An embarrassing position for General Custer was, that he had under him officers much older than himself. He was then but twenty-seven years of age, and the people whostudied to make trouble (and how rarely are they absent from any community!) used this fact as a means of stirring up dissension. How thankful I was that nothing could draw him into difficulty from that question, for he either refused to listen, or heard only to forget. One day he was deeply moved by the Major of our regiment, General Alfred Gibbs, who had commanded the brigade of regular cavalry in the Army of the Potomac during the war, and whose soul was so broad and his heart so big that he was above everything petty or mean. My husband called me into our room and shut the door, in order to tell me, quietly, that some gossip had endeavored to spread a report that General Gibbs was galled by his position, and unwilling to submit to the authority of so young a man. On hearing this, he came straightway to General Custer—ah, what worlds of trouble we would be saved if there were courage to inquire into slander!—and in the most earnest, frank manner assured him that he had never expressed such sentiments, and that their years of service together during the war had established an abiding regard for his soldierly ability that made it a pleasure to be in his regiment. This, from an officer who had served with distinction in the Mexican War, as well as done gallant service in an Indian campaign before the Civil War, was a most grateful compliment to my husband. General Gibbs was a famous disciplinarian, and he had also the quaintest manner of fetching every one to the etiquettical standard he knew to be necessary. He was witty, and greatly given to joking, and yet perfectly unswerving in the performance of the most insignificant duty. We have exhausted ourselves with laughter as he described, by contortions of feature and really extraordinary facial gymnastics, his efforts to dislodge a venturesome and unmilitary fly, that had perched on his nose when he was conducting a dress-parade. To lift his hand and brush off the intruder, with a long line of soldiers facing him, was an example he would scarcely like them to follow; and yet the tantalizing tickling of those fly-legs, slowly traveling over his moist and heated face, was almost too exasperatingto endure. If General Gibbs felt the necessity of reminding any one of carelessness in dress, it was managed in so clever a manner that it gave no lasting offense. My husband, absorbed in the drilling, discipline, and organization of the regiment, sometimes overlooked the necessity for social obligations, and immediately came under the General's witty criticisms. If a strange officer visited our post, and any one neglected to call, as is considered obligatory, it was remarked upon by our etiquettical mentor. If the officers were careless in dress, or wore semi-military clothes, something quite natural in young fellows who wanted to load on everything that glittered, our General Etiquette made mention of it. One wore an English forage-cap with a lot of gilt braid on top, instead of the plain visored cap of the regulations. The way he came to know that this innovation must be suppressed, was by a request from General Gibbs to purchase it for his bandmaster. He himself was so strictly military that he could well afford to hold the others up to the mark. His coats were marvelous fits, and he tightly buckled in his increasing rotundity with a superb belt and clasp that had belonged to his grandfather, a Wolcott in the Revolutionary War.
Most women know with what obstinate determination and adoring fondness a man clings to some shabby article of wearing apparel. There was in our family an ancient dressing-gown, not the jaunty smoking-jacket that I fortunately learned afterward to make; but a long, clumsy, quilted monstrosity that I had laboriously cobbled out with very ignorant fingers. My husband simply worshiped it. The garment appeared on one of his birthdays, and I was praised beyond my deserts for having put in shape such a success, and he could hardly slide out of his uniform, when he came from the office, quickly enough to enable him to jump into this soft, loose abomination. If he had vanity, which it is claimed is lodged somewhere in every human breast, it was spasmodic, for he not only knew that he looked like a fright, but his family told him this fact, with repeated variations of derision.When at last it became not even respectable, it was so ragged, I attempted to hide it, but this did no earthly good. The beloved possession was ferreted out, and he gaily danced up and down in triumph before his discomfited wife, all the rags and tags flaunting out as he moved. In vain General Gibbs asked me why I allowed such a disgraceful "old man's garment" about. The truth was, there was not half the discipline in our family that there might have been had we been citizens. A woman cannot be expected to keep a man up to the mark in every little detail, and surely she may be excused if she do a little spoiling when, after months of separation, she is returned to the one for whom her heart has been wrung with anxiety. No sooner are you together than there comes the ever-present terror of being divided again.
General Gibbs won at last in suppressing the old dressing-gown, for he begged General Custer to picture to himself the appearance of his entire regiment clad in long-tailed, ragged gowns modeled after that of their commanding officer! In dozens of ways General Gibbs kept us up to the mark socially. He never drew distinctions between the old army and the new, as some were wont to do, and his influence in shaping our regiment in social as well as military affairs was felt in a marked manner, and we came to regard him as an authority, and to value his suggestions.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.
Soonafter my husband returned from Washington, he found that Ristori was advertised in St. Louis, and as he had been delighted with her acting when in the East, he insisted upon my going there, though it was a journey of several hundred miles. The young officers urged, and the pretty Diana looked volumes of entreaty at me, so at last I consented to go, as we need be absent but a few days. At that time the dreaded campaign looked far off, and I was trying to cheat myself into the belief that there might possibly be none at all.
Ristori, heard under any circumstances, was an event in a life; but to listen to her as we did, the only treat of the kind in our winter, and feeling almost certain it was the last of such privileges for years to come, was an occasion never to be forgotten.
I do not know whether Diana collected her senses enough to know, at any one time, that she was listening to the most gifted woman in histrionic art. A civilian lover had appeared on the scene, and between our young officers, already far advanced in the dazed and enraptured state, and the new addition to her retinue, she was never many moments without "airy nothings" poured into her ear. The citizen and the officers glowered on each other, and sought in vain to monopolize the inamorata. Even when the thoughtless girl put a military cap on the head of a civilian, and told him that an improvement in his appearance was instantly visible, he still remained, and held his ground valiantly. Finally the most desperate of them called me to one side, and implored my championship. He complained bitterly that he neverbegan to say what trembled on his tongue but one of those interfering fellows appeared and interrupted him, and now, as the time was passing, there remained but one chance before he went home, where he would again be among a dozen other men who were sure to get in his way. He said he had thought over every plan, and if I would engage the interfering ones for a half hour, he would take Diana to the hotel cupola, ostensibly to see the view, and if, after they were up there, she saw anything but him, it would not be his fault; for say his say he must. No one could resist such a piteous appeal, so I engaged the supernumerary men in conversation as best I could, talking against time and eyeing the door as anxiously as they did. I knew, when the pair returned, that the pent-up avowal had found utterance; but the coquetting lass had left him in such a state of uncertainty that even "fleeing to the house-top" had not secured his future. So it went on, suspense and agitation increasing in the perturbed hearts, but the dallying of this coy and skillful strategist, wise beyond her years in some ways, seemed to prove that she believed what is often said, that a man is more blissful in uncertainty than in possession.
