must take her
small trunk. In vain I argued that we had no-
where to go. We could but sit in the ambulance
till dawn, even if we were fortunate enough to
escape to the bluff. She still persisted, sayings
” What if we should reach a fort, and I was
obliged to appear in the gown I now wear ?” I
asked her to remember that the next fort was
eighty miles distant, with enough water between
it and us to float a ship, not to mention roving
bands of Indians lying in wait ; but this by no
means quieted her solicitude about her appearance.
FLORA McFLIMSY. – 65 1
At last I suggested her putting on three dresses,
one over the other, and then taking, in the Httle
trunk from which she could not part, the most
necessary garments and gowns. When I went
out to get into the wagon, after the other officers
had left, and found our one escort determined
still to venture, I was obliged to explain that
Diana could not make up her mind to part with
her trunk. He was astounded that at such an
hour, in such a perilous situation, clothes should
ever enter anyone’s head. But the trunk appeared
at the entrance of the tent, to verify my words.
He argued that with a wagon loaded with several
people, it would be perilous to add unnecessary
weight in driving through such ground. Then,
with all his chivalry, working night and day to
help us, there came an instant when he could no
longer do justice to the occasion in our presence ;
so he stalked off to one side, and what he said to
himself was lost in the growl of the thunder.
The trunk was secured in the ambulance, and
Diana, Eliza and I followed. There we sat,
getting wetter, more frightened and less plucky
as the time rolled on. Again were we forbidden
to attempt this mode of escape, and condemned
to return to the tent, which was vibrating in
the wind and menacmg a downfall. No woman
ever wished more ardently for a brown-stone
652
TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
front than I longed for a dug-out. Any hole in
the side of a bank would have been a palace to
me, living as I did in momentary expectation of
no covering at all. The rarest, most valuable of
homes meant to me something that could not
blow away. Those women who take refuge in
these days in their cyclone cellar — now the popu-
lar architecture of the West — will know well how
comforting it is to possess something that cannot
be readily lifted up and deposited in a neighbor-
ing county.
With the approach of midnight, there was again
an abatement in the rain, and the water of the
stream ceased to creep toward us ; so the officers,
gaining some confidence in its final subsidence,
again left us to go to their tents. For three days
the clouds and thunder threatened, but at last the
sun appeared. In a letter to my husband, dated
June 9, 1867, I wrote: “When the sun came
out yesterday, we could almost have worshipped
it, like the heathen. We have had some dreadful
days, and had not all the officers been so kind to
us, I do not know how we could have endured
what we have. Even some whom we do not know
have shown the greatest solicitude in our behalf.
We are drenching wet still, and everything we
have is soggy with moisture. Last evening, after
two sleepless nights, Mrs. Gibbs and her two boys,
ESCAPE TO A DIVIDE. 653
Alphie and Blair, Diana and I, were driven across
the plain, from which the water is fast disappear-
ing, to the coveted divide beyond. It is not much
higher, as you know, than the spot where our
tents are ; but it looked like a mountain, as we
watched it, while the water rose all around us.
Some of the officers had tents pitched there, and we
women were given the Sibley tent with the floor,
that sheltered me in the other storm. We dropped
down in heaps, we were so exhausted for want of
sleep, and it was such a relief to know that at last
the water could not reach us.” The letter (con-
tinued from day to day, as no scouts were sent
out) described the moving of the camp to more
secure ground. It was incessant motion, for no
place was wholly satisfactory to the officers. I
confessed that I was a good deal unnerved by the
frights, that every sound startled me, and a shout
from a soldier stopped my breathing almost, so
afraid was I that it was the alarm of another
freshet — while the clouds were never more closely
watched than at that time.
A fresh trouble awaited me, for General Han-
cock came to camp from Barker, and brought bad
news. The letter continues : “The dangers and
terrors of the last few days are nothing, compared
with the information that General Hancock brings.
It came near being the last proverbial ‘ straw.’ I
654 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
was heart-sick indeed, when I found that our
schemes for being together soon were so ruthlessly
crushed. General Hancock says that it looks as if
you would be in the Department of the Platte for
several months — at which he is justly indignant —
but he is promised your return before the summer is
ended. He thinks, that if I want to go so badly,
I may manage to make you a flying visit up there;
and this is all that keeps me up. The summer
here, so far separated from you, seems to stretch
out like an arid desert. If there were the faintest
shadow of a chance that I would see you here
again, I would not go, as we are ordered to. I
will come back here again if I think there is the
faintest prospect of seeing you. If you say so, I
will go to Fort McPherson on the cars, if I get the
ghost of an opportunity.”
