It was ascertained afterward that the sergeant"s regiment had gone out that day with loaded carbines and forty rounds besides; but the knowledge of this would have altered no plan, nor would it have induced the commanding officer to reveal to any but his provost-marshal the final decision.
Let us hope that in these blessed days of peace some other tiny curls are nestling in a grandfather"s neck, instead of lying over his heart, as did the son"s in those days, when memories and mementos were all we had of those we loved.
General Custer not only had his own Division to organize and discipline, but was constantly occupied in trying to establish some sort of harmony between the Confederate soldiers, the citizens, and his command. The blood of everyone was at boiling-point then. The soldiers had not the grief of returning to homes desolated by war, because Louisiana escaped much and Texas all of the devastation of campaigns; but they came home obliged to begin the world again. The negroes of the Red River country were not an easy cla.s.s to manage in days of slavery. We heard that all desperate characters in the border States had been sold into Louisiana, because of its comparative isolation, and that the most ungovernable cases were congregated in the valley of the Red River. However that may have been, it certainly was difficult to make them conform to the new state of affairs. The master, unaccustomed to freedom, still treated the negro as a slave. The colored man, inflated with freedom and reveling in idleness, would not accept common directions in labor. How even the South tolerates a name that it once hated, in the prosperity of the new regime, and in the prospect of their splendid future! How fresh the enthusiasm in the present day, at any mention of the liberator of the slaves!
But when we consider through what bungling errors we groped blindly in those early days of emanc.i.p.ation, we might well wish that Abraham Lincoln could have been spared to bring his justice and gentle humanity to bear upon the adjusting of that great transition from slavery to freedom.
At the least intimation of a "show" or a funeral--which is a festivity to them, on account of the crowds that congregate--off went the entire body of men, even if the crops were in danger of spoiling for want of harvesting. It was a time in our history that one does not like to look back upon. The excitement into which the land was thrown, not only by war, but by the puzzling question of how to reconcile master to servant and servant to master--for the colored people were an element most difficult to manage, owing to their ignorance and the sudden change of relations to their former owners--all this created new and perplexing problems, which were the order of each day.
The Confederate soldiers had to get their blood down from fever heat.
Some took advantage of the fact that the war was over and the Government was ordering its soldiers into the State, not as invaders but as pacifiers, to drag their sabres through the street and talk loudly on the corners in belligerent language, without fear of the imprisonment that in war-times had so quickly followed.
The General was obliged to issue simultaneous orders to his own men, demanding their observance of every right of the citizen, and to the returned Confederate soldiers, a.s.suring them that the Government had not sent troops into their country as belligerents, but insisting upon certain obligations, as citizens, from them.
In an order to the Division, he said: "Numerous complaints having reached these headquarters, of depredations having been committed by persons belonging to this command, all officers and soldiers are hereby urged to use every exertion to prevent the committal of acts of lawlessness, which, if permitted to pa.s.s unpunished, will bring discredit upon the command. Now that the war is virtually ended, the rebellion put down, and peace about to be restored to our entire country, let not the l.u.s.tre of the past four years be dimmed by a single act of misconduct toward the persons or property of those with whom we may be brought in contact. In the future, and particularly on the march, the utmost care will be exercised to save the inhabitants of the country in which we may be located from any molestation whatever.
Every violation of order regarding foraging will be punished. The Commanding-General is well aware that the number of those upon whom the enforcement of this order will be necessary will be small, and he trusts that in no case will it be necessary. All officers and soldiers of this command are earnestly reminded to treat the inhabitants of this Department with conciliation and kindness, and particularly is this injunction necessary when we are brought in contact with those who lately were in arms against us. You can well afford to be generous and magnanimous."
In another order, addressed to the Confederate soldiers, he said: "It is expected, and it will be required, that those who were once our enemies, but are now to be treated as friends, will in return refrain from idle boasts, which can only result in harm to themselves. If there still be any who, blind to the events of the past four years, continue to indulge in seditious harangues, all such disturbers of the peace will be arrested, and brought to these headquarters."
