LETTERS HOME.
THE trivial events of our daily life were chronicled in a weekly letter
home, and from a number of these school-girl effusions I cull a few
items, as they give an idea of my husband's recreations as well as his
duties.
"We are quartered in the Blind Asylum, which is large and comfortable.
The large rooms in the main part of the building we can use for
entertaining, while the staff occupy the wings and the building in the
yard, that was used for a schoolroom. Out there they can have all the
'walk-arounds' and 'high-jinks' they choose, without any one hearing
them."
* * * * *
"Our room is large, and, mother, I have two bureaus and a wardrobe, and
lose my things constantly, I am so unused to so much room. We women
hardly knew what to make of the absence of looking-glasses, as the house
is otherwise furnished, until it occurred to us that the former
occupants wouldn't get much good out of a mirror. It isn't so necessary
to have one, after all, as I got on all summer very well, after I
learned to brush my hair straight back and not try to part it. I have a
mirror now, and am wrestling with back hair again."
"I confess to you, mother, it is a comfort to get out of bed on to a
carpet, and dress by a fire; but don't tell Armstrong I said so, as I
never mentioned to him that dressing before day, my eyes streaming with
tears from the camp-fire while I took an ice-water bath, was not the
mode of serving my country that I could choose."
* * * * *
"Last Sunday it was uncomfortably warm. We wore thin summer clothes, and
were languid from the heat. The thermometer was eighty-two in the
shade. On Monday the weather changed from heat to cold in five minutes,
in consequence of the sudden and violent winds which are called
'northers.'"
"No one prepares for the cold in this country, but there was a general
scattering when our first norther attacked us. Tom rushed for wood, and
of course none was cut. He fished Tex out from the kitchen, borrowed an
axe from one of the headquarters men, and soon appeared with an armful.
As he took the sticks from Tex to build the fire, out dropped a scorpion
to add to the excitement. It was torpid, but nevertheless it was a
scorpion, and I took my usual safe position, in the middle of the bed,
till there was an _auto da fe_. The loose windows rattled, and the wind
howled around the corner of our room. I put a sack and shawl over my
summer dress, and we shivered over Tom's fire. I rather wondered at
Armstrong's huddling, as he is usually so warm, but each act of these
boys needs investigating. By and by he went off to write, while father
Custer took out his pipe, to calm the troubled scene into which the rush
of Nova Zembla had thrown us. He sat 'way under the mantel to let the
tobacco-smoke go up the chimney. Pretty soon Autie returned and threw
some waste paper on the fire, and the next thing we all started
violently back from a wild pyrotechnic display. With the papers went in
a handful of blank cartridges, and these innocent-looking scamps faced
their father and calmly asked him why he had jumped half-way across the
room. They often repeat this Fourth-of-July exhibition with
fire-crackers, either tied to his chair, or tossed carelessly on the
burning logs, when his attention is attracted elsewhere. But don't pity
him, mother. No matter what trick they play, he is never phased. He
matches them too, and I help him, though I am obliged to confess I often
join in the laugh, it is all so funny. This was not the last of the
hullabaloo. The wood gave out and Autie descended for more. Tex took
this occasion, when everyone was hunting a fire and shelter from the
cold, to right what he considered a grievous wrong. Autie found him
belaboring another colored boy, whom he had 'downed.' Autie
investigated, for if Tex was right he was bound to let the fight
proceed. You know in his West Point days he was arrested for allowing a
fisticuff to go on, and because he said, 'Stand back, boys, and let's
have a fair fight.' But finding our boy in the wrong, he arraigned him,
and began, 'Did you strike Jake with malice aforethought?' 'No sah! no
sah! I dun struck him with the back of the hatchet.' At this Autie found
himself no longer a 'most righteous judge.' This Daniel beat a quick
retreat, red with suppressed laughter, and made Tom go down to do the
punishing. Tom shut Tex in the chicken-coop; but it was hard for me to
see from my window his shiny eyes looking out from between the slats, so
they made the sentence light, and he was set free in the afternoon."
