It never came to be an old story with me, that in this constant, familiar a.s.sociation with drinking, the General and those of his comrades who abstained could continue to exercise a marvelous self-control. I could not help constantly speaking to my husband of what he went through; and it seemed to me that no liberty could be too great to extend to men who, always keeping their heads, were clear as to what they were about. The domestic lariat of a cavalryman might well be drawn in, if the women waiting at home were uncertain whether the brains of their liege lords would be muddled when absent from their influence.
CHAPTER XIII.
A MEDLEY OF OFFICERS AND MEN.
IT was well we had our horses at Fort Riley for recreation, as walking was almost out of the question in autumn. The wind blew unceasingly all the five years we were in Kansas, but it seemed to do its wildest work in autumn. No one had told us of its incessant activity, and I watched for it to quiet down for days after our arrival, and grew restless and dull for want of exercise, but dared not go out. As the post was on a plateau, the wind from the two river valleys swept over it constantly.
The flag was torn into ribbons in no time, and the storm-flag, made smaller, and used in rainy weather, had to be raised a good deal, while the larger and handsomer one was being mended. We found that the other women of the garrison, who were there when we arrived, ventured out to see one another, and even crossed the parade-ground, when it was almost impossible to keep on one"s feet. It seems to date very far back, when I recall that our dresses then measured five yards around, and were gathered as full as could be pressed into the waistband. These seven breadths of skirt flew out in advance of us, if they did not lift themselves over our heads. My skirts wrapped themselves around my husband"s ankles, and rendered locomotion very difficult for us both, if we tried to take our evening stroll. He thought out a plan, which he helped me to carry into effect, by cutting bits of lead in small strips, and these I sewed into the hem. Thus loaded down, we took our const.i.tutional about the post, and outwitted the elements, which at first bade fair to keep us perpetually housed.
There was very little social life in garrison that winter. The officers were busy studying tactics, and accustoming themselves to the new order of affairs, so very different from their volunteer experience. Had not everything been so novel, I should have felt disappointed in my first a.s.sociation with the regular army in garrison. I did not then consider that the few old officers and their families were really the regular army, and so was somewhat disheartened regarding our future a.s.sociates.
As fast as our own officers arrived, a part of the regiment that had garrisoned Fort Riley before we came went away; but it soon became too late in the season to send the remainder. The post was therefore crowded. The best manners with which all had made their debut wore off, and some jangling began. Some drank too freely, and were placed under arrest, or released if they went on pledge. Nothing was said, of course, if they were sober enough for duty; but there were some hopeless cases from the first. For instance, a new appointee made his entrance into our parlor, when paying the visit that military etiquette requires, by falling in at the door, and after recovering an upright position, proceeded to entangle himself in his sword again, and tumble into a chair. I happened to be alone, and was, of course, very much frightened.
In the afternoon the officers met in one of their quarters, and drew up resolutions that gave the new arrival the choice of a court-martial or his resignation before night; and by evening he had written out the papers resigning his commission. Another fine-looking man, whom the General worked long and faithfully to make a sober officer, had really some good instincts. He was so glad to get into our home circle, and was so social, telling the drollest stories of far Western life, where he had lived formerly, that I became greatly interested in his efforts at reformation. He was almost the first to be court-martialed for drunkenness on duty, and that was always a grief to us; but in those early days of our regiment"s history, arrest, imprisonment and trial had to go on much of the time. The officer to whom I refer was getting into and out of difficulty incessantly. He repented in such a frank, regretful sort of way that my husband kept faith in his final reformation long after it seemed hopeless. One day I asked him to dinner. It was Thanksgiving, and on those days we tried to select the officers that talked most to us of their homes and parents. To my dismay, our reprobate came into the room with very uncertain gait. The other men looked anxiously at him. My husband was not in the parlor. I thought of other instances where these signs of intoxication had pa.s.sed away in a little while, and tried to ignore his condition. He was sober enough to see the concerned look in his comrades" faces, and brought the tears to my eyes by walking up to me and saying, "Mrs. Custer, I"m sorry, but I think it would be best for me to go home." Who could help being grieved for a man so frank and humble over his failings? There were six years of such vicissitudes in this unfortunate man"s life, varied by brave conduct in the Indian campaigns, before the General gave him up. He violated, at last, some social law that was considered an outrage beyond pardon, which compelled his departure from the Seventh.