Between the troublesome negroes, the unsubdued Confederates, and the lawless among our own soldiers, life was by no means an easy problem to solve. A boy of twenty-five was then expected to act the subtle part of statesman and patriot, and conciliate and soothe the citizen; the part of stern and unrelenting soldier, punishing evidences of unsuppressed rebellion on the part of the conquered; and at the same time the vigilant commanding officer, exacting obedience from his own disaffected soldiery.
As for the positions he filled toward the negro, they were varied--counseling these duties to those who employed them, warning them from idleness, and urging them to work, feeding and clothing the impoverished and the old. It seems to me it was a position combining in one man doctor, lawyer, taskmaster, father and provider. The town and camp swarmed with the colored people, lazily lying around waiting for the Government to take care of them, and it was necessary to issue a long order to the negroes, from which I make an extract:
"Since the recent advent of the United States forces into this vicinity, many of the freedmen of the surrounding country seem to have imbibed the idea that they will no longer be required to labor for their own support and the support of those depending upon them. Such ideas cannot be tolerated, being alike injurious to the interests and welfare of the freedmen and their employers. Freedmen must not look upon military posts as places of idle resort, from which they can draw their means of support. Their proper course is to obtain employment, if possible, upon the same plantations where they were previously employed. General Order No. 23, Headquarters Department of the Gulf, March 11, 1865, prescribes the rules of contract in the case of these persons. The coming crops, already maturing, require cultivation, and will furnish employment for all who are disposed to be industrious. Hereafter, no freedmen will be permitted to remain in the vicinity of the camps who are not engaged in some proper employment."
Standing alone in the midst of all this confusion, and endeavoring to administer justice on all sides, General Custer had by no means an enviable task. I do not wonder now that he kept his perplexities as much as possible from me. He wished to spare me anxiety, and the romp or the gallop over the fragrant field, which he asked for as soon as office-hours were over, was probably more enjoyable with a woman with uncorrugated brow. Still, I see now the puzzled shake of the head as he said, "A man may do everything to keep a woman from knowledge of official matters, and then she gets so confounded keen in putting little trifles together, the first thing you know she is reading a man"s very thoughts." Yet it does not strike me as remarkable keenness on the part of a woman if, after the experience she gains in following the bugle a time, and with her wits sharpened by affection, she decides that a move is about to take place. The General used to turn quickly, almost suspiciously, to me and say, as if I had been told by the staff, "How did you find out we were ordered to move?"--when he had been sending for the quartermaster and the commissary, and looking at his maps, for ever so long before! It was not much of a mystery to solve when the quartermaster meant transportation, the commissary food, and the maps a new route.
After determined efforts to establish discipline, order began to be evolved out of the chaos, and the men resigned themselves to their hard fate. Much as I feared them, and greatly as I had resented their attempt to lay all their present detention and compulsory service to my husband, I could not but agree with him when he argued for them that it was pretty hard not to be allowed to go home, when the other soldiers had returned to receive the rewards of the victorious. They wrote home abusive newspaper articles, which were promptly mailed to the General by unknown hands, but of which he took no notice. I recollect only once, after that, knowing of an absolutely disagreeable encounter. During the following winter in Texas, my husband came quickly into our room one morning, took my riding-whip and returned across the hall to his office.
In a short time he as quickly returned, and restored it to its place, and I extracted from him an explanation. Among the newspaper articles sent him from the North, there was an attack on his dear, quiet, unoffending father and mother. He sent for the officer who was credited with the authorship, and, after his denial of the article, told him what he had intended to do had he been guilty of such an a.s.sault; that he was prepared for any attack on himself, but nothing would make him submit to seeing his gray-haired parents a.s.sailed. Then he bade him good-morning, and bowed him out.
The effect of the weeks of discipline on the Division was visible on our march into Texas. The General had believed that the men would eventually conform to the restrictions, and he was heartily relieved and glad to find that they did. The Texans were amazed at the absence of the lawlessness they had expected from our army, and thankful to find that the Yankee column was neither devastating nor even injuring their hitherto unmolested State, for the war on land had not reached Texas.