Eliza, in ending her recollections of the flood at
Fort Hays, says, ” Well, Miss Libbie, when the
water rose so, and the men was a-drownin’, I said
to myself in the night, if God spared me, that
would be the last of war for me ; but when the
waters went down, and the sun came out, then we
began to cheer each other up, and were willing to
go right on from there, if we could, for we wanted
to see the Ginnel so bad. But who would have
thought that the stream would have risen around
the little knoll as it did ? The Ginnel thought he
AFFECTIONATE SOLICITUDE. 655
had fixed us so nice, and he had, Miss Libbie, for
it was the knoll that saved us. The day the regi-
ment left for Fort McPherson, the Ginnel staid
behind till dark, gettin’ everythin’ in order to
make you comfortable, and he left at 1 2 o’clock
at night, with his escort, to join the troops. He’d
rather ride all night than miss that much of his
visit with you. Before he went, he came to my
tent to say good-by. I stuck my hand out, and
said, ‘ Ginnel, I don’t like to see you goin’ off in
this wild country, at this hour of the night.’ . .
‘ I have to go,’ he says, ‘ wherever I’m called
Take care of Libbie, Eliza;’ and puttin’ spurs to
his horse, off he rode. Then I thought they’d
certainly get him, ridin’ right into the mouth of
’em. You know how plain the sound comes over
the prairie, with nothin’, no trees or anythin’, to
interfere. Well, in the night I was hearin’ quare
sounds. Some might have said they was buffalo,
but on they went, lumpety lump, lumpety lump,
and they was Indians ! Miss Libbie, sure as you’re
born, they was Indians gettin’ out of the way,
and, oh ! I was so scart for the Ginnel.”
CHAPTER XXII.
ORDERED BACK TO FORT MARKER A DRUNKEN ESCORT
WILD-FLOWERS COLOR WITHOUT ODOR GAME
WILD HORSES A DROMEDARY ON THE PLAINS
A WOMAN PIONEERING A RIDDLED STAGE OUR
BED RUNNING AWAY CHOLERA A CONTRAST
RECKONING CHANCES OF PROMOTION THE ADDLED
MAIL-CARRIER.
A FTER the high-water experience, our things
were scarcely dry before I found, for the
second time, what it was to be under the complete
subjection of military rule. The fiat was issued
that we women must depart from camp and re-
turn to garrison, as it was considered unsafe for
us to remain. It was an intense disappointment ;
for though Fort Hays and our camp were more
than dreary, after the ravages of the storm, to
leave there meant cutting myself off from any
other chance that might come in my way of join-
ing my husband, or of seeing him at our camp.
Two of the officers and an escort of ten mounted
men, going to Fort Harker on duty, accompanied
our little cortege of departing women. At the
first stage-station, the soldiers all dismounted as
656
A FORCED RETREAT. 657
we halted, and managed by some pretext to get
into the dug-out and buy whisky. Not long after
we were aeain en route I saw one of the men reel
on his saddle, and he was lifted into the wagon
that carried forage for the mules and horses. One
by one, all were finally dumped into the wagons
by the teamsters, who fortunately were sober, and
the troopers’ horses were tied behind the vehicles,
and we found ourselves without an escort. Plains
whisky is usually very rapid in its effect, but the
stage-station liquor was concocted from drugs
that had power to lay out even a hard-drinking
old cavalryman like a dead person, in what
seemed no time at all. Eliza said they only
needed to smell it, ’twas so deadly poison. A
barrel of tolerably good whisky sent from the
States was, by the addition of drugs, made into
several barrels after it reached the Plains.
The hours of that march seemed endless. We
were helpless, and knew that we were going over
ground that was hotly contested by the red man.
VVe rose gradually to the summit of each divide, and
looked with anxious eyes into every depression ;
but we were no sooner relieved to find it safe,
than my terrors began as to what the next might
reveal. When we came upon an occasional ravine,
it represented to my frightened soul any number
of Indians in ambush.
658 TENTING ON THE PLAINS.
In that country the air is so clear that every ob-
ject on the brow of a small ascent of ground is
silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky. The
Indians place little heaps of stones on these slight
eminences, and lurk behind them to watch the
approach of troops. Every little pile of rocks
seemed, to my strained eyes, to hide the head of a
savage. They even appeared to move, and this
effect was heightened by the waves of heat that
hover over the surface of the earth under that
blazing sun. I was thoroughly frightened, doubt-
less made much more so because 1 had nothing
else to think of, as the end of the journey would
not mean for m