That first winter, while the General was trying to enforce one fact upon the new-comers, that the Seventh must be a sober regiment, it was a difficult and anything but pleasant experience.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL CUSTER AT HIS DESK IN HIS LIBRARY.]
Very few of the original appointments remained after a few years. Some who served on to the final battle of 1876, went through many struggles in gaining mastery of themselves. The General believed in them, and they were such splendid fighters, and such fine men when there was anything to occupy them, I know that my husband appreciated with all his soul what trials they went through in facing the monotony of frontier life.
Indeed, he was himself enduring some hours of torture from restlessness and inactivity. It is hard to imagine a greater change than from the wild excitement of the Virginia campaigns, the final scenes of the war, to the dullness of Fort Riley. Oh! how I used to feel when my husband"s morning duties at the office were over, and he walked the floor of our room, saying, "Libbie, what shall I do?" There were no books to speak of, for the Seventh was then too new a regiment to purchase company libraries, as we did later... . My husband never cared much for current novels, and these were almost the sole literature of the households at that time. At every arrival of the mail, there was absolute contentment for a while. The magazines and newspapers were eagerly read, and I used to discover that even the advertis.e.m.e.nts were scanned. If the General was caught at this, and accused of it, he slid behind his paper in mock humility, peeping roguishly from one side when a voice, pitched loftily, inquired whether reading advertis.e.m.e.nts was more profitable than talking with one"s wife? It was hard enough, though, when the heaps of newspapers lay on the floor, all devoured, and one so devoted to them as he was condemned to await the slow arrival of another mail. The _Harper"s Bazar_ fashion-pages were not scorned in that dearth of reading, by the men about our fireside. We had among us a famous newspaper-reader; the men could not outstrip her in extracting everything that the paper held, and the General delighted in hunting up accounts of "rapscallions" from her native State, cutting out the paragraphs, and sending them to her by an orderly. But his hour of triumph was brief, for the next mail was sure to contain an account of either a Michigan or Ohio villain, and the promptness with which General Custer was made aware of the vagabondage of his fellow-citizens was highly appreciated by all of us. He had this disadvantage: he was a native of Ohio, and appointed to the Military Academy from there, and that State claimed him, and very proud we were to have them do so; but Michigan was the State of his adoption during the war, he having married there, and it being the home of his celebrated "Michigan brigade." ...
He was enabled, by that bright woman"s industry, to ascertain what a large share of the population of those States were adepts in crime, as no trifling account, or even a pickpocket was overlooked. I remember how we laughed at her one day. This friend of ours was not in the least sensational, she was the very incarnation of delicate refinement. All her reading (aside from the search for Ohio and Michigan villains in the papers) was of the loftiest type; but the blood rose in wild billows over her sweet face when her son declared his mother such a newspaper devotee that he had caught her reading the "personals." We knew it was a fib; but it proves to what lengths a person might go from sheer desperation, when stranded on the Plains.
Fortunately, I was not called much from home, as there were few social duties that winter, and we devised all sorts of trumpery expedients to vary our life. There was usually a wild game of romps before the day was ended. We had the strangest neighbors. A family lived on each floor, but the walls were not thick, as the Government had wasted no material in putting up our plain quarters. We must have set their nerves on edge, I suppose, for while we tore up stairs and down, using the furniture for temporary barricades against each other, the dogs barking and racing around, glad to join in the fracas, the din was frightful.