The troops were not permitted to live on the country, as is the usage of war, and only one instance occurred, during the entire march, of a soldier"s simply helping himself to a farmer"s grain. Every pound of food and forage was bought by the quartermaster. It was hard to realize that the column marching in a methodical and orderly manner was, so short a time before, a lawless and mutinous command.
They hated us, I suppose. That is the penalty the commanding officer generally pays for what still seems to me the questionable privilege of rank and power. Whatever they thought, it did not deter us from commending, among ourselves, the good material in those Western men, which so soon made them orderly and obedient soldiers.
But I have antic.i.p.ated somewhat, and must go back and say good-by to that rich, flower-scented valley. It had been a strange experience to me. I had no woman but Eliza to whom I could speak. The country and all its customs seemed like another world, into which I had unexpectedly entered. I had spent many hours of anxiety about my husband"s safety.
But the anxiety, heat, mosquitoes, poor water, alligators, mutiny, all combined, failed to extract a complaint. There was not an atom of heroism in this; it was undeniably the shrewd cunning of which women are accused, for I lived in hourly dread of being sent to Texas by the other route, via New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The General had been advised by letters from home to send me that way, on the ground that I could not endure a march at that season. Officers took on a tone of superiority, and said that they would not think of taking _their_ wives into such a wilderness. My fate hung in the balance, and under such circ.u.mstances it was not strange that the inconveniences of our stay on Red River were not even so much as acknowledged. It is true that I was not then a veteran campaigner, and the very newness of the hardships would, doubtless, have called forth a few sighs, had not the fear of another separation haunted me. It is astonishing how much grumbling is suppressed by the fear of something worse awaiting you. In the decision which direction I was to take, I won; my husband"s scruples were overcome by my unanswerable arguments and his own inclination.
I prepared to leave Alexandria with regret, for the pleasures of our stay had outnumbered the drawbacks. It was our first knowledge that the earth could be so lovely and so lavishly laden with what began to be tropical luxuriance. I do not recall the names of all the birds, but the throats of all of them seemed to be filled with song. In a semicircle on the lawn in front of our house, grew a thick hedge of c.r.a.pe myrtle, covered with fragrant blossoms. Here the mocking-birds fearlessly built their nests, and the stillest hour of the night was made melodious with the song that twilight had been too short to complete. Really, the summer day there was too brief to tell all that these birds had to say to their mates.
To the General, who would have had an aviary had it been just the thing for a mounted regiment, all this song, day and night, was enchanting. In after years he never forgot those midnight serenades, and in 1873 he took a mocking-bird into the bleak climate of Dakota. Eliza mildly growled at "sich nonsense" as "toting round a bird, when "twas all folks like us could do to get transportation for a cooking-kit." Nevertheless, she took excellent care of the feathered tribe that we owned.
Among the fruits we first ate in Louisiana were fresh figs, which we picked from the tree. It was something to write home about, but at the same time we wished that instead we might have a Northern apple.
The time came to bid farewell to birds, fruits, jasmine and rose, and prepare for a plunge into the wilderness--much talked of with foreboding prophecies by the citizens, but a hundred times worse in reality than the gloomiest predictions.