"Now, mother, I have established the only Yankee wood-pile in Texas. I
don't mean to be caught again, and shrivel up as we did this time. You
don't know how these storms deceive you. One hour we are so suffocated
with the heavy, oppressive air, we sit in the deep window-sills and pant
for breath. Along comes a roaring sound through the tree-tops, and
there's a scatter, I can tell you. We bang down the windows, and shout
for Texas to hunt the wood-pile, jump into warm clothes, and before we
are fairly prepared, the hurricane is upon us. We really don't mind it a
bit, as it doesn't last long (once it lasted three days), besides, it is
so good to be in something that isn't going to blow down, as we
momentarily expected in a tent. Our Sundays pass so slowly! The
traveling-wagon holds a good many, and we don't mind close quarters, so
we all squeeze in, and the bachelor officers ride with us to church. The
Episcopal church is still open, but as they have no fires we would be
glad if the rector warmed us up with his eloquence a little more.
However, it's church, and we begin to feel semi-civilized."
* * * * *
"The citizens are constantly coming to pay their respects to Armstrong.
You see, we were welcomed instead of dreaded, as, Yankees or no Yankees,
a man's life is just as good, preserved by a Federal soldier as by a
Confederate, and everybody seems to be in a terrified state in this
lawless land. Among the callers is one man that will interest you,
father. I believe you are considered authority on the history of the
fight that took place at Monroe, when the Kentucky regiment fought the
British in 1812. Well, whom do you think we have found down here, but
the old Colonel Groome who distinguished himself that day? He is a
white-headed old soldier, and when Autie told him that we were right
from Monroe, he was so affected the tears came to his eyes. It was he
that set the barn on fire to prevent the British using it as a
fortification for sharp-shooters. He crawled away from the burning
building on his hands and knees, while their bullets cut his clothes and
wounded him several times. Years afterward he met an old British
officer, who told him, in their talk, that the man who fired the barn
was killed by his own army, but Colonel Groome, in quite a dramatic way,
said, 'No! I am the man.' He says that he would like to see you so much.
Autie is greatly interested in this veteran, and we are going to call on
him, and get two game chickens he is to give us."
"Now, father, don't wrinkle up your brows when I tell you that we race
horses. Even I race with Mrs. L----, and much as you may disapprove, I
know my father too well not to be sure he will be glad that his only
daughter beat. But let me explain to you that racing among ourselves is
not your idea of it. There is no money at stake, no rough crowd, none of
the evils of which you may well disapprove, as we know horse-racing at
home. Armstrong is considered the best judge of a horse here. The Texans
supposed no one in the world could ride as well as themselves, and they
do ride splendidly, but those who saw Armstrong keep his place in the
saddle when Don Juan ran away with him at the grand review in
Washington, concede that he does know how to ride, however mistaken his
views on patriotism may be. We have now three running horses and a fast
pony, none of which has beaten. Autie's bay pony beat a crack runner of
which the town boasts, by three full lengths. The races are near our
quarters, so we women can be in it all. Indeed, there is nothing they do
not share with us."
"Our stable-boy is a tiny mulatto, a handsome little fellow, weighing
about eighty pounds. Armstrong thinks he is the finest rider he has ever
seen. I have just made him a tight-fitting red jacket and a
red-white-and-blue skull cap, to ride in at races. We are running out to
the stables half our time. Armstrong has the horses exercised on a
quarter-of-a-mile track, holds the watch and times them, as we sit round
and enjoy their speed."
* * * * *
"When I am so intent on my amateur dressmaking, and perplexed and tired,
dear mother, you wouldn't wonder when I tell you that one dress, of
which I am in actual need, I cut so that the figure ran one way on the
skirt and another on the waist, and caused Armstrong to make some
ridiculous remarks that I tried not to notice, but he was so funny, and
the dress itself was so very queer when I put it on, I had to give in.
Well, when I am so bothered, he comes in and throws my things all over
the room, kicks over the lapboard, and picks me up for a tramp to the
stable. Then he rubs down the horses' legs, and asks me to notice this
or that fine point, which is all Greek to me. The truth is, that I would
rather see a fine mane and tail than all the sinew, length of limb, etc.
