A MILITARY EXECUTION.
THERE was a great deal to do in those weeks of our detention at
Alexandria, during the working hours of the day, in organizing the
division of cavalry for the march. Troops that had been serving in the
West during the war were brought together at that point from all
directions, and an effort was made to form them into a disciplined body.
This herculean task gave my husband great perplexity. He wrote to my
father that he did not entirely blame the men for the restlessness and
insubordination they exhibited, as their comrades, who had enlisted only
for the war, had gone home, and, of course, wrote back letters to their
friends of the pleasures of reunion with their families and kindred, and
the welcome given them by their townspeople. The troops with us had not
served out the time of their enlistment, and the Government, according
to the strict letter of the law, had a right to the unexpired time for
which the men were pledged. Some of the regiments had not known the
smell of gunpowder during the entire war, having been stationed in and
near Southern cities, and that duty is generally demoralizing. In the
reorganizing of this material, every order issued was met with growls
and grumbling. It seemed that it had been the custom with some of their
officers to issue an order, and then go out and make a speech,
explaining the whys and wherefores. One of the colonels came to the
General one day at his own quarters, thinking it a better place than the
office to make his request. He was a spectacle, and though General
Custer was never in after years incautious enough to mention his name,
he could not, with his keen sense of the ludicrous, resist a laughing
description of the interview. The man was large and bulky in build. Over
the breast of a long, loose, untidy linen duster he had spread the
crimson sash, as he was officer of the day. A military sword-belt
gathered in the voluminous folds of the coat, and from his side hung a
parade sword. A slouch hat was crowded down on a shock of bushy hair.
One trouser-leg was tucked into his boot, as if to represent one foot in
the cavalry; the other, true to the infantry, was down in its proper
place. He began his interview by praising his regiment, gave an account
of the success with which he was drilling his men, and, leaning
confidentially on the General's knee, told him he "would make them
so----near like regglers you couldn't tell 'em apart." Two officers of
the regular army were then in command of the two brigades, to one of
which this man's regiment was assigned. But the object of the visit was
not solely to praise his regiment; he went on to say that an order had
been issued which the men did not like, and he had come up to
expostulate. He did not ask to have the order rescinded, but told the
General he would like to have him come down and give the reasons to the
troops. He added that this was what they expected, and when he issued
any command he went out and got upon a barrel and explained it to the
boys. My husband listened patiently, but declined, as that manner of
issuing orders was hardly in accordance with his ideas of discipline.
The soldiers did not confine their maledictions to the regular officers
in command; they openly refused to obey their own officers. One of the
colonels (I am glad I have forgotten his name) made a social call at our
house. He was in great perturbation of mind, and evidently terrified, as
in the preceding night his dissatisfied soldiers had riddled his tent
with bullets, and but for his "lying low" he would have been perforated
like a sieve. The men supposed they had ended his military career; but
at daylight he crept out. The soldiers were punished; but there seemed
to be little to expect in the way of obedience if, after four years,
they ignored their superiors and took affairs into their own hands.
Threats began to make their way to our house. The staff had their tents
on the lawn in front of us, and even they tried to persuade the General
to lock the doors and bolt the windows, which were left wide open day
and night. Failing to gain his consent to take any precautions, they
asked me to use my influence; but in such affairs I had little success
in persuasion. The servants, and even the orderlies, came to me and
solemnly warned me of the threats and the danger that menaced the
General. Thoroughly frightened in his behalf, they prefaced their
warnings with the old-fashioned sensational language: "This night, at 12
o'clock," etc. The fixing of the hour for the arrival of the assassin
completely unnerved me, as I had not then escaped from the influence
that the melodramatic has upon youth. I ran to the General the moment he
came from his office duties, to tell him, with tears and agitation, of
his peril. As usual, he soothed my fears, but, on this occasion, only
temporarily. Still, seeing what I suffered from anxiety, he made one
concession, and consented, after much imploring, to put a pistol under
his pillow. A complete battery of artillery round our house could not
have secured to me more peace of mind than that pistol; for I knew the
accuracy of his aim, and I had known too much of his cool, resolute
action, in moments of peril, not to be sure that the small weapon would
do its work. Peace was restored to the head of our house; he had a
respite from the whimpering and begging. I even grew so courageous as to
be able to repeat to Eliza, when she came next morning to put the room
in order, what the General had said to me, that "barking dogs do not
bite." The mattress was proudly lifted, and the pistol, of which I stood
in awe, in spite of my faith in its efficacy, was exhibited to her in
triumph. I made wide détours around that side of the bed the rest of the
time we remained at Alexandria, afraid of the very weapon to which I was
indebted for tranquil hours. The cats, pigs and calves might charge at
will under the house. If I mistook them for the approaching adversary I
remembered the revolver and was calmed.