It was known that the country through which we were to travel, having been inaccessible to merchants, and being even then infested with guerrillas, had large acc.u.mulations of cotton stored at intervals along the route that was marked out for our journey. Speculators arrived from New Orleans, and solicited the privilege of following with wagons that they intended to load with cotton. They asked no favors, desiring only the protection that the cavalry column would afford, and expected to make their way in our wake until the seaboard was reached and they could ship their purchases by the Gulf of Mexico. But their request was refused, as the General hardly thought it a fitting use to which to put the army. Then they a.s.sailed the quartermaster, offering twenty-five thousand dollars to the General and him, as a bribe. But both men laughed to scorn that manner of getting rich, and returned to their homes the year after as poor as when they had left there five years before. As I think of the instances that came under my knowledge, when quartermasters could have made fortunes, it is a marvel to me that they so often resisted all manner of temptation. The old tale, perhaps dating back to the War of 1812, still applies, as it is a constantly recurring experience. There was once a wag in the quartermaster"s department, and even when weighted down with grave responsibility of a portion of the Government treasury, he still retained a glimmer of fun. Contractors lay in wait for him with bribes, which his spirit of humor allowed to increase, even though the offers were insults to his honor. Finally, reaching a very large sum, in sheer desperation he wrote to the War Department: "In the name of all the G.o.ds, relieve me from this Department; they"ve almost got up to my price." Civilians hardly realize that, even in times of peace like this, when the disburs.e.m.e.nts will not compare with the money spent in years of war, between eight and nine millions of dollars are yearly paid out by the quartermaster"s department alone. Since the war the embezzlements have been hardly worthy of so serious a name, amounting to but a few hundred dollars, all told.
The General had an ambulance fitted up as a traveling-wagon for me; the seats so arranged that the leather backs could be unstrapped at the sides and laid down so as to form a bed, if I wished to rest during the march. There was a pocket for my needlework and book, and a box for luncheon, while my traveling-bag and shawl were strapped at the side, convenient, but out of the way. It was quite a complete little house of itself. One of the soldiers, who was interested in the preparations for my comfort, covered a canteen with leather, adding of his own accord, in fine st.i.tchery in the yellow silk used by the saddlers, "Lady Custer."
Each day of our journey this lofty distinction became more and more incongruous and amusing, as I realized the increasing ugliness, for which the rough life was, in a measure, responsible. By the time we reached the end of our march there was a yawning gulf between the soldier"s t.i.tle and the appearance of the owner of the canteen. The guide that had been employed was well up in all the devices for securing what little measure of comfort was to be found in overland travel. I followed his suggestion, and after the canteen was filled in the morning, it was covered with a piece of wet blanket and hung, with the cork left out, to the roof of the wagon, in order to catch all the air that might be stirring. Under this damp treatment the yellow letters of "Lady Custer" faded out as effectually as did all semblance of whatever delicacy of coloring the owner once possessed.
A short time after we set out, we left the valley of the Red River, with its fertile plantations, and entered a pine forest on the table-land, through which our route lay for a hundred and fifty miles. A great portion of the higher ground was sterile, and the forest much of the way was thinly inhabited. We had expected to hire a room in any farm-house at which we halted at the end of each day"s journey, and have the privilege of sleeping in a bed. Camping on the ground was an old story to me after our long march in Virginia; but, with the prospect of using the bosom of mother Earth as a resting-place for the coming thirty years, we were willing to improve any opportunity to be comfortable when we could. The cabins that we pa.s.sed on the first day discouraged us.
Small, low, log huts, consisting of one room each, entirely separated and having a floored open s.p.a.ce between them, were the customary architecture. The windows and doors were filled with the vacant faces of the untidy children of the poor white trash and negroes. The men and women slouched and skulked around the cabins out of sight, and every sign of abject, loathsome poverty was visible, even in the gaunt and famished pigs that rooted around the doorway. I determined to camp out until we came to more inviting habitations, which, I regret to say, we did not find on that march. We had not brought the thin mattress and pillows that had been made for our traveling-wagon in Virginia; but the hardest sort of resting-place was preferable to braving the squalor of the huts along our way.