Then we sit down on kegs and boxes, and contemplate our wealth. Custis
Lee greets me with a whinny. Dear mother, you would be simply horrified
by our back yard. Autie and I march to the stables through a dark cloud
of spectators. The negroes are upon us like the locusts of Egypt. It is
rumored that our Uncle Charley keeps a flourishing colored
boarding-house in the town, from what is decidedly more than the crumbs
that fall from his master's table. After all, though, considering our
house is filled with company, and we constantly give evening parties, I
don't think our mess-bills are very large. Autie teases father Custer,
by telling him he is going to brigade the colored troops and make him
chaplain. You are well aware how father Custer feels over the 'nigger'
question, and how he would regard a chaplaincy. I must not forget to
tell you that the wheel of time has rolled around, and among the
regiments in Armstrong's command is the Fourth Michigan Infantry. Don't
you remember that when he was a second lieutenant, he crossed the
Chickahominy with that regiment, and how, having started before dawn,
his comrades among whom he had just come, did not know him, till, while
they were lying low, he would pop up his head and call out their first
names, or their nicknames at school in Monroe, and when it was daylight,
and they recognized him, how glad they were to see him?"
* * * * *
"We had a lovely Christmas. I fared beautifully, as some of our staff
had been to San Antonio, where the stores have a good many beautiful
things from Mexico. Here, we had little opportunity to buy anything, but
I managed to get up some trifle for each of our circle. We had a large
Christmas-tree, and Autie was Santa Claus, and handed down the presents,
making side-splitting remarks as each person walked up to receive his
gift. The tree was well lighted. I don't know how so many tapers were
gotten together. Of course it would not be _us_ if, with all the
substantial gifts, some jokes were not slipped in. You know well father
Custer's antipathy to the negro, and everybody gathered round to see him
open a box containing a nigger doll baby, while two of his other parcels
held a bunch of fire-crackers and a bunch of cards. Lately his sons have
spent a good deal of time and argument trying to induce him to play.
They, at last, taught him some simple game, easy enough for even me to
master. The rogues let him beat at first, but finally he discovered his
luck was so persistently bad there must be a screw loose, and those boys
up to some rascality. They had put him, with no apparent intention, with
his back to the mirror, and, of course, saw his hand, which, like an
amateur, he awkwardly held just right to enable them to see all his
cards. This ended his lessons, and we will return him to Monroe the same
good old Methodist that he left it. Everybody is fond of him, and his
real presents were a hat, handkerchief, necktie, pipe and tobacco."
"One of our lieutenants, having just received his brevet as major, had a
huge pair of yellow leaves cut out of flannel, as his insignia for the
new rank."
"One of the staff, now a teetotaler, was reminded of his past, which I
hoped everyone would ignore, by the present of a wooden faucet. No one
escapes in such a crowd."
"Tom, who is always drumming on the piano, had a Jew's-harp given him,
with an explanatory line from Autie attached, 'to give the piano a
rest.' Only our own military family were here, and Armstrong gave us a
nice supper, all of his own getting up. We played games, sang songs,
mostly for the chorus, danced, and finally the merriest imitated the
darkeys by jigs and patting juba, and walk-arounds. The rooms were
prettily trimmed with evergreens, and over one door a great branch of
mistletoe, about which the officers sang
"Fair mistletoe!
Love's opportunity!
What trees that grow
Give such sweet impunity?"
"But it is too bad that, pretty as two or three of our women are, they
belong to some one else. So kissing begins and ends with every man
saluting his own wife."
"I wish you could see the waxen white berries and the green leaves of
the parasite on the naked branches of the trees here, mother; and, oh!
to have you get one sniff of the December roses, which rival the summer
ones in richness of color and perfume, would make my pleasure greater, I
assure you. It is nearly spring here, and the grass on our lawn is
getting green, and the farmers began to plough in January.
"Nettie is such a nurse here! Her name is up for it, and she has even to
go out to the servants' quarters if the little nigs burn their heels or
toes. She is a great pleasure to us all, and enjoys every moment."
