DISTURBED CONDITION OF TEXAS.
TEXAS was in a state of ferment from one end to the other. There was
then no network of railroads running over its vast territory as there is
now. Lawless acts might be perpetrated, and the inciters cross the Rio
Grande into Mexico, before news of the depredations came to either
military or civil headquarters. The regiments stationed at various
points in the State had no easy duty. Jayhawkers, bandits and
bush-whackers had everything their own way for a time. I now find,
through official reports, what innumerable perplexities came up almost
daily, and how difficult it was for an officer in command of a division
to act in perfect justice to citizen, soldier and negro. It was the most
natural result in the world that the restless throng let loose over the
State from the Confederate service, should do what idle hands usually
find to do. Consider what a land of tramps we were at the North, after
the war; and if, in our prosperous States and Territories, when so many
business industries were at once resumed, we suffered from that class of
men who refused to work and kept outside the pale of the law by a
stealthy existence, what would naturally be the condition of affairs in
a country like Texas, for many years the hiding-place of outlaws?
My own father was one of the most patriotic men I ever knew. He was too
old to enter the service--an aged man even in my sight, for he had not
married till he was forty; but in every way that he could serve his
country at home he was foremost among the elderly patriots of the North.
I remember how little war moved me. The clash of arms and glitter of
the soldiery only appealed to me as it did to thoughtless, light-hearted
young girls still without soldier lovers or brothers, who lived too far
from the scenes of battle to know the tragic side. But my father
impressed me by his sadness, his tears, his lamentations over our
country's misfortunes. He was the first in town to get the news from the
front, and so eager to hear the result of some awful day, when lives
were being lost by thousands on a hotly contested field, that he walked
a bleak, lonely mile to the telegraph station, waiting till midnight for
the last despatches, and weeping over defeats as he wearily trod the
long way homeward. I remember his striding up and down the floor, his
grand head bent over his chest in grief, and saying, so solemnly as to
arrest the attention of my stepmother, usually absorbed in domestic
affairs, and even of me, too happy then with the very exuberance of
living to think, while the sadness of his voice touched even our
thoughtlessness: "Oh! the worst of this calamity will not be confined to
war: our land, even after peace is restored, will be filled with
cut-throats and villains."
The prediction came true immediately in Texas, and the troops had to be
stationed over the extensive territory. Before the winter was over, the
civil authorities began to be able to carry out the laws; they worked,
as they were obliged to do, in connection with the military, and the
rioting, oppressions and assassinations were becoming less common. It
was considered unnecessary to retain the division of cavalry as an
organization, since all anticipated trouble with Mexico was over, and
the troops need no longer be massed in great numbers. The necessity for
a special commander for the cavalry in the State was over, and the
General was therefore mustered out of service as a major-general of
volunteers, and ordered North to await his assignment to a new station.
We had very little to do in preparation, as our camp outfit was about
all our earthly possessions at that time. It was a trial to part with
the elderly dogs, which were hardly worth the experiment of transporting
to the North, especially as we had no reason to suppose we should see
another deer, except in zoological gardens. The hounds fell into good
and appreciative hands, being given either to the planter who had
presented them, or to the officers of the regular regiment that had just
been stationed in Texas for a five-years' detail. The cow was returned
to the generous planter who lent her to us. She was now a fat, sleek
creature, compared with her appearance when she came from among the
ranch cattle. The stables were emptied, and our brief enjoyment of an
embryo blue-grass farm, with a diminutive private track of our own, was
at an end. Jack Rucker, Custis Lee, Phil and the blooded mare were to
go; but the great bargains in fast ponies had to be sacrificed.
[Illustration: GENERAL CUSTER AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR--AGED 25.]