Our table was rarely without guests at that time. A great many of the strangers came with letters of introduction to us, and the General superintended the arrangements for buffalo-hunts, if they were to be in the vicinity of our post. Among the distinguished visitors was Prince Ourosoff, nephew of the Emperor of Russia. He was but a lad, and only knew that if he came west far enough, he was very likely to find what the atlas put down as the "Great American Desert." None of us could tell him much more of the Sahara of America than of his own steppes in Russia. As the years have advanced, the maps have shifted that imaginary desert from side to side. The pioneer does such wonders in cultivating what was then supposed to be a barren waste, that we bid fair in time not to have any Sahara at all. I hardly wonder now at the surprise this royal scion expressed at finding himself among men and women who kept up the amenitiesof refined life, even when living in that subterranean home which our Government provided for its defenders—the dug-out. It seems strange enough, that those of us who lived the rough life of Kansas's early days, did not entirely adopt the careless, unconventional existence of the pioneer, but military discipline is something not easily set aside.
Almost our first excursionists were such a success that we wished they might be duplicated in those who flocked out there in after years. Several of the party were old travelers, willing to undergo hardships and encounter dangers to see the country before it was overrun with tourists. They were our guests, and the manner in which they beguiled our time made their departure a real regret. They called themselves "Gideon's Band." The youngest of the party, a McCook, from the fighting Ohio family, was "Old Gid," while the oldest of all answered when they called "Young Gid." As they were witty, clever, conversant by actual experience with most things that we only read of in the papers, we found them a godsend.
When such people thanked us for what simple hospitality we could offer, it almost came as a surprise, for we felt ourselves their debtors. After having written to this point in my narrative of our gay visit from Gideon's Band, a letter in response to one that I had sent to Mr. Charles G. Leland arrived from London. I asked him about his poem, and after twenty years, in which we never saw him, he recalls with enthusiasm his short stay with us. I have only eliminated some descriptions that he gives in the extract of the private letter sent then from Fort Riley—descriptions of the wife of the commanding officer and the pretty Diana. Women being in the minority, it was natural that we were never undervalued. Grateful as I am that he should so highly appreciate officers' wives, and much as I prize what he says regarding "the influences that made a man, and kept him what he was," I must reserve for Mr. Leland's correspondent of twenty years back, and for myself, his opinion of frontier women.
"Langham Hotel, Portland Place,"London, W., June 14, 1887."Dear Mrs. Custer:—It is a thousand times more likely that you should forget me than that I should ever forget you, though it were at an interval of twice twenty years; the more so since I have read your admirable book, which has revived in me the memory of one of the strangest incidents and some of the most agreeable impressions of a somewhat varied and eventful life. I was with a party of gentlemen who had gone out to what was then the most advanced surveyor's camp for the Pacific Railway, in western Kansas. On returning, we found ourselves one evening about a mile from Fort Riley, where we were to be the guests of yourself and your husband. We had been all day in a so-called ambulance or wagon. The one that I shared with my friend, J. R. G. Hassard, of the New YorkTribune, was driven by a very intelligent and amusing frontiersman, deeply experienced in Indian and Mexican life, named Brigham. Brigham thought, by mistake, that we had all gone to Fort Riley by some other conveyance, and he was thirty or forty yards in advance, driving on rapidly. We, encumbered with blankets, packs and arms, had no mind to walk when we could 'wagon.' One man whistled, and all roared aloud. Then one discharged his rifle. But the wind was blowing away from Brigham towards us, and he heard nothing. The devil put an idea in my head, for which I have had many a regret since then.Infandum regina jubes renovare dolorem.('Thou, my queen, dost command me to revive a wretched sorrow.') For it occurred that I could send a rifle-ball so near to Brigham's head that he could hear the whistle, and that this would very naturally cause him to stop. If I could only know all, I would sooner have aimed between my own eyes."'Give me a gun,' I said to Colonel Lambourn."'You won't shoot at him!' said the Colonel."'If you'll insure the mules,' I replied, 'I will insure the driver.'"I took aim and fired. The ambulance was covered, and I did not know that Mr. Hassard, the best fellow in the world—nemini secundus—was sitting inside and talking to Brigham. The bullet passed between their faces, which were a foot apart—less rather than more."'What is that?' cried Hassard."'Injuns!' replied Brigham, who knew by many an experience how wagons were Apached, Comanchied, or otherwise aboriginated."'Lay down flat!'"He drove desperately till he thought he was out of shot, and then put out his head to give the Indians a taunting war-whoop. I shall never forget the appearance of that sunburned face, with gold ear-rings and a vast sombrero! What was his amazement at seeing only friends! I did not know what Brigham's state of mind might be toward me, but I remembered that he gloried in his familiarity with Spanish, so I said to him in the Castile-soap dialect, 'I fired that shot; is it to be hand or knife between us?' It is to his credit that he at once shook my hand, and said, 'La mano!' He drove on in grim silence, and then said, 'I've driven for twelve years on this frontier, but I never heard, before, of anybody trying to stop one by shooting the driver.'"Another silence, broken by the following remark: 'I wish to God there was a gulch any where between here and the fort! I'd upset this party into it d——n quick.'"But I had a great fear. It was of General Custer and what he would have to say to me, for recklessly imperiling the life of one of his drivers, to say nothing of what might have happened to a valuable team of mules and the wagon. It was with perturbed feelings—and,ay de mi!with an evil conscience—that I approached him. He had been informed of the incident, but was neither angry nor vindictive. All he did was to utter a hearty laugh and say, 'I never heard before of such an original way of ringing a bell to call a man.'"In a letter written about this time to a friend, I find the following:"'We had not for many days seen a lady. Indeed, the only woman I had met for more than a week was a poor, sad soul, who, with her two child-daughters, had just been brought in by Lieutenant Hesselberger from a six-months' captivity of outrage and torture among the Apaches. You may imagine how I was impressed with Mrs. General Custer and her friend, Miss ——. . . ."'General Custer is an ideal—the ideal of frank chivalry, unaffected, genial humor, and that earnestness allied to originalitywhich is so characteristic of the best kind of Western army man. I have not, in all my life, met with so many interesting types of character, as during this, my first journey to Kansas, but first among all, I place this trio."'In the evening a great musical treat awaited me. I had once passed six months in Bavaria, where I had learned to love the zither. This instrument was about as well known twenty years ago in America, as a harp of a thousand strings. But there was at the fort a Bavarian soldier, who played charmingly on it, and he was brought in. I remember asking him for many of his best-loved airs. The General and his wife impressed me as two of the best entertainers of guests whom I ever met. The perfection of this rare talent is, to enjoy yourself while making others at their ease and merry, and the proof lies in this, that seldom, indeed, have I ever spent so pleasant an evening as that in the fort.'"My personal experience of General Custer does not abound in anecdotes, but is extremely rich in my impressions of him, as a type and a character, both as man and gentleman. There is many a man whom I have met a thousand times, whom I hardly recollect at all, while I could never forget him. He was not only an admirable but an impressive man. One would credit anything to his credit, because he was so frank and earnest. One meets with a somewhat similar character sometimes among the Hungarians, but just such a man is as rare as the want of them in the world is great."With sincere regards, yours truly,"Charles G. Leland."
"Langham Hotel, Portland Place,"London, W., June 14, 1887.
