OUR NEW HOME AT FORT LINCOLN.
In a few days we were ready to return to Dakota, and very glad to go,
except for leaving the old parents.
The hardest trial of my husband’s life was parting with his mother.
Such partings were the only occasions when I ever saw him lose entire
control of himself, and I always looked forward to the hour of their
separation with dread.
For hours before we started, I have seen him follow his mother about,
whispering some comforting word to her; or, opening the closed door
of her own room, where, womanlike, she fought out her grief alone,
sit beside her as long as he could endure it. She had been an invalid
for so many years that each parting seemed to her the final one. Her
groans and sobs were heart-rending. She clung to him every step when he
started to go, and exhausted at last, was led back, half fainting, to
her lounge.
The general would rush out of the house, sobbing like a child, and
then throw himself into the carriage beside me completely unnerved. I
could only give silent comfort. My heart bled for him, and in the long
silence that followed as we journeyed on, I knew that his thoughts
were with his mother. At our first stop he was out of the cars in an
instant, buying fruit to send back to her. Before we were even unpacked
in the hotel, where we made our first stay of any length, he had dashed
off a letter. I have since seen those missives. No matter how hurriedly
he wrote, they were proofs of the tenderest, most filial love, and full
of the prophecies he never failed to make, of the reunion that he felt
would soon come.
After long debates with her parents, we had captured a young lady who
was to return with us. She was a “joy forever,” and submitted without
a word to the rough part of our journey. After we left St. Paul, the
usual struggle for decent food began. Some of the officers returning
from leave of absence had joined us, and we made as merry over our
hardships as we could. When we entered the eating-houses, one young
member of our party, whom we called the “butter fiend,” was made the
experimenter. If he found the butter too rancid to eat undisguised,
he gave us a hint by saying, under his breath, “this is a double-over
place.” That meant that we must put a layer of bread on top of the
butter to smother the taste.
The general was so sensitive when living in civilization that the
heartiest appetite would desert him if an allusion to anything
unpleasant or a reference to suffering was made at the table. But he
never seemed to be conscious of surroundings when “roughing it.” Of
course I had learned to harden myself to almost anything by this time,
but I can see the wide-open eyes of our girl friend when she saw us eat
all around any foreign ingredients we found in our food. She nearly
starved on a diet consisting of the interior of badly-baked potatoes
and the inside of soggy rolls.
One of the eating-places on the road was kept in a narrow little house,
built on a flat car. Two men presided, one cooking and the other
waiting on the table. We were laboriously spearing our food with two
tined forks, and sipping the muddy coffee with a pewter spoon, when
I heard with surprise the general asking for a napkin. It seemed as
foreign to the place as a finger-bowl. The waiter knew him, however,
and liked him too well to refuse him anything; so he said, “I have
nothing but a towel, general.” “Just the thing, just the thing,”
repeated my husband, in his quick, jolly way. So the man tied a long
crash towel under his chin, and the general ate on, too indifferent to
appearances to care because the tableful of travellers smiled.
When we finally reached the termination of the road at Bismarck,
another train was about starting back to St. Paul. The street was full
of people, wildly expostulating and talking loudly and fiercely. It
appeared that this was the last train of the season, as the cars were
not to run during the winter. The passengers were mostly Bismarck
citizens, whose lawless life as gamblers and murderers had so outraged
the sentiments of the few law-abiding residents that they had forced
them to depart. We could see these outlaws crowding at the door,
hanging out of the windows, swearing and menacing, and finally firing
on the retreating crowd as the cars passed out of town. I was inclined
to remain a fixture in our car; to step down into such a _melée_ was
too much for my courage. The general made allowance for my fears, and
we were quietly slipped out on the other side of the depot, hurried
into the ambulance, and driven to the river.
The ice was already thick enough to bear our weight part way over; then
came a swift rushing torrent of water which had to be crossed in a
small boat. Some of the soldiers rowed, while one kept the huge cakes
of floating ice from our frail boat with a long, iron-pointed pole. As
I stepped into the little craft, I dropped upon the bottom and hid my
eyes, and no amount of reference to dangers I had encountered before
induced me to look up. The current of the Missouri is so swift it is
something dreadful to encounter. We were lifted out upon the ice again,
and walked to the bank. Once more on shore, I said to myself, here will
I live and die, and never go on that river again.