It seems that the general racing of which I wrote to my father, was too
tempting for me to resist entirely, and our household was beguiled one
day into a promise to bring my husband's war-horse, Jack Rucker, down to
the citizens' track. Every one was confident of success, and no one took
into consideration that the experiment of pitting gentlemen against turf
roughs has never been successful. Our officers entered into all the
preparations with high hopes, thinking that with one good whipping the
civilians would cease to send bantering messages or drag presuming
coat-tails before their eyes. They were accustomed to putting their
steeds to their best speed when a party of equestrians from our
headquarters were riding in their vicinity. Too fond of good horseflesh
not to admire the pace at which their thoroughbreds sped over the
smooth, firm roads about Austin, there was still a murmured word passed
around that the owners of these fleet animals would hang their proud
heads when "Jack" came into the field. We women were pressed into going.
All of us liked the trial of speed on our own territory, but the hatred
of a horse-track that was not conducted by gentlemen was imbedded deep
in our minds. The officers did not ask us to go for good luck, as army
women are so often told they bring it, but they simply said, "You could
not miss seeing our Jack beat!" Off we went, a gay, boisterous party,
till we reached the track; there we put on our quietest civilian manners
and took our place to watch the coming triumph. The track was good, and
the Texas men and women, more enthusiastic over a horse than over
anything else in the world, cheered their blanketed favorite as he was
led up and down before the judge's stand.
When the judge gave the final "Go!" our party were so excited, and our
hearts so swelling with assured success, I would have climbed up on the
saddle to see better, if it had not been that we were surrounded with
strangers. Off went the beautiful Texas horse, like an arrow from a bow;
but our Jack, in spite of the rider sticking the spur and cruelly
cutting his silken neck with the whip, only lumbered around the first
curve, and in this manner laboriously made his way the rest of the
distance. Of course it was plain that we were frightfully beaten, and
with loud and triumphant huzzas, the Texans welcomed their winning horse
long before poor Jack dragged himself up to the stand. Our officers
hurried out to look him over, and found the poor brute had been drugged
by the contesting side. There was no serious injury, except to our
pride. We were too disappointed, humiliated and infuriated to stand upon
the order of our going. We all turned our backs upon the crowd and fled.
The clatter of our horses' hoofs upon the hard road was the only sound,
as none of us spoke.
My husband met that, as everything else, as nothing worthy of serious
regret, and after the tempest of fury over our being so imposed upon, I
rather rejoiced, because the speed of our horses, after that first and
last essay, was confined to our own precincts. Nobody's pocket suffered,
and the wounded spirits of those who race horses are more easily soothed
if a wounded purse has not to be borne in addition.
There was one member of our family, to whom I have only referred, who
was our daily joy. It was the pointer, Ginnie, whom the Virginia family
in Hempstead had given us. My husband made her a bed in the hall near
our room, and she did every cunning, intelligent act of which a dog is
capable. She used to go hunting, walking and riding with us, and was _en
rapport_ with her master at all times. I often think, Who among our
friends pleases us on all occasions? How few there are who do not rub us
up the wrong way, or whom we ourselves are not conscious sometimes of
boring, and of taxing their patience! And do we not find that we
sometimes approach those of whom we are fond, and discover intuitively
that they are not in sympathy with our mood, and we must bide their time
for responding to our overtures? With that dear Ginnie there was no
question. She received us exactly in the spirit with which we approached
her, responded, with measure pressed down and running over, to our
affectionate demonstrations, and the blessed old girl never sulked if we
dropped her to attend to something else. George Eliot says, "Animals are
such agreeable friends! they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms."
A dog is so human to me, and dogs have been my husband's chosen friends
so many years, I cannot look upon the commonest cur with indifference.
Sometimes, as I stand now at my window, longing for the old pack that
whined with delight, quarreled with jealousy for the best place near us,
capered with excitement as we started off on a ride or walk, my eyes
involuntarily follow each dog that passes on the street. I look at the
master, to see if he realizes that all that is faithful and loving in
this world is at his heels. If he stops to talk to a friend, and the dog
leaps about him, licks his hand, rubs against him, and tries, in every
way that his devoted heart teaches him, to attract the attention of the
one who is all the world to him, all my sympathies are with the dog. I
watch with jealous solicitude to see if the affectionate brute gets
recognition. And if by instinct the master's hand goes out to the dog's
head, I am quite as glad and grateful as the recipient. If the man is
absorbed, and lets the animal sit patiently and adoringly watching his
very expression, it seems to me I cannot refrain from calling his
attention to the neglect.