My old father Custer had been as concerned about my horse education as
his sons. He also tried, as well as his boys, to attract my attention
from the flowing manes and tails, by which alone I judged the merits of
a horse, to the shoulders, length of limb, withers, etc. One day there
came an incentive for perfecting myself in horse lore, for my husband
said that if I would select the best pony in a number we then owned, I
should have him. I sat on a keg in the stable-yard, contemplating the
heels of the horses, and wishing fervently I had listened to my former
lessons in horseflesh more attentively. All three men laughed at my
perplexities, and even the soldiers who took care of the stable retired
to a safe place to smile at the witticisms of their commanding officer,
and were so deplorably susceptible to fun that even the wife of their
chief was a subject for merriment. I was in imminent danger of losing my
chance at owning a horse, and might to this day have remained ignorant
of the peculiarly proud sensation one experiences over that possession,
if my father Custer had not slyly and surreptitiously come over to my
side. How he cunningly imparted the information I will not betray; but,
since he was as good a judge of a horse as his sons, and had taught them
their wisdom in that direction, it is needless to say that my final
judgment, after repeated returns to the stable, was triumphant. Texas
made the old saw read, All is fair in love, war and horse-trades, so I
adapted myself to the customs of the country, and kept the secret of my
wise judgment until the money that the pony brought--forty dollars in
silver--was safely deposited in my grasping palm. I will not repeat the
scoffing of the outwitted pair, after I had spent the money, at
"Libbie's horse-dress," but content myself with my father's praise at
the gown he had secured to me, when I enjoyed at the North the serenity
of mind that comes of silken attire.
The planters came to bid us good-by, and we parted from them with
reluctance. We had come into their State under trying circumstances, and
the cordiality, generosity and genuine good feeling that I know they
felt, made our going a regret. There was no reason why they should come
from their distant plantations to say good-by and wish us godspeed,
except from personal friendship, and we all appreciated the wish they
expressed that we might remain.
The journey from Austin to Hempstead was made much more quickly than our
march over. We had relays of horses, the roads were good, and there was
no detention. I only remember one episode of any importance. At the
little hotel at which we stopped in Brennan, we found loitering about
the doors and stoop and inner court a lounging, rough lot of men,
evidently the lower order of Confederate soldiers, the lawless set that
infest all armies, the tramp and the bummer. They gathered in knots, to
watch and talk of us. As we passed them on our way to the dining-room,
they muttered, and even spoke audibly, words of spiteful insult. At
every such word I expected the fiery blood of the General and his staff
would be raised to fighting heat. But they would not descend to
altercation with fellows to whom even the presence of a woman was no
restraint. It was a mystery, it still is, to me, that hot-blooded men
can control themselves if they consider the foeman unworthy of the
steel. My husband was ever a marvel to me, in that he could in this
respect carry out his own oft-repeated counsel. I began very early with
that old maxim, "consider the source," as a subterfuge for the lack of
repartee, in choking senseless wrath; but it came to be a family
aphorism, and I was taught to live up to its best meaning. The
Confederates were only "barking," not "biting," as the General said
would be the case; but they gave me a genuine scare, and I had serious
objections to traveling in Texas unaccompanied by a Division of cavalry.
I think the cold nights, smoky camp-fires, tarantulas, etc., that we
encountered on our march over, would have been gladly undertaken rather
than run into the face of threatening men, unaccompanied by a single
trooper, as we then traveled.
I wonder what the present tourist would think of the bit of railroad
over which we journeyed from Brennan to Galveston! I scarcely think it
had been touched, in the way of repairs, during the war. The coaches
were not as good as our present emigrant cars. The rails were worn down
thin, and so loosely secured that they moved as we rolled slowly over
them. We were to be constantly in some sort of peril, it seemed. There
was a deep gully on the route, over which was stretched a cobweb
trestle, intended only as a temporary bridge. There was no sort of
question about its insecurity; it quivered and menacingly swayed under
us. The conductor told us that each time he crossed he expected to go
down. I think he imagined there could be no better time than that, when
it would secure the effectual departure of a few Yankee officers, not
only from what he considered his invaded State, but from the face of the
earth. At any rate, he so graphically described to me our imminent peril
that he put me through all the preliminary stages of sudden death. Of
course, our officers, inured to risks of all sorts, took it all as a
matter of course, and the General slyly called the attention of our
circle to the usual manner in which the "old lady" met danger, namely,
with her head buried in the folds of a cloak.