Long afterward, during our winter in Texas, my husband began one day to
appear mysterious, and assume the suppressed air that invariably
prefaced a season of tormenting, when a siege of questions only brought
out deeper and obscurer answers to me. Pouting, tossing of the head, and
reiterated announcements that I didn't care a rap, I didn't want to
know, etc., were met by chuckles of triumph and wild juba patting and
dancing around the victim, unrestrained by my saying that such was the
custom of the savage while torturing his prisoner. Still, he persisted
that he had such a good joke on me. And it certainly was: there had not
been a round of ammunition in the house that we occupied at Alexandria,
neither had that old pistol been loaded during the entire summer!
The soldiers became bolder in their rebellion; insubordination reached a
point where it was almost uncontrollable. Reports were sent to General
Sheridan, in command of the Department, and he replied to my husband,
"Use such summary measures as you deem proper to overcome the mutinous
disposition of the individuals in your command." A Western officer, a
stranger to us up to that time, published an account of one of the
regiments, which explains what was not clear to us then, as we had come
directly from the Army of the Potomac:
"One regiment had suffered somewhat from indifferent field officers, but
more from the bad fortune that overtook so many Western regiments in the
shape of garrison duty in small squads or squadrons, so scattered as to
make each a sort of independent command, which in the end resulted in a
loss of discipline, and the ruin of those bonds of sympathy that bound
most regiments together. To lead such a regiment into a hotly contested
fight would be a blessing, and would effectually set at rest all such
trouble; but their fighting had been altogether of the guerrilla kind,
and there was no regimental pride of character, simply because there had
been no regimental deed of valor. Tired out with the long service, weary
with an uncomfortable journey by river from Memphis, sweltering under a
Gulf-coast sun, under orders to go farther and farther from home when
the war was over, the one desire was to be mustered out and released
from a service that became irksome and baleful when a prospect of
crushing the enemy no longer existed. All these, added to the
dissatisfaction among the officers, rendered the situation truly
deplorable. The command had hardly pitched their tents at Alexandria
before the spirit of reckless disregard of authority began to manifest
itself. The men, singly or in squads, began to go on extemporaneous
raids through the adjoining country, robbing and plundering
indiscriminately in every direction. They seemed to have no idea that a
conquered and subdued people could possibly have any rights that the
conquerors were bound to respect. But General Custer was under orders to
treat the people kindly and considerately, and he obeyed orders with the
same punctiliousness with which he exacted obedience from his command."
The anger and hatred of these troops toward one especial officer
culminated in their peremptory demand that he should resign. They drew
up a paper, and signed their names. He had not a friend, and sought the
commanding officer for protection. This was too pronounced a case of
mutiny to be treated with any but the promptest, severest measures, and
all who had put their names to the document were placed under arrest.
The paper was in reality but a small part of the incessant persecution,
which included threats of all kinds against the life of the hated man;
but it was written proof that his statements regarding his danger were
true.
All but one of those that were implicated apologized, and were restored
to duty. A sergeant held out, and refused to acknowledge himself in the
wrong. A court-martial tried him and he was sentenced to death. Those
who had been associated in the rebellion against their officer were
thoroughly frightened, and seriously grieved at the fate to which their
comrade had been consigned by their uncontrollable rage, and began to
speak among themselves of the wife and children at home. The wife was
unconscious that the heartbreaking revelations were on their way; that
the saddest of woman's sorrows, widowhood, was hers to endure, and that
her children must bear a tainted name. It came to be whispered about
that the doomed man wore on his heart a curl of baby's hair, that had
been cut from his child's head when he went out to serve his imperiled
country. Finally, the wretched, conscience-stricken soldiers sued for
pardon for their condemned companion, and the very man against whom the
enmity had been cherished, and who owed his life to an accident, busied
himself in collecting the name of every man in the command, begging
clemency for the imperiled sergeant. Six days passed, and there was
increased misery among the men, who felt themselves responsible for
their comrade's life. The prayer for pardon, with its long roll of
names, had been met by the General with the reply that the matter would
be considered.