My husband was as courteous in responding to his dogs' demonstrations,
and as affectionate, as he would be to a person. If he sent them away,
he explained, in dog talk, the reason, which might seem absurd if our
canine family had not been our companions so constantly that they seemed
to understand and accept his excuses as something unavoidable on his
part. The men of our family so appreciated kindness to dogs that I have
found myself this winter, involuntarily almost, calling to them to see
an evidence of affection. One of my neighbors is a beer saloon, and
though I am too busy to look out of the window much, I have noticed
occasionally an old express horse waiting for his master to take
"something warming." The blanket was humped up on his back mysteriously.
It turned out to be a dear little cur, which was thus kept warm by a
fond master. It recalls our men, and the ways they devised for keeping
their dogs warm, the times innumerable when they shared their own
blankets with them when caught out in a cold snap, or divided short
rations with the dogs they loved.
Returning to Ginnie, I remember a day when there was a strange
disappearance; she did not thump her tail on the door for entrance,
fetching our stockings in her mouth, as a gentle hint that it was time
to get up and have a fire, if the morning was chilly. It did not take
the General long to scramble into his clothes and go to investigate, for
he dearly loved her, and missed the morning call. Soon afterward he came
bounding up the stairs, two steps at a time, to announce that no harm
had come to our favorite, but that seven other little Ginnies were now
taking the breakfast provided by their mother, under the negro quarters
at the rear of the house. There was great rejoicing, and preparations to
celebrate this important event in our family. Eliza put our room in
order, and descended to the kitchen to tell what antics the General was
performing over the animal. When she was safely down-stairs, where she
could not intimidate us, my husband and I departed to fetch the new
family up near us. The General would not trust any one with the
responsibility of the removal. He crawled under the building, which was
set up on low piles, and handed out the baby canines, one by one, to me.
Ginnie ran beside us, frantic with anxiety, but her eloquent eyes full
of love and trust in our intentions.
Her bed in the hall was hardly good enough for such an epoch in her
life, so the whole litter, with the proud mother in their midst, was
safely deposited in the middle of our bed, where we paid court to this
royalty. My husband went over each little shapeless body, and called my
special attention to fine points, that, for the life of me, dog-lover as
I was, I could not discover in the pulpy, silken-skinned little rolls.
As he took them up, one by one, Ginnie understood every word of praise
he uttered. After all of these little blind atoms had been returned to
their maternal, and the General had congratulated the mother on a
restaurant where, he said, the advertisement of "warm meals at all
hours" was for once true, he immediately set about tormenting Eliza. Her
outraged spirit had suffered often, to see the kingly Byron reposing his
head on the pillow, but the General said, "We must get her up-stairs,
for there will be war in the camp now."
Eliza came peacefully up the stairs into our room, but her eyes blazed
when she saw Ginnie. She asked her usual question, "Did I come way off
down in this here no 'count country to wash white counterpanes for
dogs?" At each speech the General said something to Ginnie in reply, to
harrow her up more and more, and at last she had to give in and laugh at
some of his drolleries. She recalls to me now her recollection: "Miss
Libbie, do you mind how the Ginnel landed Ginnie and her whole brood of
pups in the middle of the bed, and then had the 'dacity to send for me?
But, oh! it was perfectly heartrendin', the way he would go on about his
dogs when they was sick."
And we both remembered, when one of these little puppies of our beloved
Ginnie was ill, how he walked the floor half the night, holding,
rubbing, trying to soothe the suffering little beast. And in spite of
his medical treatment--for he kept the dog-book on his desk, and
ransacked it for remedies--and notwithstanding the anointing and the
coddling, two died.