"Dear Mrs. Custer:—It is a thousand times more likely that you should forget me than that I should ever forget you, though it were at an interval of twice twenty years; the more so since I have read your admirable book, which has revived in me the memory of one of the strangest incidents and some of the most agreeable impressions of a somewhat varied and eventful life. I was with a party of gentlemen who had gone out to what was then the most advanced surveyor's camp for the Pacific Railway, in western Kansas. On returning, we found ourselves one evening about a mile from Fort Riley, where we were to be the guests of yourself and your husband. We had been all day in a so-called ambulance or wagon. The one that I shared with my friend, J. R. G. Hassard, of the New YorkTribune, was driven by a very intelligent and amusing frontiersman, deeply experienced in Indian and Mexican life, named Brigham. Brigham thought, by mistake, that we had all gone to Fort Riley by some other conveyance, and he was thirty or forty yards in advance, driving on rapidly. We, encumbered with blankets, packs and arms, had no mind to walk when we could 'wagon.' One man whistled, and all roared aloud. Then one discharged his rifle. But the wind was blowing away from Brigham towards us, and he heard nothing. The devil put an idea in my head, for which I have had many a regret since then.Infandum regina jubes renovare dolorem.('Thou, my queen, dost command me to revive a wretched sorrow.') For it occurred that I could send a rifle-ball so near to Brigham's head that he could hear the whistle, and that this would very naturally cause him to stop. If I could only know all, I would sooner have aimed between my own eyes.
"'Give me a gun,' I said to Colonel Lambourn.
"'You won't shoot at him!' said the Colonel.
"'If you'll insure the mules,' I replied, 'I will insure the driver.'
"I took aim and fired. The ambulance was covered, and I did not know that Mr. Hassard, the best fellow in the world—nemini secundus—was sitting inside and talking to Brigham. The bullet passed between their faces, which were a foot apart—less rather than more.
"'What is that?' cried Hassard.
"'Injuns!' replied Brigham, who knew by many an experience how wagons were Apached, Comanchied, or otherwise aboriginated.
"'Lay down flat!'
"He drove desperately till he thought he was out of shot, and then put out his head to give the Indians a taunting war-whoop. I shall never forget the appearance of that sunburned face, with gold ear-rings and a vast sombrero! What was his amazement at seeing only friends! I did not know what Brigham's state of mind might be toward me, but I remembered that he gloried in his familiarity with Spanish, so I said to him in the Castile-soap dialect, 'I fired that shot; is it to be hand or knife between us?' It is to his credit that he at once shook my hand, and said, 'La mano!' He drove on in grim silence, and then said, 'I've driven for twelve years on this frontier, but I never heard, before, of anybody trying to stop one by shooting the driver.'
"Another silence, broken by the following remark: 'I wish to God there was a gulch any where between here and the fort! I'd upset this party into it d——n quick.'
"But I had a great fear. It was of General Custer and what he would have to say to me, for recklessly imperiling the life of one of his drivers, to say nothing of what might have happened to a valuable team of mules and the wagon. It was with perturbed feelings—and,ay de mi!with an evil conscience—that I approached him. He had been informed of the incident, but was neither angry nor vindictive. All he did was to utter a hearty laugh and say, 'I never heard before of such an original way of ringing a bell to call a man.'
"In a letter written about this time to a friend, I find the following:
"'We had not for many days seen a lady. Indeed, the only woman I had met for more than a week was a poor, sad soul, who, with her two child-daughters, had just been brought in by Lieutenant Hesselberger from a six-months' captivity of outrage and torture among the Apaches. You may imagine how I was impressed with Mrs. General Custer and her friend, Miss ——. . . .
"'General Custer is an ideal—the ideal of frank chivalry, unaffected, genial humor, and that earnestness allied to originalitywhich is so characteristic of the best kind of Western army man. I have not, in all my life, met with so many interesting types of character, as during this, my first journey to Kansas, but first among all, I place this trio.
"'In the evening a great musical treat awaited me. I had once passed six months in Bavaria, where I had learned to love the zither. This instrument was about as well known twenty years ago in America, as a harp of a thousand strings. But there was at the fort a Bavarian soldier, who played charmingly on it, and he was brought in. I remember asking him for many of his best-loved airs. The General and his wife impressed me as two of the best entertainers of guests whom I ever met. The perfection of this rare talent is, to enjoy yourself while making others at their ease and merry, and the proof lies in this, that seldom, indeed, have I ever spent so pleasant an evening as that in the fort.'
"My personal experience of General Custer does not abound in anecdotes, but is extremely rich in my impressions of him, as a type and a character, both as man and gentleman. There is many a man whom I have met a thousand times, whom I hardly recollect at all, while I could never forget him. He was not only an admirable but an impressive man. One would credit anything to his credit, because he was so frank and earnest. One meets with a somewhat similar character sometimes among the Hungarians, but just such a man is as rare as the want of them in the world is great.
"With sincere regards, yours truly,"Charles G. Leland."
As Mr. Leland's poem, "Breitmann in Kansas," was inspired partly by the buffalo-hunt and visit at our quarters, I quote a few stanzas:[G]
"Vonce oopen a dimes, der Herr Breitmann vent oud West. Von efenings he was drafel mit some ladies und shendlemans, und he shtaid incognitus. Und dey singed songs dill py and py one of de ladies say: 'Ish any podies here ash know de crate pallad of "Hans Breitmann's Barty?"' Den Hans said, 'I amdat rooster!' Den der Hans took a drink und a let pencil und a biece of baper, und goes indo himself a little dimes, and den coomes out again mit dis boem:
"Vonce oopen a dimes, der Herr Breitmann vent oud West. Von efenings he was drafel mit some ladies und shendlemans, und he shtaid incognitus. Und dey singed songs dill py and py one of de ladies say: 'Ish any podies here ash know de crate pallad of "Hans Breitmann's Barty?"' Den Hans said, 'I amdat rooster!' Den der Hans took a drink und a let pencil und a biece of baper, und goes indo himself a little dimes, and den coomes out again mit dis boem:
"Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas;He drafel fast und far.He rided shoost drei dousand milesAll in one railroot car.He knowed foost rate how far he goed—He gounted all de vile.Dar vash shoost one bottle of champagne,Dat bopped at efery mile."Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas;He went in on de loud.At Ellsvort in de prairie land,He found a pully croud.He looked for bleeding Kansas,But dat's 'blayed out,' dey say;De whiskey keg's de only dingsDat's bleedin' dere to-day."Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas;Py shings! I dell you vot,Von day he met a crisly bearDat rooshed him down, bei Gott!Boot der Breitmann took und bind der bear,Und bleased him fery much—For efry vordt der crisly growledVas goot Bavarian Dutch!"Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas!By donder, dat is so!He ridit out upon de plainsTo chase de boofalo.He fired his rifle at de bools,Und gallop troo de shmokeUnd shoomp de canyons shoost as ifDer tyfel vas a choke!"
