GARRISON AMUSEMENTS.
The second winter at Fort Lincoln was very much the same as the first.
We had rented a piano at St. Paul in the autumn. It hardly had a
respite from morning until late at night. Every day and evening the
sound of happy voices went through the house. Old war-songs, college
choruses, and negro melodies, that every one knew, were sung, and on
Sunday our only church-service most of the time was to meet together
and sing hymns. In our little circle of forty, many denominations were
represented, but all knew the old-time hymns. The Moody and Sankey book
had soon found its way out there, and incited every one that could
raise a note to make the attempt. We had forgotten to bring a tuner for
the piano, but the blacksmith made a very good one. One of the band,
who had been in a piano-house before enlisting, kept the instrument
in order. We had hard work to keep it in tune, for not only did the
extreme cold affect the sound, but it had to endure the constant
drumming of untaught fingers. Even my husband, who was not nervous,
used sometimes to beg Colonel Tom to stop “feeling about for that tune!”
The general loved music, and had so correct an ear that he often
sang or whistled the airs of an opera after hearing them once. Music
so charmed him that when we have been in the States, listening to an
oratorio, the Thomas orchestra, or a recital of any kind, he has begged
me not to be hurt if he did not speak during the rendering. There was
a Swiss soldier in our regiment who had contrived to bring his zither
with him. My husband would lie on the bear-skin rug in front of the
fire and listen with delight as long as he ventured to tax the man. He
played the native Tyrolese airs, which seemed to have caught in them
the sound of the Alpine horn, the melody of the cascade, and the echo
of the mountain passes. The general often regretted that he had not had
the opportunity to learn music. It seemed to me that it was a great
solace and diversion to officers if they knew some musical instrument
well enough to enjoy practice. They certainly gave great pleasure to
those around them.
If the ladies had any accomplishment that gave gratification to others,
it was never allowed to grow rusty. Of course, where there was so
little to interest, whatever they did was overrated. Sometimes we
heard of one of the officers of the 7th matching the perfections of
our ladies against those of another regiment which he might happen to
be visiting. His _esprit de corps_ carried him so far that he would
insist that no women sang, played, danced, painted, or rode as we did!
We could only hope that we would never see the people to whom he had
boasted, and so awaken them from his overdrawn story to the reality.
I used to pity the officers from the bottom of my heart because of the
tameness and dead calm of their lives in winter. Each year’s service
with them made me wonder more and more how they could come through the
test of so much unemployed time, the really fine men they were. Watts
spoke lines that will do for all time, when he told us who it was that
found mischief for idle hands. We had no good company libraries, like
the infantry, because we had so long been without a place to call our
own. Every officer coming from leave, brought what books he could, and
they went the rounds until the worn leaves would hardly hold together.
We women had many a simple occupation that interested us, but the men
could not content themselves with trifles. If the young ladies and I
stole away to try to take a nap or change our dress, we were almost
invariably called back by the lonely men, who wished to be amused. They
were certainly so grateful for the slightest kindness it was no tax.
Besides, people cannot go up and down the face of the earth together
for nine years of hardships, trials, and deprivation without being as
nearly like one family as is possible.
I used to dread the arrival of the young officers who came to the
regiment from West Point, fearing that the sameness and inactivity
of the garrison life would be a test to which their character would
succumb. When they came to pay the first ceremonious call in full
uniform, we spoke of commonplace topics. I kept up a running line of
comments to myself, usually on one subject: “I wonder if you are likely
to go to the bad under temptation; I am sorry for your mother, having
to give you up and be anxious for your habits at the same time; I hope
you don’t drink; I pray that you may have stamina enough to resist
evil.” Our sister knew that I believed so in matrimony as a savior of
young officers that she used to teasingly accuse me of greeting all of
them when they arrived with the same welcome: “I am very glad to see
you; I hope that you are engaged.” I hardly remember being quite so
abrupt as that in speaking, but I never failed to wish it to myself.
Their frequent difficulty was that they desired to do everything that
the old officers did. I have known them rub and try to mar their
shining new uniforms to have them look as if they had seen service.
One, especially youthful in appearance, wondered how I came to divine
that the reason he wore his grandfather’s fob and seal, and carried
the gold-headed cane when off duty, was that he wished to look old and
experienced. I could not help praising them when they went through the
first few telling years of service and came off conquerors. I was sure
that had I had the misfortune to be a man I could not have borne the
tests to which I knew they were subjected.
I am sure that we could not have been so contented as we were under
such circumstances had there not been such perfect health among us all.
It was a pleasure to live among so many hundred people and scarcely
see any one who was not perfectly well. Another relief in that life
was that we never saw crippled or maimed people, and there were no
suffering poor.
We found our new quarters admirable for the garrison gayety. On Friday
nights we all gathered together to dance, or have private theatricals
or games. During the early part of the winter, while the supply of
eggs we had brought from St. Paul lasted, Mary used to give us cake,
frozen custard, or some luxury of which these formed a part. This, in
addition to the usual ham-sandwiches, coffee, and venison, made our
refreshments. As winter advanced, and the supplies began to give out,
we had to be content with crullers, coffee, and sandwiches. There was
very little spirit of criticism, and in that climate one is always
hungry.
Of course every one relied on cards as the unfailing amusement. Almost
without exception they played well and with great enthusiasm. Every one
struggled over me, and I really worked faithfully to become an adept.