After Eliza had come down from her rampagious state, she was invited to
take notice of what a splendid family Ginnie had. Then all the staff and
the ladies came up to call. It was a great occasion for Ginnie, but she
bore her honors meekly, and offered her paw, as was her old custom, to
each new-comer, as if prepared for congratulations. When they were old
enough to run about and bark, Ginnie took up her former habit of
following at the General's heels; and as he crossed the yard to the
stables there was so absurd a procession that I could not help laughing
at the commanding officer, and question if he himself thought it added
to the dignity of his appearance, to see the court-like trail of mother
and five puppies in his wake. The independence of the chief was too
inborn to be laughed to scorn about appearances, and so he continued to
go about, as long as these wee toddlers followed their mother in quest
of supplies. I believe there were twenty-three dogs at this time about
our house, most of them ours. Even our father Custer accepted a bulky
old cur as a gift. There was no manner of doubt about the qualities that
had influenced our persecuted parent in selecting this one from the
numerous dogs offered him by his farmer friends. His choice was made
neither on account of breeding nor speed. The cur was selected solely as
a watch-dog. He was all growl and bark, and as devotion is not confined,
fortunately, to the canines of exalted paternity, the lumbering old
fellow was faithful. Nothing describes him better than some lines from
"The Outside Dog in the Fight;" for though he could threaten with savage
growls, and, I fancy, when aggravated, could have set savage teeth in
the enemy of his master, he trotted beside our father's horse very
peacefully, unmindful of the quarrelsome members of our canine family,
who bristled up to him, inviting an encounter merely to pass the time.
"You may sing of your dog, your bottom dog,
Or of any dog that you please;
I go for the dog, the wise old dog,
That knowingly takes his ease,
And wagging his tail outside the ring,
Keeping always his bone in sight,
Cares not a pin, in his wise old head,
For either dog in the fight.
"Not his is the bone they are fighting for,
And why should my dog sail in,
With nothing to gain but a certain chance
To lose his own precious skin?
There may be a few, perhaps, who fail
To see it in quite this light;
But when the fur flies I had rather be
The outside dog in the fight."
Affairs had come to such a pass that our father took his yellow cur into
his bedroom at night. It was necessary to take prompt, precautionary
measures to keep his sons from picking the lock of the door and
descending on him in their marauding expeditions. The dog saw
comparatively little of outside life, for, as time rounded, it became
necessary for the old gentleman to shut up his body-guard daytimes also,
as he found in his absence these same sons and their confederates had a
fashion of dropping a little "nig" over the transom, with directions to
fetch back to them anything he could lay his hands on. I have seen them
at the door while our father was away, trying to soothe and cajole the
old guardian of his master's effects into terms of peace. After all
overtures were declined, and the little bedroom was filled up with bark
and growl, the invaders contented themselves with tossing all sorts of
missiles over the transom, which did not sweeten the enraged dog's
temper. Nor did it render our father's bed as downy as it might have
been.
I find myself recalling with a smile the perfectly satisfied manner in
which this ungainly old dog was taken out by his venerable owner on our
rides over the country. Father Custer had chosen him, not for his
beauty, but as his companion, and finding him so successful in this one
capacity, he was just as serene over his possession as ever his sons
were with their high-bred hunters. The dog looked as if he were a
make-up from all the rough clay that was discarded after modeling the
sleek, high-stepping, springy, fleet-footed dogs of our pack. His legs
were massive, while his cumbersome tail curled over his plebeian back in
a tight coil, until he was tired--then, and only then, did it uncurl.
The droop of his head was rendered even more "loppy" by the tongue,
which dropped outside the sagging jaw. But for all that, he lumbered
along, a blotch of ungainly yellow, beside our splendid thoroughbreds;
he was never so tired that he could not understand the voice of a proud
old man, who assured his retrograde sons that he "would match his Bowser
'gainst any of their new-fangled, unreliable, highfalutin lot."
It was a strange sight, though, this one plebeian among patricians. Our
horses were fine, our father got good speed and some style out of his
nag, our dogs leaped over the country like deer, and there in the midst,
panting and faithfully struggling to keep up, was the rough, uncouth old
fellow, too absorbed in endeavoring not to be left behind to realize
that he was not all that a dog could finally become, after generations
of training and breeding had done its refining work.