My husband knew what interest and admiration my father Bacon had for
"old Sam Houston," and he himself felt the delight that one soldier
takes in the adventures and vicissitudes of another. Consequently, we
had listened all winter to the Texans' laudation of their hero, and many
a story that never found its way into print was remembered for my
father's sake. We were only too sorry that Houston's death, two years
previous, had prevented our personal acquaintance. He was not, as I had
supposed, an ignorant soldier of fortune, but had early scholarly
tastes, and, even when a boy, could repeat nearly all of Pope's
translation of the Iliad. Though a Virginian by birth, he early went
with his widowed mother to Tennessee, and his roving spirit led him
among the Indians, where he lived for years as the adopted son of a
chief. He served as an enlisted man under Andrew Jackson in the war of
1812, and afterward became a lieutenant in the regular army. Then he
assumed the office of Indian agent, and befriended those with whom he
had lived.
From that he went into law in Nashville, and eventually became a
Congressman. Some marital difficulties drove him back to barbarism, and
he rejoined the Cherokees, who had been removed to Arkansas. He went to
Washington to plead for the tribe, and returning, left his wigwam among
the Indians after a time, and went to Texas. During the tumultuous
history of that State, when it was being shifted from one government to
another with such vehemence, no citizen could tell whether he would rise
in the morning a Mexican, or a member of an independent republic, or a
citizen of the United States.
With all that period Sam Houston was identified. He was evidently the
man for the hour, and it is no wonder that our officers dwelt with
delight upon his marvelous career. In the first revolutionary movement
of Texas against Mexican rule, he began to be leader, and was soon
commander-in-chief of the Texan army, and in the new Republic he was
reëlected to that office. The dauntless man confronted Santa Anna and
his force of 5,000 men with a handful of Texans--783 all told,
undisciplined volunteers, ignorant of war. But he had that rare personal
magnetism, which is equal to a reserve of armed battalions, in giving
men confidence and inciting them to splendid deeds. Out of 1,600 regular
Mexican soldiers, 600 were killed, and Santa Anna, disguised as a
common soldier, was captured. Then Houston showed his magnanimous heart;
for, after rebuking him for the massacres of Goliad and the Alamo, he
protected him from the vengeance of the enraged Texans. A treaty made
with the captive President resulted in the independence of Texas. When,
after securing this to the State of his adoption, Houston was made
President of Texas, he again showed his wonderful clemency--which I
cannot help believing was early fostered and enhanced by his labors in
behalf of the wronged Cherokees--in pardoning Santa Anna, and appointing
his political rivals to offices of trust. If Mr. Lincoln gave every
energy to promoting the perpetual annexation of California, by tethering
that State to our Republic with an iron lariat crossing the continent,
how quickly he would have seen, had he then been in office, what
infinite peril we were in of losing that rich portion of our country.
The ambition of the soldier and conqueror was tempered by the most
genuine patriotism, for Sam Houston used his whole influence to annex
Texas to the Union, and the people in gratitude sent him to Washington
as one of their first Senators. As President he had overcome immense
difficulties, carried on Indian wars, cleared off an enormous debt,
established trade with Mexico, made successful Indian treaties, and
steadily stood at the helm, while the State was undergoing all sorts of
upheavals. Finally he was made Governor of the State, and opposed
secession, even resigning his office rather than take the oath required
by the convention that assembled to separate Texas from the Union. Then,
poor old man, he died before he was permitted to see the promised land,
as the war was still in progress. His name is perpetuated in the town
called for him, which, as the centre of large railroad interests, and as
a leader in the march of improvement in that rapidly progressing State,
will be a lasting monument to a great man who did so much to bring out
of chaos a vast extent of our productive land, sure to become one of the
richest of the luxuriant Southern States.