Not only were a large number of officers brought together that winter from varied walks in life and of different nationalities, but the men that enlisted ranged from the highest type of soldier to the lowest specimens of humanity recruited in the crowded cities. It often happened that enlisted men had served an honorable record as officers in the volunteer service. Some had entered the regular army because their life was broken up by the war and they knew not how to begin a new career; others had hopes of promotion, on the strength of their war record, or from the promises of influential friends. My heart is moved anew as I recall one man, who sank his name and individuality, his very self, it seemed, by enlistment, and as effectually disappeared as if he had flung himself into the river that rushed by our post. One night there knocked at the door of one of our officer's quarters a man who, though in citizen's dress, was at once recognized as an old comrade in the war. He had been a brigadier-general of volunteers. After he had been made welcome, he gave some slight account of himself, and then said he had about made up his mind to enlist. Our Seventh Cavalry officer implored him not to think of such a thing, pictured the existence of a man of education and refinement in such surroundings, and offered him financial help, should that be needed. He finally found the subject was adroitly withdrawn, and the conversation went back to old times. They talked on in this friendly manner until midnight, and then parted. The next day a soldier in fresh, bright blue uniform, passed the officer, formally saluting as he went by, and to his consternation he discovered in this enlisted man his friend of the night before. They never met again; the good-by of the midnight hour was in reality the farewell that one of them had intended it to be.
This is but one of many instances where superior men, for one reason or another, get into the ranks of our army. If they are fortunate enough to fall into the hands of considerate officers, their lot is endurable; but to be assigned to one who is unjust and overbearing is a miserable existence.One of our finest men was so constantly looking, in his soldiers, for the same qualities that he possessed, and insisted so upon the superiority of his men that the officers were wont to exclaim in good-natured irony, "Oh, yes, we all know that Hamilton's company is made up of dukes and earls in disguise."
grapesgrapes
There were some clever rogues among the enlisted men, and the officers were as yet scarcely able to cope with the cunning of those who doubtless had intimate acquaintance with courts of justice and prisons in the Eastern States. The recruiting officer in the cities is not compelled, as in other occupations, to ask a character from a former employer. The Government demands able-bodied men, and the recruiting sergeant casts his critical eye over the anatomicaloutlines, as he would over the good points of a horse destined for the same service. The awful hereafter is, when the officer that receives this physical perfection on the frontier aims to discover whether it contains a soul.
Our guard-house at Fort Riley was outside the garrison a short distance, and held a goodly number of violators of the regulations. For several nights, at one time, strange sounds for such a place issued from the walls. Religion in the noisiest form seemed to have taken up its permanent abode there, and for three hours at a time singing, shouting and loud praying went on. There was every appearance of a revival among those trespassers. The officer of the day, in making his rounds, had no comment to pass upon this remarkable transition from card-playing and wrangling; he was doubtless relieved to hear the voice of the exhorters as he visited the guard, and indulged in the belief that the prisoners were out of mischief. On the contrary, this vehement attack of religion covered up the worst sort of roguery. Night after night they had been digging tunnels under the stone foundation-walls, removing boards and cutting beams in the floor, and to deaden the sound of the pounding and digging some of their number were told off to sing, pray and shout. One morning the guard opened the door of the rooms in which the prisoners had been confined, and they were empty! Even two that wore ball and chains for serious offences had in some manner managed to knock them off, as all had swum the Smoky Hill River, and they were never again heard from.
As with the history of all prisons, so it was of our little one. The greatest rogues were not incarcerated; they were too cunning to be caught. It often happened that some excellent soldiers became innocently involved in a fracas and were marched off to the guard-house, while the archvillain slipped into his place in the ranks and answered to his name at roll-call, apparently the most exemplary of soldiers. Several instances of what I thought to be unjust imprisonment came directly under my notice, and I may have been greatly influencedby Eliza's pleas in their behalf. We made the effort, and succeeded in extricating one man from his imprisonment. Whether he was in reality wronged, or had only worked upon our sympathies, will never be known, but he certainly made an excellent soldier from that time until the end of his enlistment. Eliza, in her own quaint way, is saying to me now: "Do you mind, Miss Libbie, how me and you got J—— his parole? He used to come to our house with the rest of the prisoners, to police the yard and cut the wood, and they used to hang round my door; the guard could hardly get 'em away. Well, I reckon he didn't try very hard, for he didn't like hard-tack no better than they did. One of them would speak up the minute they saw me, and say, 'Eliza, you hain't got no hot biscuit, have you?' Hot biscuits for prisoners! do you hearthat, Miss Libbie? The Ginnel would be standin' at the back window, just to catch a chance to laugh at me if I gave the prisoners anythin' to eat. He'd stand at that window, movin' from one foot to the other, craning of his neck, and when I did give any cold scraps, he just bided his time, and when he saw me he would say, 'Well, been issuin' your rations again, Eliza? How many apple-dumplin's and biscuit did they get this time?' Apple-dumplin's, Miss Libbie! He jest said that 'cause he liked 'em better than anythin' else, and s'posed I'd been givin' away some of his. But as soon as he had teased me about it, that was the end; he would go along about his way and pick up his book, when he had done his laugh. But, Miss Libbie, he used to kinder mistrust, if me and you was talkin' one side. He would say, 'What you two conspirin' up now? Tryin' to get some one out of jail, I s'pose.' I remember how we worked for J——. He came to me and told me I must 'try to get Mrs. Custer to work for him; two words from her would do him more good than all the rest,' and he would come along sideways by your window, carrying his ball over his arm with the chain adanglin', and look so pitiful like, so you would see him and beg him off." This affair ended entirely to Eliza's satisfaction. I saw the captain of his company;for though it was against my husband's wish that I should have anything to do with official matters, he did not object to this intervention; he only laughed at my credulity. The captain politely heard my statement of what Eliza had told me were J——'s wrongs, and gave him parole. His sentence was rescinded eventually, as he kept his promises and was a most faithful soldier. The next morning after J—— was returned to duty and began life anew, one of the young officers sauntered into our quarters and, waving his hand with a little flourish, said, "I want to congratulate you on having obtained the pardon of the greatest scamp in the regiment; he wouldn't steal a red-hot stove, but would wait a mighty long time for it to cool." Later in my story is my husband's mention, in his letters, of the very man as bearing so good a record that he sent for him and had him detailed at headquarters, for nothing in the world, he confessed, but because I had once interceded for him.
Eliza kept my sympathies constantly aroused, with her piteous tales of the wrongs of the prisoners. They daily had her ear, and she appointed herself judge, jury and attorney for the defense. On the coldest days, when we could not ride and the wind blew so furiously that we were not able to walk, I saw from our windows how poorly clad they were, for they came daily, under the care of the guard, to cut the wood and fill the water-barrels. The General quietly endured the expressions of sympathy, and sometimes my indignant protests against unjust treatment. He knew the wrathful spirit of the kitchen had obeyed the natural law that heat must rise, and treated our combined rages over the prisoners' wrongs with aggravating calmness. Knowing more about the guard-house occupants than I did, he was fortified by facts that saved him from expending his sympathies in the wrong direction. He only smiled at the plausible stories by which Eliza was first taken in at the kitchen door. They lost nothing by transmission, as she had quite an imagination and decidedly a dramatic delivery; and finally, when I told the tale, trying to perform the monstrously hard feat of tellingit as it was told to me, youth, inexperience and an emotional temperament made a narrative so absolutely distressing that the General was likely to come over bodily to our side, had he not recalled the details of the court-martial that had tried the soldier. We were routed, yet not completely, for we fell back upon his clothes, and pleaded that, though he was thought to be wicked, he might be permitted to be warm. But the colored and white troops had to leave the field, "horse, foot and dragoons," when, on investigation, we found that the man for whom we pleaded had gambled away his very shirt.