My husband rolled his overcoat for my pillow, telling me that a soldier slept like a top with such an one, and it was much better than a saddle, in the hollow of which he had often laid his flaxen top-knot. But a woman cannot make herself into a good soldier all in a minute. If one takes hold of the thick, unwieldy material that Uncle Sam puts into the army overcoat, some idea can be gained of the rocky roll it makes when doing duty as a resting-place; and anyone whose neck has made the steep incline from head to shoulder that this subst.i.tute for a pillow necessitates, is apt to waken less patriotic than when he retired. After repeated efforts to get accustomed to this, buoyed up by my husband"s praise of my veteran-like behavior, I confided to Eliza that I should not be ungrateful for any device she might think out for my relief, if she would promise not to tell that I had spoken to her. The next day she gathered moss from the trees along the stream, and I felt that I could serve my country just as well by resting on this soft bed. I had begged off from using a tent in that country, as there seemed to be no insect that was not poisonous, and even many of the vines and underbrush were dangerous to touch. My husband had the wagon placed in front of the tent every night when our march was ended, and lifted me in and out of the high sleeping-room, where I felt that nothing venomous could climb up and sting. The moss, though very comfortable, often held in its meshes the horned toad, a harmless little mottled creature that had two tiny horns, which it turned from side to side in the gravest, most knowing sort of way. The officers sent these little creatures home by mail as curiosities, and, true to their well-known indifference to air, they jumped out of the box at the journey"s end in just the same active manner that they had hopped about under our feet. Still, harmless as they were held to be, they were not exactly my choice as bed-fellows, any more than the lizards the Texans call swifts, which also haunted the tangles of the moss. Eliza tried to shake out and beat it thoroughly, in order to dislodge any inhabitants, before making my bed. One night I found that hay had been subst.i.tuted, and felt myself rich in luxury. I remembered gladly that hay was so clean, so free from all natural history, and closed my eyes in grat.i.tude. And then it smelt so good, so much better than the damp, vegetable odor of the moss. A smudge at the end of the wagon was rising about me to drive away mosquitoes, and though the smoke scalds the eyes in this heroic remedy, I still comforted myself with the fresh odor of the hay, and quietly thought that life in a manger was not the worst fate that could come to one. All this pervading sense of comfort was slightly disturbed in the night, when I was awakened by a munching and crunching at my ear. Wisps of hay were lying over the side of the wagon, as it was too warm to leave the curtains down, and the attraction proved too much for a stray mule, which was quietly eating the pillow from under my head. It was well our tent and wagon were placed to one side, quite off by themselves, for the General would have waked the camp with his peals of laughter at my indignation and momentary fright. It did not need much persuasion to rout the mule after all the hubbub my husband made with his merriment, but I found that I inclined to the moss bed after that.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A MULE LUNCHING FROM A PILLOW.]
As we advanced farther into the forest, Eliza received further whispered confidences about my neck, stiff and sore from the roll of patriotic blue that was still the rest for my tired head, and she resolved to make an attempt to get a feather pillow. One day she discovered, near our camp, a house that was cleaner than the rest we had seen, and began negotiations with the mistress. She offered a "greenback," as we had no silver then; but they had never seen one, and would not believe that it was legal money. Finally, the woman said that, if we had any calico or muslin for sale, she would exchange her pillows for either the one or the other. Eliza forgot her diplomacy, and rather indignantly explained that we were not traveling peddlers. At last, after several trips to and from our camp, in which I was secretly interested, she made what she thought a successful trade by exchanging some blankets. Like the wag"s description of the first Pullman-car pillows, which he said he lost in his ear, they were diminutive excuses for our idea of what one should be, but I cannot remember anything that ever impressed me as such a luxury; and I was glad to see that, when the pillows were installed in their place, the faith in my patriotism and in my willingness to endure privations was not shaken.
The General was satisfied with his soldiers, and admired the manner in which they endured the trials of that hard experience. His perplexities departed when they took everything so bravely. He tried to arrange our marches every day so that we might not travel over fifteen miles. So far as I can remember, there was no one whose temper and strength were not tried to the uttermost, except my husband. His seeming indifference to excessive heat, his having long before conquered thirst, his apparent unconsciousness of the stings or bites of insects, were powerful aids in encountering those suffocating days. Frequently after a long march, when we all gasped for breath, and in our exhaustion flung ourselves down "anywhere to die," as we laughingly said, a fresh horse was saddled, and off went the General for a hunt, or to look up the prospects for water in our next day"s journey. If this stifling atmosphere, to which we were daily subjected, disturbed him, we did not know it. He held that grumbling did not mend matters; but I differed with him. I still think a little complaining, when the patience is sorely taxed, eases the troubled soul, though at that time I took good care not to put my theory into practice, for reasons I have explained when the question of my joining the march hung in the balance.