The neighbors--not belonging to our regiment, I am thankful to say, having come from a circle where the husband brings the wife to terms by brute force--in giving a minute description of the sounds that issued from our quarters, accounted for the melee to those of the garrison they could get to listen, by saying that the commanding officer was beating his wife. While I was inclined to resent such accusations, they struck the General very differently. He thought it was intensely funny, and the gossip pa.s.sed literally in at one ear and out at the other, though it dwelt with him long enough to suggest something about the good discipline a man _might_ have if the Virginia law, never repealed, were now in vogue. I felt sure it would fare badly with me; for, though the dimensions of the stick with which a man is permitted to beat his wife are limited to the size of the husband"s finger, my husband"s hands, though in good proportion, had fingers the bones of which were unusually large. These strange fingers were not noticeable until one took hold of them; but if they were carefully studied, with the old English law of Virginia in mind, there well might be a family mutiny. I tried to beg off from further visits to certain families of this stamp, but never succeeded; the General insisted on my going everywhere. One of the women asked me one day if I rose early. Not knowing why she asked, I replied that I feared it was often 9 o"clock before we awoke, whereupon she answered, in an affected voice, that "she never rose early--it was so plebeian."
It was very discouraging, this first encounter with what I supposed would be my life-long a.s.sociates. There were many political appointments in the army then. Each State was ent.i.tled to its quota, and they were frequently given for favoritism, regardless of soldierly qualities.
There were also a good many non-commissioned officers, who, having done good service during the war, were given commissions in the new regiments. For several years it was difficult to arrange everything so satisfactorily in social life that no one"s feelings would be hurt. The unvarying rule, which my husband considered should not be violated by any who truly desired harmony, was to visit every one in their circle, and exclude no one from invitations to our house, unless for positively disgraceful conduct.
We heard, from other posts, of the most amusing and sometimes the most uncomfortable of experiences. If I knew any one to whom this incident occurred, I should not venture to make use of it as an example of the embarra.s.sing situations in the new order of affairs in the reorganized army. The story is true; but the names, if I ever knew them, have long since faded out of memory. One of the Irish laundresses at a Western post was evidently infatuated with army life, as she was the widow of a volunteer officer--doubtless some old soldier of the regular army, who held a commission in one of the regiments during the war--and the woman drew the pension of a major"s widow. Money, therefore, could not have been the inducement that brought her back to a frontier post. At one time she left her fascinating clothes-line and went into the family of an officer, to cook, but was obliged to leave, from illness. Her place was filled satisfactorily, and when she recovered and came back to the officer"s wife, she was told that the present cook was entirely satisfactory, but she might yet find a place, as another officer"s wife (whose husband had been an enlisted man, and had lately been appointed an officer in the regular regiment stationed there) needed a cook. It seems that this officer"s wife also had been a laundress at one time, and the woman applying for work squared herself off in an independent manner, placed her arms akimbo, and announced her platform: "Mrs. Blank, I ken work for a leddy, but I can"t go there; there was a time when Mrs.
---- and I had our toobs side by side."
How often, in that first winter, I thought of my father"s unstinted praise of the regular army, as he had known it at Sackett"s Harbor and at Detroit, in Michigan"s early days. I could not but wonder what he would think, to be let down in the midst of us. He used to say, in reference to my future, "Daughter, marrying into the army, you will be poor always; but I count it infinitely preferable to riches with inferior society. It consoles me to think you will be always a.s.sociated with people of refinement." Meanwhile, the General was never done begging me to be silent about any new evidences of vulgarity. There were several high-bred women at Fort Riley; but they were so discreet I never knew but that they had been accustomed to such a.s.sociations, until after the queer lot had departed and we dared to speak confidentially to one another.
Soon after the officers began to arrive in the autumn, an enlisted man, whom the General had known about in the regular army, reported for duty.