At Galveston we were detained by the non-arrival of the steamer in which
we were to go to New Orleans. With a happy-go-lucky party like ours, it
mattered little; no important interests were at stake, no business
appointments awaiting us. We strolled the town over, and commented, as
if we owned it, on the insecurity of its foundations. Indeed, for years
after, we were surprised, on taking up the morning paper, not to find
that Galveston had dropped down into China. The spongy soil is so porous
that the water, on which rests the thin layer of earth, appears as soon
as a shallow excavation is attempted. Of course there are no wells, and
the ungainly cistern rises above the roof at the rear of the house. The
hawkers of water through the town amused us vastly, especially as we
were not obliged to pay a dollar a gallon, except as it swelled our
hotel-bill. I remember how we all delighted in the oleanders that grew
as shade-trees, whose white and red blossoms were charming. To the
General, the best part of all our detention was the shell drive along
the ocean. The island on which Galveston has its insecure footing is
twenty-eight miles long, and the white, firm beach, glistening with the
pulverized shells extending all the distance, was a delight to us as we
spent hours out there on the shore.
It must surely have been this white and sparkling thread bordering the
island, that drew the ships of the pirate Lafitte to moor in the harbor
early in 1800. The rose-pink of the oleander, the blue of the sky, the
luminous beach, with the long, ultramarine waves sweeping in over the
shore, were fascinating; but on our return to the town, all the desire
to remain was taken away by the tale of the citizens, of the frequent
rising of the ocean, the submerging of certain portions, and the
evidence they gave that the earth beneath them was honeycombed by the
action of the water.
We paid little heed at first to the boat on which we embarked. It was a
captured blockade-runner, built up with two stories of cabins and
staterooms for passengers. In its original condition, the crew and
passengers, as well as the freight, were down in the hull. The steamer
was crowded. Our staterooms were tiny, and though they were on the upper
deck, the odor of bilge water and the untidiness of the boat made us
uncomfortable from the first. The day was sunny and clear as we
departed, and we had hardly left the harbor before we struck a norther.
Such a hurricane as it was at sea! We had thought ourselves versed in
all the wind could do on land; but a norther in that maelstrom of a
Gulf, makes a land storm mild in comparison. The Gulf of Mexico is
almost always a tempest in a tea-pot. The waves seem to lash themselves
from shore to shore, and after speeding with tornado fleetness toward
the borders of Mexico, back they rush to the Florida peninsula. No one
can be out in one of these tempests, without wondering why that thin jet
of land which composes Florida has not long ago been swept out of
existence. How many of our troops have suffered from the fury of that
ungovernable Gulf, in the transit from New Orleans to Matamoras or
Galveston! And officers have spoken, over and over again, of the
sufferings of the cavalry horses, condemned to the hold of a Government
transport. Ships have gone down there with soldiers and officers who
have encountered, over and over again, the perils of battle. Transports
have only been saved from being engulfed in those rapacious waves by
unloading the ship of hundreds of horses; and to cavalrymen the throwing
overboard of noble animals that have been untiring in years of
campaigning, and by their fleetness and pluck have saved the lives of
their masters, is like human sacrifice. Officers and soldiers alike
bewail the loss, and for years after speak of it with sorrow.
Though the wind seems to blow in a circle much of the time on the Gulf,
we found it dead against us as we proceeded. The captain was a resolute
man, and would not turn back, though the ship was ill prepared to
encounter such a gale. We labored slowly though the constantly
increasing tempest, and the last glimpse of daylight lighted a sea that
was lashed to white foam about us. At home, when the sun sets the wind
abates; but one must look for an entire change of programme where the
norther reigns. There was no use in remaining up, so I sought to forget
my terror in sleep, and crept onto one of the little shelves allotted to
us. The creaking and groaning of the ship's timbers filled me with
alarm, and I could not help calling up to my husband to ask if it did
not seem to him that all the new portion of the steamer would be swept
off into the sea. Though I was comforted by assurances of its
impossibility, I wished with all my heart we were down in the hold.
Sleep, my almost never-failing friend, came to calm me, and I dreamed of
the strange days of the blockade-runner, when doubtless other women's
hearts were pounding against their ribs with more alarming terrors than
those that agitated me. For we well knew what risks Confederate women
took to join their husbands, in the stormy days on sea as well as on
land.