My life in a wagon soon became such an old story that I could hardly believe I had ever had a room. It constantly reminded me of my father.
He had opposed my marrying in the army, as I suppose most fond fathers do. His opposition caused me great suspense, and I thought, as all the very young are apt to, that it was hopeless misery. Now that the struggle was ended, I began to recall the arguments of my parents.
Father"s princ.i.p.al one, mindful of the deprivations he had seen officers" wives endure in Michigan"s early days, was that, after the charm and dazzle of the epaulet had pa.s.sed, I might have to travel "in a covered wagon like an emigrant." I told this reason of my father"s to my husband, and he often laughed over it. When I was lifted from my rather lofty apartment, and set down in the tent in the dark--and before dawn in a pine forest it _is_ dark--the candle revealed a twinkle in the eye of a man who could joke before breakfast. "I wonder what your father would say now," was the oft-repeated remark, while the silent partner scrabbled around to get ready for the day. There was always a pervading terror of being late, and I could not believe but that it might happen, some day, that thousands of men would be kept waiting because a woman had lost her hair-pins. Imaging the ignominy of any of the little trifles that delay us in getting ourselves together, being the cause of detaining an expedition in its morning start on the march. Fortunately, the soldiers would have been kept in merciful ignorance of the cause of the detention, as a commanding officer is not obliged to explain why he orders the trumpeter to delay the call of "boots and saddles;" but the chagrin would have been just as great on the part of the "camp-follower," and it would have given the color of truth to the General"s occasional declaration that "it is easier to command a whole division of cavalry than one woman." I made no protest to this declaration, as I had observed, even in those early days of my married life, that, in matrimonial experiences, the men that make open statements of their wrongs in rather a pompous, boastful way, are not the real sufferers. Pride teaches subtlety in hiding genuine injuries.
Though I had a continued succession of frights, while prowling around the tent before day hunting my things, believing them lost sometimes, and thus being thrown into wild stampedes, I escaped the mortification of detaining the command. The Frenchman"s weariness of a life that was given over to b.u.t.toning and unb.u.t.toning, was mine, and in the short time between reveille and breakfast, I lived through much perturbation of mind, fearing I was behind time, and devoutly wished that women who followed the drum could have been clothed like the feathered tribe, and ready for the wing at a moment"s notice. On this expedition I brought down the art of dressing in a hurry to so fine a point that I could take my bath and dress entirely in seven minutes. My husband timed me one day, without my knowledge, and I had the honor of having this added to a very brief list of my attributes as a soldier. There was a second recommendation, which did duty as a mild plaudit for years afterward.
When faithful soldiers are discharged after their term of service has expired, they have papers given them by the Government, with statements of their ability and trustworthiness. Mine consisted in the words usually used in presenting me to a friend. Instead of referring to a few meagre accomplishments which my teachers had struggled to implant, as is the fashion of some exuberant husbands, who proudly introduce their wives to intimate friends, the General usually said, "Oh, I want you to know my wife; she slept four months in a wagon."
Perhaps some people in the States may not realize that army women have a hard time even in saying their prayers. The closet that the New Testament tells us to frequent is seldom ours, for rarely does our frugal Government allow us one in army quarters large enough to crowd in our few gowns, much less to "enter in and shut the door"; while on a march like that in Texas, devotions would be somewhat disturbed when one kneeled down in a tent, uncertain whether it would be on a centipede or a horned toad. To say a prayer undisturbed, it was necessary to wait until one went to bed. Fortunately, mine were brief, since I had nothing to ask for, as I believed the best of everything on earth had already been given to me. If I was tired, and fell asleep in the midst of my thanks, I could only hope the Heavenly Father would forgive me. I was often so exhausted at night, that it was hard to keep my eyes open after my head had touched the pillow, especially after the acquisition of the blessed feather pillow. An army woman I love, the most consistent and honorable of her s.e.x, was once so worn out after a day of danger and fatigue on a march, that she fell asleep while kneeling beside the bed in the room she occupied, saying her prayers; and there she found herself, still on her knees, when the sun wakened her in the morning.