The unmoved manner in which my husband listened to different accounts of supposed cruelty—dropping his beloved newspaper with the injured air that men assume, while I sat by him, half crying, gesticulating, thoroughly roused in my defense of the injured one—was exasperating, to say the least; and then, at last, to have this bubble of assumed championship burst, and see him launch into such uproarious conduct when he found that the man for whom I pleaded was the archrogue of all—oh, women alone can picture to themselves what the situation must have been to poor me!
After one of these seasons of good-natured scoffing over the frequency with which I was taken in, I mentally resolved that, though the proof I heard of the soldier's depravity was too strong for me to ignore, there was no contesting the fact that the criminal was cold, and if I had failed in freeing him I might at least provide against his freezing. He was at that time buttoning a ragged blouse up to his chin, not only for warmth, but because in his evening game of poker, his comrade had won the undergarment, quite superfluous, he thought, while warmed by the guard-house fire. I proceeded to shut myself in our room, and go through the General's trunk for something warm. The selection that I made was unfortunate. There were some navy shirts of blue flannel that had been procured with considerable trouble from a gunboat in the James River the last year of the war, the like of which, in quality and durability, could not be found in any shop.The material was so good that they neither shrunk nor pulled out of shape. The broad collar had a star embroidered in solid silk in either corner. The General had bought these for their durability, but they proved to be a picturesque addition to his gay dress; and the red necktie adopted by his entire Third Division of Cavalry gave a dash of vivid color, while the yellow hair contrasted with the dark blue of the flannel. The gunboats were overwhelmed with applications to buy, as his Division wished to adopt this feature of his dress also, and military tailors had many orders to reproduce what the General had "lighted upon," as the officers expressed it, by accident. Really, there was no color so good for campaigning, as it was hard to harmonize any gray tint with the different blues of the uniform. Men have a way of saying that we women never seize their things, for barter or other malevolent purposes, without selecting what they especially prize. But the General really had reason to dote upon these shirts.
The rest of the story scarcely needs telling. Many injured husbands, whose wardrobes have been confiscated for eleemosynary purposes, will join in a general wail. The men that wear one overcoat in early spring, and carry another over their arm to their offices, uncertain, if they did not observe this precaution, that the coming winter would not find these garments mysteriously metamorphosed into lace on a gown, or mantel ornaments, may fill in all that my story fails to tell. In the General's case, it was perhaps more than ordinarily exasperating. It was not that a creature who bargains for "gentlemen's cast-offs" had possession of something that a tailor could not readily replace, but we were then too far out on the Plains to buy even ordinary blue flannel.
As I remember myself half buried in the trunk of the commanding officer, and suddenly lifted into the air with a shirt in one hand, my own escape from the guard-house seems miraculous. As it was, I was let off very lightly, ignoring some remarks about its being "a pretty high-handed state of affairs, that compels a man to lock his trunk in his ownfamily; and that, between Tom's pilfering and his wife's, the commanding officer would soon be obliged to receive official reports in bed."
There was very little hunting about Fort Riley in the winter. The General had shot a great many prairie chickens in the autumn, and hung them in the wood-house, and while they lasted we were not entirely dependent on Government beef. As the season advanced, we had only ox-tail soup and beef. Although the officers were allowed to buy the best cuts, the cattle that supplied the post with meat were far from being in good condition. One day our table was crowded with officers, some of whom had just reported for duty. The usual great tureen of soup was disposed of, and the servant brought in an immense platter, on which generally reposed a large roast. But when the dish was placed before the General, to my dismay there appeared in the centre of its wide circumference a steak hardly larger than a man's hand. It was a painful situation, and I blushed, gazed uneasily at the new-comers, but hesitated about apologies as they were my husband's detestation. He relieved us from the awful silence that fell upon all, by a peal of laughter that shook the table and disturbed the poor little steak in its lonesome bed. Eliza thrust her head in at the door, and explained that the cattle had stampeded, and the commissary could not get them back in time to kill, as they did daily at the post. The General was perfectly unmoved, calling those peculiar staccato "all right!" "all right!" to poor Eliza, setting affairs at ease again, and asking the guests to do the best they could with the vegetables, bread and butter, coffee and dessert.
The next day beef returned to our table, but, alas! the potatoes gave out, and I began to be disturbed about my housewifely duties. My husband begged me not to give it a thought, saying that Eliza would pull us through the temporary famine satisfactorily, and adding, that what was good enough for us was good enough for our guests. But an attack of domestic responsibility was upon me, and I insistedupon going to the little town near us. Under any circumstances the General opposed my entering its precincts, as it was largely inhabited by outlaws and desperadoes, and to go for so small a consideration as marketing was entirely against his wishes. I paid dearly for my persistence; for when, after buying what I could at the stores, I set out to return, the chain bridge on which I had crossed the river in the morning had been swept away, and the roaring torrent, that had risen above the high banks, was plunging along its furious way, bearing earth and trees in its turbid flood. I spent several dreary hours on the bank, growing more uneasy and remorseful all the time. The potatoes and eggs that so short a time since I had triumphantly secured, seemed more and more hateful to me, as I looked at them lying in the basket in the bottom of the ambulance. I made innumerable resolves that, so long as my husband did not wish me to concern myself about providing for our table, I never would attempt it again; but all these resolutions could not bring back the bridge, and I had to take the advice of one of our officers, who was also waiting to cross, and go back to the house of one of the merchants who sold supplies to the post. His wife was very hospitable, as frontier men and women invariably are, and next morning I was down on the bank of the river early, more impatient than ever to cross. What made the detention more exasperating was that the buildings of the garrison on the plateau were plainly visible from where we waited. Then ensued the most foolhardy conduct on my part, and so terrified the General when I told him afterward, that I came near never being trusted alone again. The most vexing part of it all was that I involved the officer, who was in town by accident, in imminent danger, for when he heard what I was determined to do, he had no alternative but to second my scheme, as no persuasion was of any avail. I induced a sergeant in charge of a small boat to take me over. I was frantic to get home, as for some time preparations had been going on for a summer campaign, and I had kept it out of our day as much as I could.