In the night I was awakened suddenly by a fearful crash, the quick
veering of the boat, and her violent rolling from side to side. At the
same instant, the overturning of the water-pitcher deluged me in my
narrow berth. My husband, hearing my cry of terror, descended from his
berth and was beside me in a moment. No one comprehended what had
happened. The crashing of timber, and the creaking, grinding sounds rose
above the storm. The machinery was stopped, and we plunged back and
forth in the trough of the sea, each time seeming to go down deeper and
deeper, until there appeared to be no doubt that the ship would be
eventually engulfed. There seemed to be no question, as the breaking of
massive beams went on, that we were going to pieces. The ship made a
brave fight with the elements, and seemed to writhe and struggle like
something human.
In the midst of this, the shouts of the sailors, the trumpet of the
captain giving orders, went on, and was followed by the creaking of
chains, the strain of the cordage, and the mad thrashing to and fro of
the canvas, which we supposed had been torn from the spars. Instant
disorder took possession of the cabin. Everything movable was in motion.
The trunks, which the crowded condition of the hold had compelled us to
put in the upper end of the cabin, slid down the carpet, banging from
side to side. The furniture broke from its fastenings, and slipped to
and fro; the smashing of lamps in our cabin was followed by the crash of
crockery in the adjoining dining-room; while above all these sounds rose
the cries and wails of the women. Some, kneeling in their night-clothes,
prayed loudly, while others sank in heaps on the floor, moaning and
weeping in their helpless condition. The calls of frantic women, asking
for some one to go and find if we were going down, were unanswered by
the terrified men. Meanwhile my husband, having implored me to remain in
one spot, and not attempt to follow him, hastily threw on his clothes
and left me, begging that I would remember, while he was absent, that
the captain's wife and child were with us, and if a man ever was nerved
to do his best, that brave husband and father would do so to-night.
It seemed an eternity to wait. I was obliged to cling to the door to be
kept from being dashed across the cabin. While I wept and shivered, and
endured double agony, knowing into what peril my husband had by that
time struggled, I felt warm, soft arms about me, and our faithful Eliza
was crooning over me, begging me to be comforted, that she was there
holding me. Awakened at the end of the cabin, where she slept on a sofa,
she thought of nothing but making her way through the demolished
furniture, to take me in her protecting arms. Every one who knows the
negro character is aware what their terrors are at sea. How, then, can I
recall the noble forgetfulness of self of that faithful soul, without
tears of gratitude as fresh as those that flowed on her tender breast
when she held me? There was not a vestige of the heroic about me. I
simply cowered in a corner, and let Eliza shelter me. Besides, I felt
that I had a kind of right to yield to selfish fright, for it was my
husband, of all the men on shipboard, who had climbed laboriously to the
deck to do what he could for our safety, and calm the agitated women
below.
Some of the noble Southern women proved how deep was their natural
goodness of heart; for the very ones who had coldly looked me over and
shrunk from a hated Yankee when we met the day before, crept slowly up
to calm my terrors about my husband, and instruct Eliza what to do for
me. At last--and oh, how interminable the time had seemed!--the General
opened the cabin door, and struggled along to the weeping women. They
all plied him with questions, and he was able to calm them, so the
wailing and praying subsided somewhat. When he climbed up the
companionway, the waves were dashing over the entire deck, and he was
compelled to creep on his hands and knees, clinging to ropes and spars
as best he could, till he reached the pilot-house. Only his superb
strength kept him from being swept overboard. Every inch of his progress
was a deadly peril. He found the calm captain willing to explain, and
paid the tribute that one brave man gives another in moments of peril.
The norther had broken in the wheel-house, and disabled the machinery,
so that, but for the sails, which we who were below had heard raised, we
must have drifted and tossed to shipwreck. If he could make any
progress, we were comparatively safe, but with such a hurricane all was
uncertain. This part of the captain's statement the General suppressed.
We women were told, after the fashion of men who desire to comfort and
calm our sex, only a portion of the truth.