CHAPTER IV.
MARCHES THROUGH PINE FORESTS.
FOR exasperating heat, commend me to a pine forest.
Those tall and almost branchless Southern pines were simply smothering.
In the fringed tops the wind swayed the delicate limbs, while not a breath descended to us below. We fumed and fussed, but not ill-naturedly, when trying to find a spot in which to take a nap. If we put ourselves in a narrow strip of shadow made by the slender trunk of a tree, remorseless Sol followed persistently, and we drowsily dragged ourselves to another, to be pursued in the same determined manner and stared into instant wakefulness by the burning rays.
The General had reveille sounded at 2 o"clock in the morning, causing our scamp to remark, _sotto voce_, that if we were to be routed out in the night, he thought he would eat his breakfast the evening before, in order to save time. It was absolutely necessary to move before dawn, as the moment the sun came in sight the heat was suffocating. It was so dark when we set out that it was with difficulty we reached the main road, from our night"s camp, in safety. My husband tossed me into the saddle, and cautioned me to follow as close as my horse could walk, as we picked our way over logs and through ditches or underbrush. Custis Lee[A] was doglike in his behavior at these times. He seemed to aim to put his hoof exactly in the footprint of the General"s horse. In times of difficulty or moments of peril, he evidently considered that he was following the commanding officer rather than carrying me. I scarcely blamed him, much as I liked to control my own horse, and gladly let the bridle slacken on his neck as he cautiously picked his circuitous way; but once on the main road, the intelligent animal allowed me to take control again. Out of the dark my husband"s voice came cheerily, as if he were riding in a path of sunshine: "Are you all right?" "Give Lee his head." "Trust that old plug of yours to bring you out ship-shape." This insult to my splendid, spirited, high-stepping F. F. V.--for he was that among horses, as well as by birth--was received calmly by his owner, especially as the sagacious animal was taking better care of me than I could possibly take of myself, and I spent a brief time in calling out a defense of him through the gloom of the forest. This little diversion was indulged in now and again by the General to provoke an argument, and thus a.s.sure himself that I was safe and closely following; and so it went on, before day and after dark; there was no hour or circ.u.mstance out of which we did not extract some amus.e.m.e.nt.
The nights, fortunately, were cool; but such dews fell, and it was so chilly that we were obliged to begin our morning march in thick coats, which were tossed off as soon as the sun rose. The dews drenched the bedding. I was sometimes sure that it was raining in the night, and woke my husband to ask to have the ambulance curtains of our bed lowered; but it was always a false alarm; not a drop of rain fell in that blistering August. I soon learned to shut our clothes in a little valise at night, after undressing in the tent, to ensure dry linen in the penetrating dampness of the morning. My husband lifted me out of the wagon, when reveille sounded, into the tent, and by the light of a tallow candle I had my bath and got into my clothes, combing my hair straight back, as it was too dark to part it. Then, to keep my shoes from being soaked with the wet gra.s.s, I was carried to the dining-tent, and lifted upon my horse afterward.
One of my hurried toilets was stopped short one morning by the loss of the body of my riding-habit. In vain I tossed our few traps about to find it, and finally remembered that I had exchanged the waist for a jacket, and left it under a tree where we had been taking a siesta the day before. Eliza had brought in the blanket, books, and hats, but alas for my dress body! it was hopelessly lost. In a pine forest, dark and thick with fallen trees, what good did one tallow dip do in the hasty search we made? A column of thousands of men could not be detained for a woman"s gown. My husband had asked me to braid the sleeves like his own velvet jacket. Five rows of gilt braid in five loops made a dash of color that he liked, which, though entirely out of place in a thoroughfare, was admissible in our frontier life. He regretted the loss, but insisted on sending for more gilt braid as soon as we were out of the wilderness, and then began to laugh to himself and wonder if the traveler that came after us, not knowing who had preceded him, might not think he had come upon a part of the wardrobe of a circus troupe. It would have been rather serious joking if in the small outfit in my valise I had not brought a jacket, for which, though it rendered me more of a fright than sun and wind had made me, I still was very thankful; for without the happy accident that brought it along, I should have been huddled inside the closed ambulance, waistless and alone. Our looks did not enter into the question very much. All we thought of was how to keep from being prostrated by the heat, and how to get rested after the march for the next day"s task.