The General never anticipated trouble, reasoning that it was bad enough when it came, and we both felt that every hour must hold what it could of enjoyment, and not be darkened a moment if we could help it. The hours of delay on the bank were almost insupportable, as each one was shortening precious time. I could not help telling the sergeant this, and he yielded to my entreaties—for what soldier ever refused our appeals? The wind drove through the trees on the bank, lashing the limbs to and fro and breaking off huge branches, and it required almost superhuman strength to hold the frail boat to the slippery landing long enough to lift me in. The soldier at the prow held in his muscular hands a pole with an iron pin at the end, with which he used all his energy to push away the floating logs that threatened to swamp us. It was almost useless to attempt to steer, as the river had a current that it was impossible to stem. The only plan was to push out into the stream filled with debris, and let the current shoot the boat far down the river, aiming for a bend in its shores on the opposite side. I closed my eyes to the wild rush of water on all sides, shuddering at the shouts of the soldiers, who tried to make themselves heard above the deafening clamor of the tempest. I could not face our danger and retain my self-control, and I was tortured by the thought of having brought peril to others. I owed my life to the strong and supple arms of the sergeant and the stalwart soldier who assisted him, for with a spring they caught the limbs of an overhanging tree, just at the important moment when our little craft swung near the bank at the river bend, and, clutching at branches and rocks, we were pulled to the shore and safely landed. Why the brave sergeant even listened to such a wild proposition I do not know. It was the maddest sort of recklessness to attempt such a crossing, and the man had nothing to gain. With the strange, impassable gulf that separates a soldier from his officers and their families, my imploring to be taken over the river, and my overwhelming thanks afterward, were the only words he would ever hear me speak. With the officer who shared the peril, it was different.When we sat around the fireside again, he was the hero of the hour. The gratitude of the officers, the thanks of the women putting themselves in my place and giving him praise for encountering danger for another, were some sort of compensation. The poor sergeant had nothing; he went back to the barracks, and sank his individuality in the ranks, where the men look so alike in their uniform it is almost impossible to distinguish the soldier that has acted the hero from one who is never aught but a poltroon. After the excitement of the peril I had passed was over, I no longer wondered that there was such violent opposition to women traveling with troops. The lesson lasted me a long time, as I was well aware what planning and preparation it cost to take us women along, in any case, when the regiment was on the move, and to make these efforts more difficult by my own heedlessness was too serious a mistake to be repeated.
In spite of the drawbacks to a perfectly successful garrison, which was natural in the early career of a regiment, the winter had been full of pleasure to me; but it came to a sad ending when the preparations for the departure of the troops began. The stitches that I put in the repairs to the blue flannel shirts were set with tears. I eagerly sought every opportunity to prepare the camping outfit. The mess-chest was filled with a few strong dishes, sacks were made and filled with coffee, sugar, flour, rice, etc., and a few cans of fruit and vegetables were packed away in the bottom of the chest. The means of transportation were so limited that every pound of baggage was a matter of consideration, and my husband took some of the space that I thought ought to be devoted to comforts, for a few books that admitted of reading and rereading. Eliza was the untiring one in preparing the outfit for the summer. She knew just when to administer comforting words, as I sighed over the preparations, and reminded me that "the Ginnel always did send for you every chance he got, and war times on the Plains wa'n't no wuss than in Virginia."
Animal heads on the wall, stuffed animals on the mantelTROPHIES OF THE CHASE IN GENERAL CUSTER'S LIBRARY.
There was one joke that came up at every move we evermade, over which the General was always merry. The officers, in and out of our quarters daily, were wont to observe the unusual alacrity that I displayed when orders came to move. As I had but little care or anxiety about household affairs, the contrast with my extreme interest in the arrangements of the mess-chest, bedding and campaigning clothes was certainly marked. I longed for activity, to prevent me from showing my heavy heart, and really did learn to be somewhat successful in crowding a good deal into a small space, and choosing the things that were most necessary. As the officers came in unannounced, they found me flying hither and thither, intent on my duties, and immediately saw an opportunity to tease the General, condoling with him because, having exhausted himself in arduous packing for the campaign, he would be obliged to set out totally unfitted for the summer's hardships. After their departure, he was sure to turn to me, with roguery in his voice, and asked if I had noticed how sorry all those young fellows were for a man who was obliged to work so hard to get his traps ready to move.
It was amusing to notice the indifferent manner in which some of the officers saw the careful and frugal preparing for the campaign. That first spring's experience was repeated in every after preparation. There were always those who took little or nothing themselves, but became experts at casual droppings in to luncheon or dinner with some painstaking provider, who endeavored vainly to get himself out of sight when the halt came for eating. This little scheme was occasionally persisted in merely to annoy one who, having shown some signs of parsimony, needed discipline in the eyes of those who really did a great deal of good by their ridicule. Among one group of officers, who had planned to mess together, the only provision was a barrel of eggs. It is only necessary to follow a cavalry column over the crossing of one creek, to know the exact condition that such perishable food would be in at the end of the first day. There were two of the "plebes," as the youngest of the officers were called—as I recall them, bright, boyish, charming fellows—who openlyrebelled against the rebuffs they claimed were given them, when they attempted to practice the dropping-in plan at another's meals.
After one of these sallies on the enemy, they met the repulse with the announcement that if "those stingy old mollycoddles thought they had nothing to eat in their own outfit, they would show them," and took the occasion of one of their birthdays to prove that their resources were unlimited. Though the two endeavored to conceal the hour and place of this fête, a persistent watcher discovered that the birthday breakfast consisted of a bottle of native champagne and corn bread. The hospitality of officers is too well known to make it necessary to explain that those with any tendency to penuriousness were exceptions. An army legend is in existence of an officer who would not allow his hospitality to be set aside, even though he was very short of supplies. Being an officer of the old army, he was as formal over his repast as if it were abundant, and, with all ceremony, had his servant pass the rice. The guest, thinking it the first course, declined, whereupon the host, rather offended, replied, "Well, if you don't like the rice, help yourself to the mustard." This being the only other article on the bill of fare, there need be no doubt as to his final choice. When several officers decide to mess together on a campaign, each one promises to provide some one necessary supply. On one of these occasions, after the first day's march was ended, and orders for dinner were given to the servant, it was discovered that all but one had exercised his own judgment regarding what was the most necessary provision for comfort, and the one that had brought a loaf of bread instead of a demijohn of whiskey was berated for his choice.
In the first days of frontier life, our people knew but little about preparations for the field, and it took some time to realize that they were in a land where they could not live upon the country. It was a severe and lasting lesson to those using tobacco, when they found themselves without it, and so far from civilization that there was no opportunity of replenishingtheir supply. On the return from the expedition, the injuries as well as the enjoyments are narrated. Sometimes we women, full of sympathy for the privations that had been endured, found that thesewereinjuries; sometimes we discovered that imagination had created them. We enjoyed, maliciously I am afraid, the growling of one man who never erred in any way, and consequently had no margin for any one that did; calculating and far-seeing in his life, he felt no patience for those who, being young, were yet to learn those lessons of frugality that were born in him. He was still wrathful when he gave us an account of one we knew to be delightfully impudent when he was bent on teasing. When the provident man untied the strings of his tobacco-pouch, and settled himself for a smoke, the saucy young lieutenant was sure to stroll that way, and in tones loud enough for those near to hear him, drawl out, "I've got a match; if any other fellow's got a pipe and tobacco, I'll have a smoke."
