"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, 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 contradict 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 youbet?' I said, 'I'll bet my trunk.' I have forgotten the amount he put up against it, but according 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 understood 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 account of his knowing that I was very anxious to see an alligator. He was out with his gun one day, and I heard him shoot, and when he came up to his tent I asked him what he had been firing at. He said, an alligator, 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 Tommy had hooked that sum from me while he was pretending 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. Greene, 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 rebelledagainst 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 aiming 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 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."
"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, 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 contradict 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 youbet?' I said, 'I'll bet my trunk.' I have forgotten the amount he put up against it, but according 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 understood 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 account of his knowing that I was very anxious to see an alligator. He was out with his gun one day, and I heard him shoot, and when he came up to his tent I asked him what he had been firing at. He said, an alligator, 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 Tommy had hooked that sum from me while he was pretending 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. Greene, 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 rebelledagainst 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 aiming 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 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."
GENERAL CUSTER PARTS WITH HIS STAFF AT CAIRO AND DETROIT.
Allthe 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 considered 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 alert whenever he was with them, to parry a return thrust. I believe 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 particular, 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 snoring already. I told him both my purse and vest were gone, and, as the saying is, I 'smelt the rat.' I openedthe 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 stateroom, 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, 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 pounding 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 reputation to be pounding on a young lady's door late at night, frightening her half to death, and obliging 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 apologize, 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; Eliza was making up the bed. I looked for Autie's pocket-book, and found it under the pillow. 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 outlaws of boys got the clerkto 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 all 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."
group of menl with an elderly man in the center"STAND THERE, COWARDS, WILL YOU, AND SEE AN OLD MAN ROBBED?"
My father's story ceases without doing justice to himself; for the cunning manner in which he circumvented those mischievous fellows I remember, 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 acknowledgedthis robbery to their father, none were so proud of his victory as Tom and the General."
I must not leave to the imagination of the literal-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 preceding, 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'clocka. 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 excitement, 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, cocktail, barber, morning paper, and none of these being forthcoming in the simple home, they vociferated in what the outsider might have thought angry voices, "What sort of hotel do you keep, any way?"
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 that she was carrying her views to an advanced point, when she endeavored 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 regretted them! The men, scarce more than boys even then, had responded to every call to charge 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 public 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." Still another of our military family, invalided by his eleven months' confinement in Libby Prison, set his wan, white face toward the uncertain future before him, and began his bread-winning, his soul undaunted by his disabled body. Another—oh, what a brave boy he was!—took my husband's proffered aid, and received an appointment 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 country 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 Tomand the Michigan staff, who lived near us, were appropriating. The handsome, dark-haired fellow carried off the favors; for though the others 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 before 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 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 implacable 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 received 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 evangelizing. It was difficult to imagine him leading any one to the throneof 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 (for most of them went back to civil life), their marriage, the birth of a son—all gave my husband 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 everything 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 at the approach of every storm they have been obliged 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 anyonefinds this out in their lifetime, 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 instantly. 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 to put on his coat. I said something in bantering tones of his Plains life 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 saddle, 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 outburst 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 impossibility.
One day in New York my husband and I were paying our usual homage to the shop windows and to the beautifulwomen we passed, when he suddenly seized my arm and said, "There's Kiddoo! Let's catch up with him." I was skipped over gutters, and sped over pavements, the General unconscious that such a gait is not the usual movement of the New Yorker, until we came up panting each side of a tall, fine-looking man, apparently 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. Kiddoo, 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 husband 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 perpetually in a tender woman's heart. But he denied himself the blessing of such companionship, from 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 mettle that few in his experience could equal him, and years afterward, 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 administrationof civil as well as military affairs in Texas, and enjoyed the congratulatory 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 subjected 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 were held out to him. It was at that time much more customary than now, even, to establish corporations 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. Confidence 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, preferring to follow the same leaders in the political field that had led them in battle. The old soldiers, 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 years before, was a beardless youth with no apparent 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 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 General 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 Custer. 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 the Mexican Liberal Government. Señor 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 degree."