He had reenlisted in the Seventh, hoping ultimately for a commission. He was soldierly in appearance, from his long experience in military life, and excellently well versed in tactics and regimental discipline. On this account he was made sergeant-major, the highest non-commissioned officer of a regiment; and, at his request, the General made application almost at once for his appointment as a lieutenant in the Seventh Cavalry. The application was granted, and the sergeant-major went to Washington to be examined. The examining board was composed of old and experienced officers, who were reported to be opposed to the appointment of enlisted men. At any rate, the applicant was asked a collection of questions that were seemingly unanswerable. I only remember one, "What does a regiment of cavalry weigh?" Considering the differences in the officers, men and horses, it would seem as if a correct answer were impossible. The sergeant-major failed, and returned to our post with the hopelessness before him of five years of a.s.sociation with men in the ranks; for there is no escaping the whole term of enlistment, unless it is found that a man is under age. But the General did not give up. He encouraged the disappointed man to hope, and when he was ordered before the board himself, he went to the Secretary of War and made personal application for the appointment. Washington was then full of men and their friends, clamoring for the vacancies in the new regiments; but General Custer was rarely in Washington, and was guarded in not making too many appeals, so he obtained the promise, and soon afterward the sergeant-major replaced the chevrons with shoulder-straps. Then ensued one of those awkward situations, that seem doubly so in a life where there is such marked distinction in the social standing of an officer and a private; and some of the Seventh Cavalry made the situation still more embarra.s.sing by conspicuous avoidance of the new lieutenant, carefully ignoring him except where official relations existed. This seemed doubly severe, as they knew of nothing in the man"s conduct, past or present, to justify them in such behavior. He had borne himself with dignity as sergeant-major, living very much to himself, and performing every duty punctiliously. Shortly before, he had been an officer like themselves in the volunteer service, and this social ostracism, solely on account of a few months of service as an enlisted man, was absurd.
They went back to his early service as a soldier, determined to show him that he was not "to the manner born." The single men had established a mess, and each bachelor officer who came was promptly called upon and duly invited to join them at table. There was literally no other place to be fed. There were no cooks to be had in that unsettled land, and if there had been servants to hire, the exorbitant wages would have consumed a lieutenant"s pay. There were enough officers in the bachelors" mess to carry the day against the late sergeant-major. My husband was much disturbed by this discourteous conduct; but it did not belong to the province of the commanding officer, and he was careful to keep the line of demarkation between social and official affairs distinct. Yet it did not take long for him to think a way out of the dilemma. He came to me to ask if I would be willing to have him in our family temporarily, and, of course, it ended in the invitation being given. In the evening, when our quarters filled up with the bachelor officers, they found the lieutenant whom they had snubbed established as one of the commanding officer"s family. He remained as one of us until the officers formed another mess, as their number increased, and the new lieutenant was invited to join them. This was not the end of General Custer"s marked regard for him, and as long as he lived he showed his unswerving friendship, and, in ways that the officer never knew, kept up his disinterested loyalty, making me sure, as years advanced, that he was worthy of the old adage, "Once a friend, always a friend." Until he was certain that there was duplicity and ingrat.i.tude, or that worst of sins, concealed enmity, he kept faith and friendships intact. At that time there was every reason in the world for an officer whose own footing was uncertain, and who owed everything to my husband, to remain true to him.
Many of the officers were learning to ride, as they had either served in the infantry during the war, or were appointed from civil life, and came from all sorts of vocations. It would seem that hardly half of the number then knew how to sit or even to mount a horse, and the grand and lofty tumbling that winter kept us in a constant state of merriment. It was too bad to look on and laugh; but for the life of me I could not resist every chance I had to watch them clambering up their horses"
sides, tying themselves hopelessly in their sabres, and contorting their heels so wildly that the restive animal got the benefit of a spur in unexpected places, as likely in his neck as in his flank. One officer, who came to us from the merchant marine, used to insist upon saying to his brother officers, when off duty and experimenting with his steed, "If you don"t think I am a sailor, see me shin up this horse"s foreleg."
Some grew hot and wrathy if laughed at, and that increased our fun.