The expedition that was to leave Fort Riley was commanded by General Hancock, then at the head of the Department of the Missouri. He arrived at our post from Fort Leavenworth with seven companies of infantry and a battery of artillery. His letters to the Indian agents of the various tribes give the objects of the march into the Indian country. He wrote:
"I have the honor to state, for your information, that I am at present preparing an expedition to the Plains, which will soon be ready to move. My object in doing so at this time is, to convince the Indians within the limits of this Department that we are able to punish any of them who may molest travelers across the Plains, or who may commit other hostilities against the whites. We desire to avoid, if possible, any troubles with the Indians, and to treat them with justice, and according to the requirements of our treaties with them; and I wish especially, in my dealings with them, to act through the agents of the Indian Department as far as it is possible to do so. If you, as their agent, can arrange these matters satisfactorily with them, we shall be pleased to defer the whole subject to you. In case of your inability to do so, Iwould be pleased to have you accompany me when I visit the country of your tribes, to show that the officers of the Government are acting in harmony. I shall be pleased to talk with any of the chiefs whom we may meet. I do not expect to make war against any of the Indians of your agency, unless they commence war against us."
In General Custer's account, he says that "the Indians had been guilty of numerous thefts and murders during the preceding summer and autumn, for none of which had they been called to account. They had attacked the stations of the overland mail-route, killed the employees, burned the stations and captured the stock. Citizens had been murdered in their homes on the frontier of Kansas; and murders had been committed on the Arkansas route. The principal perpetrators of these acts were the Cheyennes and Sioux. The agent of the former, if not a party to the murder on the Arkansas, knew who the guilty persons were, yet took no steps to bring the murderers to punishment. Such a course would have interfered with his trade and profits. It was not to punish for these sins of the past that the expedition was set on foot, but, rather, by its imposing appearance and its early presence in the Indian country, to check or intimidate the Indians from a repetition of their late conduct. During the winter the leading chiefs and warriors had threatened that, as soon as the grass was up, the tribes would combine in a united outbreak along the entire frontier."
There had been little opportunity to put the expedition out of our minds for some time previous to its departure. The sound from the blacksmith's shop, of the shoeing of horses, the drilling on the level ground outside of the post, and the loading of wagons about the quartermaster and commissary storehouses, went on all day long. At that time the sabre was more in use than it was later, and it seemed to me that I could never again shut my ears to the sound of the grindstone, when I found that the sabres were being sharpened. The troopers, when mounted, were curiosities, and a decided disappointment to me. The horse, when preparedfor the march, barely showed head and tail. My ideas of the dashing trooper going out to war, clad in gay uniform and curbing a curveting steed, faded into nothingness before the reality. Though the wrapping together of the blanket, overcoat and shelter-tent is made a study of the tactics, it could not be reduced to anything but a good-sized roll at the back of the saddle. The carbine rattled on one side of the soldier, slung from the broad strap over his shoulder, while a frying-pan, a tin-cup, a canteen, and a haversack of hardtack clattered and knocked about on his other side. There were possibly a hundred rounds of ammunition in his cartridge-belt, which took away all the symmetry that his waist might otherwise have had. If the company commander was not too strict, a short butcher-knife, thrust into a home-made leather case, kept company with the pistol. It was not a murderous weapon, but was used to cut up game or slice off the bacon, which, sputtering in the skillet at evening camp-fire, was the main feature of the soldier's supper. The tin utensils, the carbine and the sabre, kept up a continual din, as the horses seemingly crept over the trail at the rate of three to four miles an hour. In addition to the cumbersome load, there were sometimes lariats and iron pichet-pins slung on one side of the saddle, to tether the animals when they grazed at night. There was nothing picturesque about this lumbering cavalryman, and, besides, our men did not then sit their horses with the serenity that they eventually attained. If the beast shied or kicked—for the poor thing was itself learning to do soldiering, and occasionally flung out his heels, or snatched the bit in his mouth in protest—it was a question whether the newly made Mars would land on the crupper or hang helplessly among the domestic utensils suspended to his saddle. How sorry I was for them, they were so bruised and lamed by their first lessons in horsemanship. Every one laughed at every one else, and this made it seem doubly trying to me. I remembered my own first lessons among fearless cavalrymen—a picture of a trembling figure, about as uncertain in the saddle as if it were a wave of the sea, the handscold and nerveless, and, I regret to add, the tears streaming down my cheeks! These recollections made me writhe when I saw a soldier describing an arc in the air, and his self-freed horse galloping off to the music of tin and steel in concert, for no such compulsory landing was ever met save by a roar of derision from the column. Just in proportion as I had suffered for their misfortunes, did I enjoy the men when, after the campaign, they returned, perfect horsemen and with such physiques as might serve for a sculptor's model.
At the time the expedition formed at Fort Riley, I had little realization what a serious affair an Indian campaign was. We had heard of the outrages committed on the settlers, the attacking of the overland supply-trains, and the burning of the stage-stations; but the rumors seemed to come from so far away that the reality was never brought home to me until I saw for myself what horror attends Indian depredations. Even a disaster to one that seemed to be of our own family, failed to implant in me that terror of Indians which, a month or two later, I realized to its fullest extent by personal danger. I must tell my reader, by going back to the days of the war, something of the one that first showed us what Indian warfare really was. It was a sad preparation for the campaign that followed.
After General Custer had been promoted from a captain to a brigadier-general, in 1863, his brigade lay quietly in camp for a few days, to recruit before setting out on another raid. This gave the unusual privilege of lying in bed a little later in the morning, instead of springing out before dawn. For several mornings in succession, my husband told me, he saw a little boy steal through a small opening in the tent, take out his clothes and boots, and after a while creep back with them, brushed and folded. At last he asked Eliza where on earth that cadaverous little image came from, and she explained that it was "a poor little picked sparrow of a chile, who had come hangin' aroun' the camp-fire, mos' starved," and added, "Now, Ginnel, you mustn't go and turn him off, for he's got nowhar to go, and 'pears like he's crazy to waiton you." The General questioned him, and found that the boy, being unhappy at home, had run away. Enough of his sad life was revealed to convince the General that it was useless to attempt to return him to his Eastern home, for he was a determined little fellow, and there was no question that he would have fled again. His parents were rich, and my husband evidently knew who they were; but the story was confidential, so I never knew anything of him, except that he was always showing signs of good-breeding, even though he lived about the camp-fire. A letter that my husband wrote to his own home at that time, spoke of a hound puppy that one of his soldiers had given to him, and then of a little waif, called Johnnie, whom he had taken as his servant. "The boy," he wrote, "is so fond of the pup he takes him to bed with him." Evidently the child began his service with devotion, for the General adds; "I think he would rather starve than to see me go hungry. I have dressed him in soldier's clothes, and he rides one of my horses on the march. Returning from the march one day, I found Johnnie with his sleeves rolled up. He had washed all my soiled clothes and hung them on the bushes to dry. Small as he is, they were very well done."