We had a unique character for a guide. He was a citizen of Texas, who boasted that not a road or a trail in the State was unfamiliar to him.
His mule, Betty, was a trial; she walked so fast that no one could keep up with her, but not faster did she travel than her master"s tongue. As we rode at the head of the column, the sun pouring down upon our heads, we would call out to him, "In heaven"s name, Stillman, how much longer is this to keep up?" meaning, When shall we find a creek on which to camp? "Oh, three miles further you"re sure to find a bold-flowin"
stream," was his confident reply; and, sure enough, the gra.s.s began to look greener, the moss hung from the trees, the pines were varied by beautiful cypress, or some low-branched tree, and hope sprang up in our hearts. The very horses showed, by quickening step, they knew what awaited us. Our scorched and parched throats began to taste, in imagination, what was our idea of a bold-flowing stream--it was cool and limpid, dancing over pebbles on its merry way. We found ourselves in reality in the bed of a dried creek, nothing but pools of muddy water, with a coating of green mold on the surface. The Custers made use of this expression the rest of their lives. If ever we came to a puny, crawling driblet of water, they said, "This must be one of Stillman"s bold-flowing streams." On we went again, with that fabricator calling out from Betty"s back, "Sho" to find finest water in the land five miles on!" Whenever he had "been in these parts afore, he had always found at all seasons a roaring torrent." One day we dragged through forty miles of arid land, and after pa.s.sing the dried beds of three streams, the General was obliged to camp at last, on account of the exhausted horses, on a creek with pools of muddy, standing water, which Stillman, coming back to the column, described as "rather low." This was our worst day, and we felt the heat intensely, as we usually finished our march and were in camp before the sun was very high. I do not remember one good drink of water on that march. When it was not muddy or stagnant, it tasted of the roots of the trees. Some one had given my husband some claret for me when we set out, and but for that, I don"t really know how the thirst of the midsummer days could have been endured. The General had already taught himself not to drink between meals, and I was trying to do so. All he drank was his mug of coffee in the early morning and at dinner, and cold tea or coffee, which Eliza kept in a bottle, for luncheon.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL CUSTER AS A CADET.]
The privations did not quench the buoyancy of those gay young fellows.
The General and his staff told stories and sang, and a man with good descriptive powers recounted the bills of fare of good dinners and choice viands he had enjoyed, while we knew we had nothing to antic.i.p.ate in this wilderness but army fare. Sometimes, as we marched along, almost melted with heat, and our throats parched for water, the odor of cuc.u.mbers was wafted toward us. Stillman, the guide, being called on for an explanation, as we wondered if we were nearing a farm, slackened Betty, waited for us, and took down our hopes by explaining that it was a certain species of snake, which infested that part of the country. The scorpions, centipedes and tarantulas were daily encountered. I not only grew more and more unwilling to take my nap, after the march was over, under a tree, but made life a burden to my husband till he gave up flinging himself down anywhere to sleep, and induced him to take his rest in the traveling wagon. I had been indolently lying outstretched in a little grateful shade one day, when I was hurriedly roused by some one, and moved to avoid what seemed to me a small, dried twig. It was the most venomous of snakes, called the pine-tree rattlesnake. It was very strange that we all escaped being stung or bitten in the midst of thousands of those poisonous reptiles and insects. One teamster died from a scorpion"s bite, and, unfortunately, I saw his bloated, disfigured body as we marched by. It lay on a wagon, ready for burial, without even a coffin, as we had no lumber.