The motion of the boat, as it rolled from side to side, made every one
succumb except Eliza and me. The General, completely subdued and
intensely wretched physically, crept into his berth, and though he was
so miserable, I remember, toward morning, a faint thrust of ridicule at
our adjoining neighbors, the Greenes, who were suffering also the
tortures of seasickness. A sarcastic query as to the stability of their
stomachs called forth a retort that he had better look to his own. Eliza
held me untiringly, and though the terror of uncertainty had subsided
somewhat, I could not get on without an assurance of our safety from
that upper berth. My husband, in his helplessness, and abandoned as he
was to physical misery, could scarcely turn to speak more than a word
or two at a time, and even then Eliza would tell him, "Ginnel, you jest
'tend to your own self, and I'll 'tend to Miss Libbie."
It is difficult to explain what a shock it is to find one who never
succumbs, entirely subjugated by suffering; all support seems to be
removed. In all our vicissitudes, I had never before seen the General go
under for an instant. He replied that he was intensely sorry for me; but
such deadly nausea made him indifferent to life, and for his part he
cared not whether he went up or down.
So the long night wore on. I thought no dawn ever seemed so grateful.
The waves were mountains high, and we still plunged into what appeared
to be solid banks of green, glittering crystal, only to drop down into
seemingly hopeless gulfs. But daylight diminishes all terrors, and there
was hope with the coming of light. A few crept out, and some even took
courage for breakfast. The feeble notes disappeared from my husband's
voice, and he began to cheer me up. Then he crept to our witty Mrs.
Greene (the dear Nettie of our home days), to send more sly thrusts in
her stateroom, regarding his opinion of one who yielded to seasickness;
so she was badgered into making an appearance. While all were
contributing experiences of the awful night, and commenting on their
terrors, we were amazed to see the door of a stateroom open, and a
German family walk out unconcernedly from what we all night supposed was
an unoccupied room. The parents and three children showed wide-eyed and
wide-mouthed wonder, when they heard of the night. Through all the din
and danger they had peacefully slept, and doubtless would have gone
down, had we been shipwrecked, unconscious in their lethargy that death
had come to them.
Then the white, exhausted faces of our officers, who had slept in the
other cabin, began to appear. Our father Custer came tottering in, and
made his son shout out with merriment, even in the midst of all the
wretched surroundings, when he laconically said to his boy, that "next
time I follow you to Texas, it will be when this pond is bridged over."
Two of the officers had a stateroom next the pilot-house, and begged the
General to bring me up there. My husband, feeling so deeply the terrible
night of terror and entire wakefulness for me, picked me up, and carried
me to the upper deck, where I was laid in the berth, and restored to
some sort of calm by an opportune glass of champagne. The wine seemed to
do my husband as much good as it did me, though he did not taste it; all
vestige of his prostration of the preceding night disappeared, and no
one escaped his comical recapitulation of how they conducted themselves
when we were threatened with such peril. My terrors of the sea were too
deep-rooted to be set aside, and even after we had left the hated Gulf,
and were safely moving up the Mississippi to New Orleans, I felt no
security. Nothing but the actual planting of our feet on _terra firma_
restored my equanimity. Among the petitions of the Litany asking our
Heavenly Father to protect us, none since that Gulf storm has ever been
emphasized to me as the prayer for preservation from "perils by land and
by sea."
New Orleans was again a pleasure to us, and this time we knew just where
to go for recreation or for our dinner. Nearly a year in Texas had
prepared us for gastronomic feats, and though the General was by no
means a _bon-vivant_, any one so susceptible to surroundings as he would
be tempted by the dainty serving of a French dinner. Our party had dined
too often with Duke Humphrey in the pine forests of Louisiana and Texas,
not to enjoy every delicacy served. All through the year it had been the
custom to refer to the luxuries of the French market, and now, with our
purses a little fuller than when we were on our way into Texas, we had
some royal times--that is, for poor folks.