Others were good-natured, even coming into the midst of us and deliberately narrating the number of times the horse had either slipped from under them, turned them off over his head, or rubbed them off by running against a fence or tree-trunk. Occasionally somebody tried to hide the fact that he had been thrown, and then there was high carnival over the misfortune. The ancient rule, that had existed as far back as the oldest officer could remember, was, that a basket of champagne was the forfeit of a first fall. Many hampers were emptied that winter; but as there were so many to share the treat (and I am inclined to think, also, it was native champagne, from St. Louis), I don"t remember any uproarious results, except the natural wild spirits of fun-loving people. After the secret was out and the forfeit paid, there was much more courage among the officers in letting the mishaps be known. They did not take their nags off into gullys where they were hidden from the post, and have it out alone, but tumbled off in sight of the galleries of our quarters, and made nothing of a whole afternoon of voluntary mounting and decidedly involuntary dismounting. One of the great six-footers among us told me his beast had tossed him off half a dozen times in one ride, but he ended by conquering. He daily fought a battle with his horse, and, in describing the efforts to unseat him, said that at last the animal jumped into the creek. How I admired his pluck and the gleam in his eye; and what a glimpse that determination to master gave of his successful future! for he won in resisting temptation, and conquered in making himself a soldier, and his life, though short, was a triumph.
I am obliged to confess that to this day I owe a basket of champagne, for I belonged to those that went off the horse against their will and then concealed the fact. My husband and one of his staff were riding with me one day, and asked me to go on in advance, as they wanted to talk over something that was not of interest to me. I forgot to keep watch of my fiery steed, and when he took one of those mad jumps from one side of the road to the other, at some imaginary obstacle, not being on guard I lost balance, and found myself hanging to the saddle. There was nothing left for me but an ignominious slide, and I landed in the dust. The General found Phil trotting riderless toward him, was terribly frightened, and rode furiously toward where I was. To save him needless alarm, I called out, "All right!" from my lowly position, and was really quite unharmed, save my crushed spirits. No one can serve in the cavalry and not feel humiliated by a fall. I began to implore the two not to tell, and in their relief at my escape from serious hurt they promised.
But for weeks they made my life a burden to me, by direct and indirect allusions to the accident when a group of us were together. They brought little All Right, the then famous j.a.panese acrobat, into every conversation, and the General was constantly wondering, in a seemingly innocent manner, "how an old campaigner _could_ be unseated, under any circ.u.mstances." It would have been better to confess and pay the penalty, than to live thus under the sword of Damocles. Still, I should have deprived my husband of a world of amus.e.m.e.nt, and every joke counted in those dull days, even when one was himself the victim.
The Board in Washington then examining the officers of the new regiments, called old and new alike; but in the General"s case, as in that of most of the officers who had seen service before the war, or were West Point graduates, it was but a form, and he was soon back in our post.
He began then a fashion that he always kept up afterward, of having regular openings of his trunk for my benefit. I was as interested in the contents as any child. First putting me under promise to remain in one spot without "peeking," as the children say, he took out from the trunk in our room article after article for me. They comprised everything a woman could wear, from gowns to stockings, with ribbons and hats. If all the gowns he brought were not made, he had dress-materials and stored-up recollections of the new modes of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. He enjoyed jokes on himself, and gave us all a laughable description of his discovering in the city some fashion that he had especially liked, when, turning in the crowded street, he followed at a respectful distance the woman wearing it, in order to commit to memory the especial style. Very naturally, he also took in the gait and figure of the stylish wearer, even after he had fixed the cut of her gown in his mind that he might eventually transfer it to me. Ah, how we tormented him when he described his discomfiture, and the sudden termination of his walk, when a turn in the street revealed the face of a negress!
I shall have to ask that a thought be given to our surroundings, to make clear what an immense pleasure a trunkful of finery was at that time.
There were no shops nearer than Leavenworth, and our faces were set westward, so there seemed to be no prospect of getting such an outfit for years. There was no one in that far country to prevent the screams of delight with which each gift was received, and it is impossible to describe how jubilant the donor was over the success of his purchases.
Brother Tom made a time always, because his name was left out, but he noted carefully if the General"s valise held a new supply of neckties, gloves, etc., and by night he had usually surrept.i.tiously transferred the entire contents to his own room. The first notification would be his appearance next morning at the breakfast-table wearing his brother"s new things, his face perfectly solemn and innocent, as if nothing peculiar was going on. This sort of game never grew old, and it seemed to give them much more amus.e.m.e.nt than if the purchases were formally presented.