For though I did not enjoy it ever, it seemed very ungracious in me
not to be able to take a hand when I was needed. There must have been
something lacking in my mental organization, for I could not learn. I
had one friend who was equally stupid. He certainly was a comfort to
me. We became perfectly hardened to the gibes of our friends when they
called to him, “Come, Smith, and try this new game; it is easy. Why,
even Mrs. Custer learned it!” I labored on, until at the end of twelve
years of effort I trumped my partner’s ace, and was formally excused
from ever trying again.
A fancy-dress party was always amusing out there, for it was necessary
to exercise great ingenuity in getting up costumes. We were masked
carefully, and often the dress was such a complete disguise that a
husband and wife were kept in ignorance of each other until the signal
for unmasking was given at supper.
It was impossible to conceal our eccentricities living in such close
daily association. As there was continual chaffing and innumerable
practical jokes, it was difficult to know at what moment one’s
peculiarities were to be served up for the amusement of others. At
all events, when one’s personal traits and singularities were openly
joked about, it was something of a consolation to know that the worst
to be said was directed to the face and not behind the back, as is the
general rule. There was one of our number towards whom we could not
fire the shot and shell of ridicule. He was far older than any one
at the post, and there was too much reverence for his hoary head to
permit extreme raillery. I confess to laughing over some of his strange
aberrations when his young lieutenant gave us an imitation of their
company drill. The old officer, mounted on a horse as toned down as
himself, stood in front of his troops and addressed them as he would
have done his supporters in the old political days. They appreciated
the stump eloquence, but more keenly the fact that while he talked
they would escape the tedious evolutions of their work. Sometimes
while going through the directions of the tactics, the captain lost
his suavity and called a halt. Then, with all the inflections and
emphasis placed as carefully as if he were flinging the Constitution at
a crowd of citizens on the 4th of July, he harangued in slightly heated
tones, “Men, do you suppose you are men? If so, act like men. If you
are geese, act like geese.” This would finish the self-control of even
the oldest soldier, and a great guffaw would burst out. For nothing
can be more ridiculous than a regular officer pausing to address his
men in such a place. The drill is conducted usually without another
word than a repetition of the exact language of the book of tactics.
The young lieutenant in his position at the rear would nearly choke
with laughter. He told us how he rode along the line, and prodded
the soldiers in the back, without the captain seeing him, to try and
make them more deferential. His short burlesque repetitions of the
aphorisms, philosophy, and theories on all subjects, that the old
captain delivered daily on the drill-ground, were convulsing. If the
speeches themselves were half as funny as the imitations, the men would
have been stolidity itself if they had not forgotten their discipline
and laughed. My husband was truly attached to this officer, and spared
him from hardships and trying campaigns when he could. In a measure he
felt himself responsible for the incongruous position the elderly man
occupied in a cavalry regiment full of young, active men. After the
war, when the old officer was mustered out of the Volunteer service,
he found that in his native State the waves had closed over him, and
his place was lost in public life. The general went personally to the
War Department, and solicited an appointment for him in the Regular
Army. Some time after, he was surprised to find him assigned to his own
regiment, doubtless because a personal application gave the impression
that it would be a special favor to place him there. Had he only asked
for an infantry appointment for the already tired out man, it would
have been a far easier life for him, but it had not occurred to the
general.
Many of us had been laughingly rechristened, and called a name that was
in some way suggested by trifling incidents in our history. The names
were absurd. One of the most delicate and refined of our women was a
superb rider and had shot buffalo, so her intimates spoke of her, when
trying to provoke repartee, as “Buffalo Ann.” My sobriquet of “the old
lady” dated back to the first days of my married life. When the general
and his merry young staff returned from a raid in the Shenandoah
Valley, they descried an old Dutchman, who did not care which side in
the war succeeded, so long as he and his property were left alone.
His house had been their head-quarters in a former raid, and they all
rode up there to halt again. The old Hans stood on his steps as they
approached and wafted them away at the same time reiterating, by way
of emphasis, “Gentlemens, I have no objections to your coming in, but
the old lady she kicks agin it.” After that I could not raise the
mildest protest against any plan but that those mischievous brothers
would exclaim pathetically, and in a most tormenting tone, “What a good
time we might have if the old lady didn’t kick agin it.” Sometimes the
mildest and quietest one of us all would be called by some appellation
so suggestive of ruffianism and bloodshed that it was the extreme of
the ridiculous to associate the person and the name together. For
instance, the best regulated and least sensational one would find
himself addressed as “Shacknasty Bill, or the Sinewy Slayer of the
Ghostly Gulch.” Another, always inclined to gloom, was given a rousing
slap on the back as his good-morning, and a hearty “How are you, Old
Skull and Cross-bones?” No one escaped. I used to think the joking was
carried too far sometimes, but it was easy to go to extremes when the
resources were so limited for a variety in our life. My own blood rose
to lava heat when I found people twitting one another on unpleasant
facts, and a smile of ridicule circulating. It was too great a triumph
for the teaser to stir up wrath though, and the life was a lesson of
constant self-control. Certainly it was excellent discipline, and
calculated to keep one’s self-confidence within bounds. It was the same
sort of training that members of a large family have, and they profit
by the friction, for they are rarely so selfish and exacting as only
children usually are.