We took a steamer for Cairo, and though the novelty of river travel was
over, it continued to be most enjoyable. And still the staff found the
dinner-hour an event, as they were making up for our limited bill of
fare the year past. A very good string band "charmed the savage" while
he dined. It was the custom, now obsolete, to march the white coated
and aproned waiters in file from kitchen to dining-room, each carrying
aloft some feat of the cook, and as we had a table to ourselves, there
was no lack of witty comments on this military serving of our food, and
smacking of lips over edibles we had almost forgotten in our year of
semi-civilization. The negroes were in a state of perpetual guffaws over
the remarks made, _sotto voce_, by our merry table, and they soon grew
to be skillful confederates in all the pranks practiced on our father
Custer. For instance, he slowly read over the bill of fare, or his sons
read it, and he chose the viands as they were repeated to him. Broiled
ham on coals seemed to attract his old-fashioned taste. Then my husband
said, "Of course, of course; what a good selection!" and gave the order,
accompanied by a significant wink to the waiter. Presently our parent,
feeling an unnatural warmth near his ear, looked around to find his
order filled literally, and the ham sizzling on red coals. He naturally
did not know what to do with the dish, fearing to set the boat on fire,
and his sons were preternaturally absorbed in talking with some one at
the end of the table, while the waiter slid back to the kitchen to have
his laugh out.
Our father Custer was of the most intensely argumentative nature. He was
the strongest sort of politician; he is now, and grows excited and
belligerent over his party affairs at nearly eighty, as if he were a
lad. He is beloved at home in Monroe, but it is considered too good fun
not to fling little sneers at his candidate or party, just to witness
the rapidity with which the old gentleman plunges into a defense.
Michigan's present Secretary of State, the Hon. Harry Conant, my
husband's, and now my father's, faithful friend, early took his cue from
the General, and loses no opportunity now to get up a wordy war with our
venerable Democrat, solely to hear the defense. And then, too, our
father Custer considers it time well spent to "labor with that young
man" over the error he considers he has made in the choice of politics.
As the old gentleman drives or rides his son's war-horse, Dandy, through
the town, his progress is slow, for some voice is certain to be raised
from the sidewalk, calling out, "Well, father Custer, to-day's paper
shows your side well whipped," or a like challenge to argument. Dandy is
drawn up at once, and the flies can nip his sides at will, so far as his
usually careful master is conscious of him, as he cannot proceed until
the one who has good-naturedly agitated him has been struggled over, to
convince him of the error of his belief.
I was driving with him in Monroe not long since, and as the train was
passing through the town, Dandy was driven up to the cars. I
expostulated, asking if he intended him to climb over or creep under;
but he persisted, only explaining that he wished me to see how gentle
Dandy could be. Suddenly the conductor swung himself from the platform,
and called out some bantering words about politics. Our father was then
for driving Dandy directly into the train. He fairly yelled some sort of
imputation upon the other party, and then kept on talking, gesticulating
with his whip and shaking it at the conductor, who laughed immoderately
as he was being carried out of sight. I asked what was the matter--did
he have any grudge or hatred for the man? "Oh, no, daughter, he's a good
enough fellow, only he's an onery scamp of a Republican."
His sons never lost a chance to enter into discussion with him. I have
known the General to "bone up," as his West Point phrase expressed it,
on the smallest details of some question at issue in the Republican
party, for no other reason than to incite his parent to a defense. The
discussion was so earnest, that even I would be deceived into thinking
it something my husband was all on fire about. But the older man was
never rasped or badgered into anger. He worked and struggled with his
boy, and mourned that he should have a son who had so far strayed from
the truth as he understood it. The General argued as vehemently as his
father, and never undeceived him for days, but simply let the old
gentleman think how misguided he really was. It served to pass many an
hour of slow travel up the river. Tom connived with the General to
deprive their father temporarily of his dinner. When the plate was well
prepared, as was the old-time custom, the potato and vegetables
seasoned, the meat cut, it was the signal for my husband to hurl a bomb
of inflammable information at the whitening hairs of his parent. The old
man would rather argue than eat, and, laying down his knife and fork, he
fell to the discussion as eagerly as if he had not been hungry. As the
argument grew energetic and more absorbing, Tom slipped away the
father's plate, ate all the nicely prepared food, and returned it empty
to its place. Then the General tapered off his aggravating threats, and
said, "Well, come, come, come, father, why don't you eat your dinner?"
Father Custer's blank face at the sight of the empty plate was a
mirth-provoking sight to his offspring, and they took good care to tip
the waiter and order a warm dinner for the still arguing man. In a
quaint letter, a portion of which I give below, father Custer tells how,
early in life, he began to teach his boys politics.
"TECUMSEH, Mich., Feb. 3, 1887.
"MY DEAR DAUGHTER ELIZABETH: I received your letter,
requesting me to tell you something of our trip up the
Mississippi with my dear boys, Autie and Tommy. Well,
as I was always a boy with my boys, I will try and
tell you of some of our jokes and tricks on each
other. I want to tell you also of a little incident
when Autie was about four years old. He had to have a
tooth drawn, and he was very much afraid of blood.
When I took him to the doctor to have the tooth
pulled, it was in the night, and I told him if it bled
well it would get well right away, and he must be a
good soldier. When he got to the doctor he took his
seat, and the pulling began. The forceps slipped off,
and he had to make a second trial. He pulled it out,
and Autie never even scrunched. Going home, I led him
by the arm. He jumped and skipped, and said, 'Father,
you and me can whip all the Whigs in Michigan.' I
thought that was saying a good deal, but I did not
contradict him."
"When we were in Texas, I was at Autie's headquarters
one day, and something came up, I've forgotten what it
was, but I said I would bet that it was not so, and he
said, 'What will you bet?' I said, 'I'll bet my
trunk.' I have forgotten the amount he put up against
it, but according to the rule of betting he won my
trunk. I thought that was the end of it, as I took it
just as a joke, and I remained there with him for some
time. To my great astonishment, here came an orderly
with the trunk on his shoulder, and set it down before
Autie. Well, I hardly knew what to think. I hadn't
been there long, and didn't know camp ways very well.
I had always understood that the soldiers were a
pretty rough set of customers, and I wanted to know
how to try and take care of myself, so I thought I
would go up to my tent and see what had become of my
goods and chattels. When I got there, all my things
were on my bed. Tom had taken them out, and he had not
been very particular in getting them out, so they were
scattered helter-skelter, for I suppose he was hurried
and thought I would catch him at it. I began to think
that I would have to hunt quarters in some other
direction."
"The next trick Autie played me was on account of his
knowing that I was very anxious to see an alligator.
He was out with his gun one day, and I heard him
shoot, and when he came up to his tent I asked him
what he had been firing at. He said, an alligator, so
I started off to see the animal, and when I found it,
what do you think it was, but an old Government mule
that had died because it was played out! Well, he had
a hearty laugh over that trick."
"Then, my daughter, I was going over my mess bill and
some of my accounts with Tommy, and to my great
astonishment I found I was out a hundred dollars. I
could not see how I could have made such a mistake,
but I just kept this to myself. I didn't say a word
about it until Autie and Tom could not stand it any
longer, so Autie asked me one day about my money
matters. I told him I was out a hundred dollars, and I
could not understand it. Then he just told me that
Tommy had hooked that sum from me while he was
pretending to help me straighten up. I went for Tom,
and got my stolen money back."
"The next outrage on me was about the mess bill. There
was you, Libbie, Autie, Tom, Colonel and Mrs. Greene,
Major and Mrs. Lyon, and we divided up the amount
spent each month, and all took turns running the mess.
Somehow or other, my bill was pretty big when Autie
and Tom had the mess. I just rebelled against such
extravagance, and rather than suffer myself to be
robbed, I threatened to go and mess with the
wagon-master or some other honest soldier, who
wouldn't cheat an old man. That tickled the boys; it
was just what they were aiming at. I wouldn't pay, so
what do you think Tommy did, but borrow the amount of
me to buy supplies, and when settling time came for
mess bills, they said we came out about even in money
matters!"
"And so they were all the time playing tricks on me,
and it pleased them so much to get off a good joke;
besides, they knew I was just as good a boy with them
as they were."
"Your affectionate father,
"E. H. CUSTER."