My husband confided to me that, knowing Tom would take all he could lay his hands on, he had bought twice as many as he needed. The truth is, it was only for the boyish fun they got out of it, for he always shared everything he had with his brother.
At some point in the journey East, the General had fallen into conversation with an officer who, in his exuberance of spirits at his appointment to the Seventh, had volunteered every detail about himself.
He was coming from his examination at Washington, and was full of excitement over the new regiment. He had not the slightest idea who my husband was, only that he was also an officer, but in the course of conversation brought his name up, giving all the accounts he had heard of him from both enemies and friends, and his own impressions of how he should like him. The General"s love of mischief, and curiosity to hear himself so freely discussed, led the unsuspecting man to ramble on and on, incited by an occasional query or reflection regarding the character of the Lieutenant-colonel of the Seventh. The first knowledge the Lieutenant had with whom he had been talking was disclosed to him when he came to pay the customary call on the return of the commanding officer at Fort Riley. His face was a study; perplexity and embarra.s.sment reddened his complexion almost to a purple, and he moved about uneasily in his chair, abashed to think he had allowed himself to speak so freely of a man to that person"s very face. My husband left him but a moment in this awkward predicament, and then laughed out a long roll of merriment, grasping the man"s hand, and a.s.sured him that he must remember his very freely expressed views were the opinions of others, and not his own. It was a great relief to the Lieutenant, when he reached his quarters, to find that he had escaped some dire fate, either long imprisonment or slow torture; for at that time the volunteer officers had a deeply fixed terror of the stern, unflinching severity of regular officers. Again he became confidential, and told the bachelor mess. This was too good a chance to lose; they felt that some more fun could still be extracted, and immediately planned a sham trial. The good-natured man said his stupidity merited it, and asked for counsel.
The case was spun out as long as it could be made to last. We women were admitted as audience, and all the grave dignity of his mock affair was a novelty.
The court used our parlor as a Hall of Justice. The counsel for the prisoner was as earnest in his defense as if great punishment was to be averted by his eloquence. In the daytime he prepared arguments, while at the same time the prosecuting attorney wrinkled his brows over the most convincing a.s.saults on the poor man, who, he vehemently a.s.serted, ought not to go at large laden with such unpardonable crime. The judge addressed the jury, and that solemn body of men disappeared into our room, perching on the trunks, the bed, the few chairs, to seriously discuss the ominous "guilty" or "not guilty." The manner of the grave and dignified judge, as he finally addressed the prisoner, admonishing him as to his future, sorrowfully announcing the decision of the jury as guilty, and condemning him to the penalty of paying a basket of champagne, was worthy of the chief executor of an Eastern court.
We almost regretted that some one else would not, by some harmless misdemeanor, put himself within the reach of such a court. This affair gave us the first idea of the clever men among us, for all tried to acquit themselves at their best, even in the burlesque trial.
Little by little it came out what varied lives our officers had led heretofore. Some frankly spoke of the past, as they became acquainted, while others, making an effort to ignore their previous history, were found out by the letters that came into the post every mail, or by some one arriving who had known them in their other life. The best bred among them--one descended from a Revolutionary colonel and Governor of a State, the other from Alexander Hamilton--were the simplest and most unaffected in manner. The boaster and would-be aristocrat of our number had the misfortune to come face to face with a townsman, who effectually silenced further reference to his gorgeous past. There were men who had studied law; there was one who had been a stump-speaker in Montana politics, and at last a judge in her courts; another who had been a sea-captain, and was distinguished from a second of his name in the regiment by being called always thereafter "Salt Smith," while the younger was "Fresh Smith," or, by those who were fond of him, "Smithie."
There was also a Member of Congress, who, having returned to his State after the war, had found his place taken and himself quite crowded out.