The stagnation of peace was being felt by those who had lived a breathless four years at the front. Howevermuch they might rejoice that carnage had ceased and no more broken hearts need be dreaded, it was very hard to quiet themselves into a life of inaction. No wonder our officers went to the Khedive for service! no wonder 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 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 question 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 country 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 been thrown with army people, and knew nothing before my marriage of the separations and anxieties of military life. 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 thisdivided existence 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 simplywouldnot, 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, constantly 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 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 General was obliged to be in New York and Washington 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 vicissitudes 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 thatwas 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 and loneliness of war times. I am sure that my father 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 to 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 experience with all kinds of people, to make a successful 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 violated. 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 considered. 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 bindinglegal contract ever made, would naturally find it difficult to realize, when entering civil life, that something else is considered necessary. 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 transactions. 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 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 poverty 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 had brought chagrin.
All these things I have heard my husband say, when we have encountered some heartbroken 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 people terma "calling," and he himself had felt a call to be a soldier, when he could scarcely speak plain. It was not the usual early love of boys for adventure. 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 classmate, 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 sessions, 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 thoroughly to oppose him. He thought the place of captain of a battery of artillery the most independent 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 comfort, and, except in times of war, the work is garrison 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 asmall 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 General 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 comrade to be present. It was the first time since his resignation that the Colonel and his beautiful 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 messages 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 Leavenworth, is fresh in my mind. She danced and rode charmingly, 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 mengathered 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 admiration, 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 the chapel at West Point came like a flash of lightning into his mind, and he almost had a convulsion, 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 enjoy the comfort of an Eastern home. When the yellow fever raged so in the Mississippi Valley, in 1878, and volunteerscame 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 Memphis, and there he ended a martyr life: not only ready to go because in his Master's service, but because the best of his life, and one for whom he continually sorrowed, awaited him beyond the confines of eternity.
ORDERS TO REPORT AT FORT RILEY, KANSAS.
General Custerwas 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 reunion 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 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' reunion, 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 subterfuge for hiding his confusion and getting out of the scrape by proposing "Garry Owen" 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 congratulated. I dearly loved, when I chanced to be with him, to witness their pride and hear their few words of praise.
Not long ago I was in a small town in Michigan, among some of my husband's old soldiers. Our sister Margaret was reciting for the benefit of the little 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 riding around with our General in war days," and added, with a most flattering ignoring of time's treatment of me, "You lookjustthe same, though you was a young gal then; and now, tho' you followed your husband 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 sought him out that summer was an officer 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 imploredhis mother to dye it dark. But as soon as his interview 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 surrender 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 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 lieutenant-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 imagination 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 fisherman and Nimrod was so sanguine over hisfuture, 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 warlike Indians. But Fort Garland soon faded from our view, in the excitement and interest 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 Leavenworth, than to attempt to carry along even a simple 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 important 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 housekeeping in garrison quarters was a sort of camping out after all, with one foot in a house and another in position to put into the stirrup and spin "over the hills and far away." We packed the few traps that had been used in camping in Virginia and Texas, but most of our attention 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 quarters than any amount of speechless bric-à-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 roseen masseand 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 laughedback 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" 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" objected. 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 paragraphed, it was announced that General Custer had taken to himself a wife, in a town where ninety-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 forwealth long enough to rush home and propose. Often we were all under inspection, and though demure and seemingly unconscious, I remember the after-tea walks when a knot of girls went off to "lovers' lane" to exchange experiences about some stranger from afar, who had been brought around by a solicitous 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 pastures 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 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 approached Monroe after coming from the campaigns. 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 reproachful looks at me, when your sunburned face is introduced among their fair complexions. When you are tired in addition, they seem to think I am a wretch unhung, and say, 'Why, General! whathaveyou 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 subjectedme to such disfigurement. Still, these mothers were neither going to run the risk of the peach-bloom and cream of their precious girls all running riot into one broad sunburn up to the roots of the hair, and this was another reason, in addition to the paramount one that "the girlsmightmarry into the army." The vagrant life, the inability to keep household gods, giving up the privileges 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 engagement 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 with poverty and a wooden leg was better than the career suggested 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.