Our brother, Colonel Tom, met us, and drove us to our new home. In the
dim light I could see the great post of Fort Lincoln, where only a few
months before we had left a barren plain. Our quarters were lighted,
and as we approached, the regimental band played “Home, Sweet Home,”
followed by the general’s favorite, “Garryowen.”
The general had completely settled the house before he left for the
East, but he had kept this fact secret, as a surprise. Our friends
had lighted it all, and built fires in the fireplaces. The garrison
had gathered to welcome us, and Mary had a grand supper ready. How
we chattered and gloried over the regiment having a home at last. It
seemed too good to believe that the 7th Cavalry had a post of its own,
with room for the half of the regiment assigned to duty there. In
other garrisons, when we had come in late in the fall from campaigns,
the officers, in order to get places for themselves, had been obliged
to turn some one else out. There is a disagreeable, though probably
necessary law in the army regulations, which directs officers to take
their quarters according to rank.
Fort Lincoln was built with quarters for six companies. The barracks
for the soldiers were on the side of the parade-ground nearest the
river, while seven detached houses for officers faced the river
opposite. On the left of the parade-ground was the long granary and the
little military prison, called the “guard-house.” Opposite, completing
the square, were the quartermaster and commissary storehouses for
supplies and the adjutant’s office. Outside the garrison proper, near
the river, were the stables for six hundred horses. Still farther
beyond were the quarters for the laundresses, easily traced by the
swinging clothes-lines in front, and dubbed for this reason “Suds
Row.” Some distance on from there were the log-huts of the Indian
scouts and their families, while on the same side also was the level
plain used for parades and drill. On the left of the post was the
sutler’s store, with a billiard-room attached. Soon after the general
arrived he permitted a citizen to put up a barber-shop, and afterwards
another built a little cabin of cotton-wood, with canvas roof for a
photographer’s establishment.
The post was located in a valley, while just back of us stretched a
long chain of bluffs. On the summit of a hill, nearly a mile to the
left, was a small infantry garrison, which had been established some
time, and now belonged to our post. When we went to return the visits
of the infantry ladies, the mules dragged the ambulance up the steep
hill with difficulty. We found living in this bleak place--in small,
shabbily built quarters, such as a day-laborer would consider hardly
good enough for his family--delicate women and children, who, as usual,
made no complaint about their life. Afterwards we were much indebted to
one of the ladies, who, determined to conquer fate, varied our lives
and gave us something to look forward to, by organizing a reading-club
that met every week. She had sent to the East, before the trains ceased
running, for the new books.
This little post had been built before the railroad was completed, and
the houses were put together with as few materials as possible. There
was no plastering, but the ceilings and partitions were of thick paper
made for the purpose. When narrow mouldings of wood were tacked over
the joined places, and all of it painted, the effect was very pretty.
When it was torn and ragged it looked poverty-stricken enough. In one
set of quarters there chanced to be so many children and so little room
that the parents had invented a three-story bed, where the little ones
could be all stowed at night. While we were calling there one day, I
sat talking with the cheerful little mother, and wondering how she
could be so bright. Everything in garrison life was, of course, new to
my girl friend, and I discovered she was trying to smother a laugh. She
commanded a view of the inner door. One of the children, who had been
beating the wall and crying to enter, had finally made preliminary
preparations. She had thrust through a hole in the paper partition each
article of her little wardrobe, even to her shoes, and was putting the
first rosy foot through after them. When the mother discovered this she
laughed heartily, and gave us thus an opportunity to join her.
Our own post was somewhat sheltered by the bluffs behind; but though
our quarters were plastered, the unseasoned lumber warped, and it was
a struggle to keep warm. The wood with which we were provided was far
from dry, and much of it of that kind that burns quickly but sends out
little heat. It seemed to require the entire time of one man to keep up
the fires. It was thus a blessed thing for the poor fellow whose duty
it was, for he had never been able to remain long with his company at a
time. He had an uncontrollable habit of drinking. Most of the time he
belonged to the band of prisoners who are taken out of the guard-house
every day, under a sentinel, to police the garrison and cut the wood.