When this officer reported for duty, I could not believe my eyes. But a few months before, in Texas, he had been such a bitter enemy of my husband"s, that, with all the caution observed to keep official matters out of my life, it could not be hidden from me. The General, when this officer arrived, called me into our room and explained that, finding him without employment in Washington when he went before the Board, he could not turn away from his appeal for a commission in the service, and had applied, without knowing he would be sent to our regiment. "And now, Libbie, you would not hurt my feelings by showing animosity and dislike to a man whose hair is already gray!" There was no resisting this appeal, and no disguising my appreciation of the manner in which he treated his enemies, so his words brought me out on the gallery with extended hand of welcome, though I would sooner have taken hold of a tarantula. I never felt a moment"s regret, and he never forgot the kindness, or that he owed his prosperity, his whole future, in fact, to the General, and he won my regard by his unswerving fidelity to him from that hour to this.
There were some lieutenants fresh from West Point, and some clerks, too, who had tried to turn themselves into merchants, and groaned over the wretched hours they had spent, since the close of the war, in measuring tape. We had several Irish officers--reckless riders, jovial companions.
One had served in the Papal army, and had foreign medals. There was an Italian who had a long, strange career to draw upon for our amus.e.m.e.nt, and numbered, among his experiences, imprisonment for plotting the life of his king. There were two officers who had served in the Mexican War, and the ears of the subalterns were always opened to their stories of those days when, as lieutenants, they followed Gen. Scott in his march over the old Cortez highway to his victories and conquests. There was a Prussian among the officers, who, though expressing his approval of the justice and courtesy that the commanding officer showed in his charge of the garrison, used to infuriate the others by making invidious distinctions regarding foreign service and our own. We had an educated Indian as an officer. He belonged to the Six Nations, and his father was a Scotchman; but there was no Scotch about him, except that he was loyal to his trusts and a brave soldier, for he looked like any wild man of the Plains; and one of his family said to him, laughingly, "Dress you up in a blanket, and you couldn"t be told from a Cheyenne or Arrapahoe."
There was a Frenchman to add to the nationalities we represented, and in our heterogeneous collection one company might have its three officers with parentage from three of the four corners of the earth.
The immense amount of rank these new lieutenants and captains carried was amusing, for those who had served in the war still held their t.i.tles when addressed unofficially, and it was, to all appearances, a regiment made up of generals, colonels and majors. Occasionally, an officer who had served in the regular army many years before the war arrogantly lorded it over the young lieutenants. One especially, who saw nothing good in the service as it now was, constantly referred to "how it was done in the old First." Having a young fellow appointed from civil life as his lieutenant, who knew nothing of army tactics or etiquette, he found a good subject over whom to tyrannize. He gave this lad to understand that whenever the captain made his appearance he must jump up, offer him a chair, and stand attention. It was, in fact, a servile life he was mapping out for his subordinate. If the lad a.s.serted himself in the slightest way, the captain straightened up that Prussian backbone, tapped his shoulder-strap, and grandiloquently observed, "Remember the goolf" [gulf], meaning the great chasm that intervened between a shoulder-strap with two bars and one with none. Even one knowing little of military life is aware that the "goolf" between a captain and a second lieutenant is not one of great magnitude. At last the youth began to see that he was being imposed upon, and that other captains did not so hold themselves toward their inferiors in rank, and he confidentially laid the case before a new arrival who had seen service, asking him how much of a stand he might make for his self-respect without infringing on military rules. The reply was, "When next he tries that game on you, tell him to go to h-- with his gulf."
The young fellow, not lacking in spirit, returned to his captain well primed for the encounter, and when next the gulf was mentioned, he stretched up his six feet of admirable physique, and advised the captain to take the journey "with his gulf," that had been previously suggested by his friend.