The men now prepared for vengeance. They lay around the camp-fires, or
grouped themselves in tents, saying that the commanding officer would
not dare to execute the sentence of the court-martial, while messages of
this kind reached my husband in cowardly, roundabout ways, and threats
and menaces seemed to fill the air. The preparation for the sergeant's
execution was ordered, and directions given that a deserter, tried by
court-martial and condemned, should be shot on the same day. This man, a
vagabond and criminal before his enlistment, had deserted three or four
times, and his sentence drew little pity from his comrades. At last
dawned in the lovely valley that dreadful day, which I recall now with a
shudder. It was impossible to keep me from knowing that an execution was
to occur. There was no place to send me. The subterfuges by which my
husband had kept me from knowing the tragic or the sorrowful in our
military life heretofore, were of no avail now. Fortunately, I knew
nothing of the petition for pardon; nothing, thank God! of the wife at
her home, or of the curl of baby's hair that was rising and falling over
the throbbing, agonized heart of the condemned father. And how the
capacity we may have for embracing the sorrows of the whole world
disappears when our selfish terrors concentrate on the safety of our own
loved ones!
The sergeant's life was precious as a life; but the threats, the ominous
and quiet watching, the malignant, revengeful faces of the troops about
us, told me plainly that another day might darken my life forever, and I
was consumed by my own torturing suspense. Rumors of the proposed murder
of my husband reached me through the kitchen, the orderlies about our
quarters, and at last through the staff. They had fallen into the
fashion of my husband, and spared me anything that was agitating or
alarming; but this was a time, they felt, when all possible measures
should be taken to protect the General, and they implored me to induce
him to take precautions for his safety. My pleading was of no avail. He
had ordered the staff to follow him unarmed to the execution. They
begged him to wear his side-arms, or at least permit them the privilege,
in order that they might defend him; but he resolutely refused. How
trivial seem all attempts to describe the agonies of mind that filled
that black hour when the General and his staff rode from our lawn toward
the dreaded field!
Eliza, ever thoughtful of me, hovered round the bed, where I had buried
my head in the pillows to deaden the sound of the expected volley. With
terms of endearment and soothing, she sought to assure me that nothing
would happen to the General. "Nothin' ever does, you know, Miss Libbie,"
she said, her voice full of the mother in us all when we seek to
console. And yet that woman knew all the plans for the General's death,
all the venom in the hearts of those who surrounded us, and she felt no
hope for his safety.
Pomp and circumstance are not alone for "glorious war," but in army life
must also be observed in times of peace. There are good reasons for it,
I suppose. The more form and solemnity, the deeper the impression; and
as this day was to be a crucial one, in proving to the insubordinate
that order must eventually prevail, nothing was hurried, none of the
usual customs were omitted. Five thousand soldiers formed a hollow
square in a field near the town. The staff, accustomed to take a
position and remain with their General near the opening left by the
division, followed with wonder and alarm as he rode slowly around the
entire line, so near the troops that a hand might have been stretched
out to deal a fatal blow. The wagon, drawn by four horses, bearing the
criminals sitting on their coffins, followed at a slow pace, escorted by
the guard and the firing-party, with reversed arms. The coffins were
placed in the centre of the square, and the men seated upon them at the
foot of their open graves. Eight men, with livid countenances and
vehemently beating hearts, took their places in front of their comrades,
and looked upon the blanched, despairing faces of those whom they were
ordered to kill. The provost-marshal carried their carbines off to a
distance, loaded seven, and placed a blank cartridge in the eighth, thus
giving the merciful boon of permanent uncertainty as to whose was the
fatal shot. The eyes of the poor victims were then bandaged, while
thousands of men held their breath as the tragedy went on. The still,
Southern air of that garden on earth was unmoved by any sound, save the
unceasing notes of the mocking-birds that sang night and day in the
hedges. Preparations had been so accurately made that there was but one
word to be spoken after the reading of the warrant for execution, and
that the last that those most miserable and hopeless of God's creatures
should hear on earth.
There was still one more duty for the provost-marshal before the fatal
word, "Fire!" was sounded. But one person understood his movements as he
stealthily drew near the sergeant, took his arm, and led him aside. In
an instant his voice rang out the fatal word, and the deserter fell back
dead, in blessed ignorance that he went into eternity alone; while the
sergeant swooned in the arms of the provost-marshal. When he was
revived, it was explained to him that the General believed him to have
been the victim of undue influence, and had long since determined upon
the pardon; but some punishment he thought necessary, and he was also
determined that the soldiers should not feel that he had been
intimidated from performing his duty because his own life was in peril.
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 class 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 emancipation, 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, assuring 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 pass 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 lustre 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 assault; that he was
prepared for any attack on himself, but nothing would make him submit to
seeing his gray-haired parents assailed. 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 anticipated 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
circumstances 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 crape 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 accumulations 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 assailed 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 gods, 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 disbursements 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 stitchery 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 title 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 passed on the first day discouraged us.
Small, low, log huts, consisting of one room each, entirely separated
and having a floored open space 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 substitute 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 substituted, 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 gratitude. 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.
[Illustration: 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 principal 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 passed, 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 buttoning and unbuttoning, was mine, and in the short time
between reveillé 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 sex, 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.