"Fair mistletoe!Love's opportunity!What trees that growGive 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 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 began 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 resist 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 horseflesh not to admire the pace at which their thoroughbreds sped over the smooth, firm roads about Austin, there was still a murmured word passed around that the owners of these fleet animals would hang their proud heads when "Jack" came into the field. We women were pressed into 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 imbedded 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 ithad 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, 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 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 wasen rapportwith 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 boring, 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 overtures? Withthat dear Ginnie there was no question. 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 cannot look upon the commonest cur with indifference. Sometimes, as I stand now at my window, longing for the old pack that whined with delight, quarreled with jealousy for the best place near us, 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 affectionate 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 them to see an evidence of affection. One of my neighbors is a beer saloon, and though I am too busyto 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 our family. Eliza put our room in order, and descended to the kitchen to tell what antics the General was performing over the animal. When she was safely down-stairs, where she could not intimidate 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 deposited 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 attention to fine points, that, for the life of me, dog-lover as I was, Icould not discover in the pulpy, silken-skinned 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 returned to their maternal, and the General had congratulated 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 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 heartrendin', the way he would go on about his dogs when they was sick."
And we both remembered, when one of these little 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 coddling, two died.
After Eliza had come down from her rampagious state, she was invited to take notice of what a splendid family Ginnie had. Then all the staff and the ladies came up to call. It was a great occasion 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 hecrossed 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 toddlers 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 selecting 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 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 chanceTo lose his own precious skin?There may be a few, perhaps, who failTo see it in quite this light;But when the fur flies I had rather beThe 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 the door and descending on him in their marauding expeditions. The dog saw comparatively little of outside life, for, as time rounded, it became 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, trying 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 filled up with bark and growl, the invaders 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 finding 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 clay that was discarded after modeling the sleek, high-stepping, springy, fleet-footed dogs of our pack. His legs were massive, while his cumbersome 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 splendidthoroughbreds; 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, highfalutin 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 finally become, after generations of training and breeding had done its refining work.
DISTURBED CONDITION OF TEXAS.
Texaswas 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. Jayhawkers, bandits and bush-whackers had everything their own way for a time. I now find, through official reports, what innumerable perplexities 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 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 stealthy 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 I 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 foremost among the elderly patriots of the North. I remember how little war moved me. The clash of arms andglitter 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 country'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 he walked a bleak, lonely mile to the telegraph station, waiting till midnight for the last despatches, 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 stepmother, usually absorbed in domestic affairs, and even of me, too happy then with the very exuberance of living to think, 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 extensive 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, oppressions 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-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 experiment of transporting to the North, especially as wehad no reason to suppose we should see another deer, except in zoological gardens. The hounds fell into good and appreciative hands, being 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 generous planter who lent her to us. She was now a fat, sleek creature, compared with her appearance when she came from among the ranch cattle. The stables were emptied, and our brief enjoyment of an embryo blue-grass farm, with a diminutive 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.
drawing of CusterGENERAL CUSTER AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR—AGED 25.
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, 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, contemplating the heels of the horses, and wishing fervently I had listened to my former lessons in horseflesh 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 possession, if my father Custer had not slyly and surreptitiously 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 judgment, after repeated returns to the stable, was triumphant. Texas madethe 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 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 feeling 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. 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 restraint. 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-repeated counsel. I began very early with that old maxim, "consider the source," as a subterfuge forthe lack of repartee, in choking senseless 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 Division of cavalry. I think the cold nights, smoky camp-fires, tarantulas, etc., that we encountered on our march over, would have been gladly undertaken rather than run into the face of threatening men, unaccompanied by a single trooper, as we then traveled.
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 gully on the route, over which was stretched a cobweb trestle, intended only as a temporary bridge. There was no sort of question about its insecurity; it quivered and menacingly 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 departure 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.
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 vicissitudesof another. Consequently, 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 prevented 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 marital 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 among the Indians after a time, and went to Texas. During the tumultuous 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 identified. 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 revolutionary movement of Texas against Mexican rule, he began to be leader, and was soon commander-in-chief of the Texan army, and in the new Republic he was reëlected 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 werekilled, and Santa Anna, disguised 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 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 crossing 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 successful 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 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 perpetuated 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 progressing 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 become 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 foundations. 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, especially as we were not obliged to pay a dollar a gallon, 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 extending 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 sparkling 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 evidence they gave that the earth beneath them was honeycombed 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 thefreight, were down 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, and we had hardly left the harbor before we 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 ungovernable 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 encountered, over and over again, the perils of battle. Transports have only been saved from being engulfed 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 though 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 entirechange 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 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 agitated me. For we well knew what risks Confederate 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 fearful crash, the quick veering of the boat, and her violent rolling from side to side. At the same instant, 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 elements, and seemed to writhe and struggle like something human.
In the midst of this, the shouts of the sailors, 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 movable was in motion. The trunks, which the crowded condition of the hold had compelledus 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 going 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 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 comforted, 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 forgetfulness 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 cowered 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 shipboard, 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 wastheir 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 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 suppressed. 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 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 Greenes, who were suffering also the tortures of seasickness. 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 helplessness, and abandoned as he was to physical misery, could scarcely turn to speak more than a word ortwo 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 grateful. The waves were mountains high, and we still plunged into what appeared to be solid banks of green, glittering crystal, only to drop down into seemingly hopeless gulfs. But daylight 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 began to cheer me up. Then he crept to our witty Mrs. Greene (the dear Nettie of our home days), to send more sly thrusts in her stateroom, regarding his opinion of one who yielded to seasickness; 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 unconcernedly 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 surroundings, when he laconically 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 stateroom next the pilot-house, and begged the General 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 prostration of the preceding night disappeared, and no one escaped his comical recapitulation of how they conducted themselves when we were threatened 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 security. Nothing but the actual planting of our feet onterra firmarestored 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 preservation from "perils by land and by sea."
New Orleans was again a pleasure to us, and this time we knew just where to go for recreation or for our dinner. Nearly a year in Texas had prepared us for gastronomic feats, and though the General was by no means abon-vivant, any one so susceptible to surroundings as he would be tempted by the dainty serving of a French dinner. 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 coatedand aproned waiters in file from kitchen to dining-room, each carrying 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,sotto voce, by our merry table, and they soon grew to be skillful confederates 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, accompanied by a significant wink to the waiter. Presently our parent, feeling an unnatural warmth near his ear, looked 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 Secretary of State, the Hon. Harry Conant, my husband's, and now my father's, faithful friend, 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 certainto 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 expostulated, asking if he intended him to climb over or creep under; but he persisted, only explaining 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 fairly yelled some sort of imputation upon the other party, and then kept on talking, gesticulating with his whip and shaking it at the conductor, who laughed immoderately 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 discussion 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 incite his parent to 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 vehemently 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 connived with the General to deprive their father temporarily ofhis dinner. When the plate was well prepared, as was the old-time custom, the potato and vegetables seasoned, the meat cut, it was the signal for my husband to hurl 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-provoking sight to his offspring, and they took good care to tip the waiter and order a warm dinner for the still arguing 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.