This same young fellow was a hot-headed youth, though a splendid soldier, and had a knack of getting into little altercations with his brother-officers. On one occasion at our house during a garrison hop, he and another officer had some dispute about dancing with a young lady, and retired to the coat-room, too courteous to enter into a discussion in the presence of women. It occurred to them, as words grew hotter and insufficient for the gravity of the occasion, that it would be well to interview the commanding officer, fearing that they might be placed in arrest. One of them descended to the dancing-room, called the General one side, told the story, and asked permission to pound his antagonist, whom he considered the aggressor. The General, knowing well how it was himself, having, at West Point, been known as the cadet who said, "Stand back, boys, and let"s have a fair fight!" gave his permission. The door of the coat-room closed on the contestants for the fair lady"s favor, and they had it out alone. It must not, from this incident, be inferred that our officers belonged to a cla.s.s whose idea of justice was "knocking down and dragging out," but, in the newness of our regiment, there seemed to be occasions when there was no recourse for impositions or wrongs, except in the natural way. The mettle of all was being tested with a large number of men turned suddenly from a free life into the narrow limits of a garrison. Where everybody"s elbow knocked his neighbor"s, and no one could wholly escape the closest sort of intercourse, it was the most natural consequence that some jarring and grating went on.
None of us know how much the good-nature that we possess is due to the fact that we can take refuge in our homes or in flight, sometimes, from people who rasp and rub us up the wrong way.
Our regiment was then a medley of incongruous elements, and might well have discouraged a less persevering man, in the attempt to mould such material into an harmonious whole. From the first, the effort was to establish among the better men, who had ambition, the proper _esprit de corps_ regarding their regiment. The General thought over carefully the future of this new organization, and worked constantly from the first days to make it the best cavalry regiment in the service. He a.s.sured me, when occasionally I mourned the inharmonious feeling that early began to crop out, that I must neither look for fidelity nor friendship, in its best sense, until the whole of them had been in a fight together; that it was on the battle-field, when all faced death together, where the truest affection was formed among soldiers. I could not help noting, that first year, the change from the devotion of my husband"s Division of cavalry in the Army of the Potomac, to these new officers, who, as yet, had no affection for him, nor even for their regiment. He often asked me to have patience, not to judge too quickly of those who were to be our companions, doubtless for years to come, and reminded me that, as yet, he had done nothing to win their regard or command their respect; he had come among officers and men as an organizer, a disciplinarian, and it was perfectly natural they should chafe under restraints they had never known before. It was a hard place for my husband to fill, and a most thankless task, to bring that motley crowd into military subjection. The mischief-makers attempted to report unpleasant criticisms, and it was difficult to keep in subjection the jealousy that existed between West Point graduates, volunteer officers, and civil appointees. Of course a furtive watch was kept on the graduates of the Military Academy for any evidences of a.s.sumed superiority on their part, or for the slightest dereliction of duty. The volunteer, no matter how splendid a record he had made during the war, was excessively sensitive regarding the fact that he was not a graduated officer. My husband persistently fought against any line of demarkation between graduates and non-graduates. He argued personally, and wrote for publication, that the war had proved the volunteer officers did just as good service as, and certainly were not one whit less brave than, West Pointers. I remember how every little slip of a West Pointer was caught at by the others. One morning a group of men were gathered about the flag-staff at guard-mount, making the official report as officer of the day and officer of the guard, when a West Pointer joined them in the irreproachable uniform of a lieutenant, walking as few save graduates ever do walk. He gravely saluted, but, instead of reporting for duty, spoke out of the fullness of his heart, "Gentlemen, it"s a boy." Of course, not a man among them was insensible to the honor of being the father of a first son and heir, and all suspended military observances belonging to the morning duties, and genuinely rejoiced with the new-made parent; but still they gloated over the fact that there had been, even in such a moment of excitement, this lapse of military dignity in one who was considered a cut-and-dried soldier.
An embarra.s.sing position for General Custer was, that he had under him officers much older than himself. He was then but twenty-seven years of age, and the people who studied to make trouble (and how rarely are they absent from any community!) used this fact as a means of stirring up dissension. How thankful I was that nothing could draw him into difficulty from that question, for he either refused to listen, or heard only to forget. One day he was deeply moved by the Major of our regiment, General Alfred Gibbs, who had commanded the brigade of 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 a.s.sured 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 exasperating to 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.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.