Mary gave them the coffee and whatever else was left from the table
every day. This seemingly worthless fellow told Mary that he believed
he could “keep straight” if Mrs. Custer would get the general to remit
his sentence and let him come to us to keep the fires. So he came, and
was occasionally sober for some time. He learned to go through the
house with his arms full of wood when he was quite drunk. He really had
too much heart to cause me trouble, and used to say, “Mary, I am pretty
full, but don’t let Mrs. Custer know it, for I told her I would not do
so again, and I don’t like to make her feel bad.” So Mary spied out the
land before him and opened his doors. After he had tried her patience
long, she finally lost her temper on finding that he had swallowed all
the Worcestershire sauce and her bottle of pain-killer. She held out
the can of kerosene oil to him, and asked if he would not add that to
his dram, and began such a berating that he hurried off to escape from
the violence of her tongue.
The soldiers asked the general’s permission to put up a place in which
they could have entertainments, and he gave them every assistance
he could. They prepared the lumber in the saw-mill that belonged to
the post. The building was an ungainly looking structure, but large
enough to hold them all. The unseasoned cotton-wood warped even while
the house was being built, but by patching and lining with old torn
tents, they managed to keep out the storm. The scenery was painted
on condemned canvas stretched on a frame-work, and was lifted on and
off as the plays required. The footlights in front of the rude stage
were tallow-candles that smoked and sputtered inside the clumsily
cobbled casing of tin. The seats were narrow benches, without backs.
The officers and ladies were always invited to take the front row at
every new performance, and after they entered, the house filled up with
soldiers. Some of the enlisted men played very well, and used great
ingenuity in getting up their costumes. The general accepted every
invitation, and enjoyed it all greatly. The clog-dancing and negro
character songs between the acts were excellent. Indeed, we sometimes
had professionals, who, having been stranded in the States, had
enlisted.
A regiment is recruited from all classes and conditions of men.
Occasionally accident revealed the secret that there were fugitives
from justice in the ranks. If they changed their names, they found
no place where they were so hidden from every one they ever knew as
in a regiment that is always on duty in the territories. It came to
pass sometimes that a man of title, who had “left his country for
his country’s good,” wore the government blue as a disguise, and
served as a trooper for want of anything better to do. Among the men
who sent word they would be glad to help me about the house when we
were settling--either as a carpenter, a saddler to sew carpets, or a
blacksmith to put up stoves--there were several with histories. Though
they were strictly military with the general, observing the rule of
never speaking unless spoken to, they sought the first opportunity to
tell me their troubles. These were invariably domestic difficulties,
until I began to think our regiment was “a city of refuge” for outraged
husbands. It would eventually be found out that these men had run
away and enlisted under assumed names, when driven desperate by the
scoldings of a turbulent wife. Time, and the loneliness of a soldier’s
life, would soften their woes, and they began at last to sigh even
for the high-pitched voice of the deserted woman. The general felt as
badly as I did when I carried their stories to him, begging him to get
them discharged. He had a little fashion, however, of asking me to
remember that about this, as about every other subject that we ever
discussed, “there were always two sides to a question.” My sympathy for
the soldiers in trouble was of little avail, for the law compelling
them to serve the five years out was irrevocable. All I could do was
to write letters at their solicitation, revealing their identity and
asking for a reconciliation.
My husband’s duties extended over a wide range. If the laundresses
had a serious difficulty, he was asked to settle it. They had many
pugilists among them, and the least infringement of their rights
provoked a battle in which wood and other missiles filled the air.
Bandaged and bruised, they brought their wrongs to our house, where
both sides had a hearing. The general had occasionally to listen and
arbitrate between husband and wife, when the laundress and her soldier
husband could not agree. I was banished from the room, while he heard
their story and gave them counsel. In the same way he listened to
whatever complaints the soldiers made. Some of them came into our
quarters on one occasion with a tin cup of coffee for the general to
taste, and determine whether he agreed with them that it was too poor
to drink. From that time on, after every Sunday morning inspection,
the general went with all the officers to visit the kitchens, as well
as the barracks of each company, and every troop commander was called
upon to pass criticisms on the cleanliness of the quarters and the
wholesomeness of the food.