Soon after Johnnie became my husband's servant, we were married, and I was taken down to the Virginia farm-house, that was used as brigade headquarters. By this time, Eliza had initiated the boy into all kinds of work. She, in turn, fed him, mended his clothes, and managed him, lording it over the child in a lofty but never unkind manner. She had tried to drill him to wait on the table, as she had seen the duty performed on the old plantation. At our first dinner he was so bashful I thought he would drop everything. My husband did not believe in having a head and foot to the table when we were alone, so poor little Johnnie was asked to put my plate beside the General's. Though he was so embarrassed in this new phase of his life, he was never so intimidated by the responsibility Eliza had pressed upon him that he was absent-minded or confused regarding one point:he invariably passed each dish to the General first. Possibly my husband noticed it. I certainly did not. There was a pair of watchful eyes at a crack in the kitchen-door, which took in this little incident. One day the General came into our room laughing, his eyes sparkling with fun over Eliza's description of how she had noticed Johnnie always serving the General first, and had labored with him in secret, to teach him to wait on the lady first. "It's manners," she said, believing that was a crushing argument. But Johnnie, usually obedient, persistently refused, always replying that the General was the one of us two that ranked, and he ought to be served first.
At the time of General Kilpatrick's famous raid, when he went to take Richmond, General Custer was ordered to make a détour in an opposite direction, in order to deceive the Confederate army as to the real object to be accomplished. This ruse worked so successfully, that General Custer and his command were put in so close and dangerous a situation it was with difficulty that any of them escaped. The General told me that when the pursuit of the enemy was hottest, and everyone doing his utmost to escape, he saw Johnnie driving a light covered wagon at a gallop, which was loaded with turkeys and chickens. He had received his orders from Eliza, before setting out, to bring back something for the mess, and the boy had carried out her directions with a vengeance. He impressed into his service the establishment that he drove, and filled it with poultry. Even in the mêlée and excitement of retreat, the General was wonderfully amused, and amazed too, at the little fellow's fearlessness. He was too fond of him to leave him in danger, so he galloped in his direction and called to him, as he stood up lashing his horse, to abandon his capture or he would be himself a prisoner. The boy obeyed, but hesitatingly, cut the harness, sprang upon the horse's unsaddled back, and was soon with the main column. The General, by his delay, was obliged to take to an open field to avoid capture, and leap a high fence in order to overtake the retreating troops.
He became more and more interested in the boy, who was such a combination of courage and fidelity, and finally arranged to have him enlist as a soldier. The war was then drawing to its close, and he secured to the lad a large bounty, which he placed at interest for him, and after the surrender, persuaded Johnnie to go to school. It was difficult to induce him to leave; but my husband realized what injustice it was to keep him in the menial position to which he desired to return, and finally left him, with the belief that he had instilled some ambition into the boy.
A year and a half afterward, as we were standing on the steps of the gallery of our quarters at Fort Riley, we noticed a stripling of a lad walking toward us, with his head hanging on his breast, in the shy, embarrassed manner of one who doubts his reception. With a glad cry, my husband called out that it was Johnnie Cisco, and bounded down the steps to meet him. After he was assured of his welcome, he told us that it had been impossible for him to stay away, he longed so constantly to be again with us, and added that if we would only let him remain, he would not care what he did. Of course, the General regretted the giving up of his school; but, now that he had made the long journey, there was no help for it, and he decided that he should continue with us until he could find him employment, for he was determined that he should not reënlist. The boy's old and tried friend, Eliza, at once assumed her position of "missus," and, kind-hearted tyrant! gave him every comfort and made him her vassal, without a remonstrance from the half-grown man, for he was only too glad to be in the sole home he knew, no matter on what terms. Soon after his coming, the General obtained from one of the managers of the Wells Fargo Express Company a place of messenger; and the recommendation he gave the boy for honesty and fidelity was confirmed over and over again by the officers of the express line. He was known on the entire route from Ogden to Denver, and was entrusted with immense amounts of gold in its transmission from the Colorado mines to the States. Several timeshe came to our house for a vacation, and my husband had always the unvarying and genuine welcome that no one doubted when once given, and he did not fail to praise and encourage the friendless fellow. Eliza, after learning what the lad had passed through, in his dangers from Indians, treated him like a conquering hero, but alternately bullied and petted him still. At last there came a long interval between his visits, and my husband sent to the express people to inquire. Poor Johnnie had gone like many another brave employee of that venturesome firm. In a courageous defense of the passengers and the company's gold, when the stage was attacked, he had been killed by the Indians. Eliza kept the battered valise that her favorite had left with us, and mourned over it as if it had been something human. I found her cherishing the bag in a hidden corner, and recalling to me, with tears, how warm-hearted Johnnie was, saying that the night the news of her old mother's death came to her from Virginia, he had sat up till daybreak to keep the fire going. "Miss Libbie, I tole him to go to bed, but he said, 'No, Eliza, I can't do it, when you are in trouble: when I had no friends, and couldn't help myself, you helped me.'" After that, the lad was always "poor Johnnie," and many a boy with kinsfolk of his own is not more sincerely mourned.
As the days drew nearer for the expedition to set out, my husband tried to keep my spirits up by reminding me that the council to be held with the chiefs of the warlike tribes, when they reached that part of the country infested with the marauding Indians, was something he hoped might result in our speedy reunion. He endeavored to induce me to think, as he did, that the Indians would be so impressed with the magnitude of the expedition, that, after the council, they would accept terms and abandon the war-path. Eight companies of our own regiment were going out, and these, with infantry and artillery, made a force of fourteen hundred men. It was really a large expedition, for the Plains; but the recollections of the thousands of men in the Third Cavalry Division,which was the General's command during the war, made the expedition seem too small, even for safety.
No one can enumerate the terrors, imaginary and real, that filled the hearts of women on the border in those desperate days. The buoyancy of my husband had only a momentary effect in the last hours of his stay. That time seemed to fly fast; but no amount of excitement and bustle of preparation closed my eyes, even momentarily, to the dragging hours that awaited me. Such partings are such a torture that it is difficult even to briefly mention them. My husband added another struggle to my lot by imploring me not to let him see the tears that he knew, for his sake, I could keep back until he was out of sight. Though the band played its usual departing tune, "The Girl I Left Behind Me," if there was any music in the notes, it was all in the minor key to the men who left their wives behind them. No expedition goes out with shout and song, if loving, weeping women are left behind. Those who have not assumed the voluntary fetters that bind us for weal or for woe, and render it impossible to escape suffering while those we love suffer, or rejoicing while those to whom we are united are jubilant, felt too keenly for their comrades when they watched them tear themselves from clinging arms inside the threshold of their homes, even to keep up the stream of idle chaffing that only such occasions can stop. There was silence as the column left the garrison. Alas! the closed houses they left were as still as if death had set its seal upon the door; no sound but the sobbing and moans of women's breaking hearts.
Eliza stood guard at my door for hours and hours, until I had courage, and some degree of peace, to take up life again. A loving, suffering woman came to sleep with me for a night or two. The hours of those first wakeful nights seemed endless. The anxious, unhappy creature beside me said, gently, in the small hours, "Libbie, are you awake?" "Oh, yes," I replied, "and have been for ever so long." "What are you doing?" "Saying over hymns, snatches of poetry, the Lord's Prayer backward, counting, etc., to try to put myselfto sleep." "Oh, say some rhyme to me, in mercy's name, for I am past all hope of sleep while I am so unhappy!" Then I repeated, over and over again, a single verse, written, perhaps, by some one who, like ourselves, knew little of the genius of poetry, but, alas! much of what makes up the theme of all the sad verses of the world: