GENERAL CUSTER PARTS WITH HIS STAFF AT CAIRO AND DETROIT.
ALL the smaller schemes to tease our father Custer gave way to a grand
one, concocted in the busy brains of his boys, to rob their parent.
While the patriarch sat in the cabin, reading aloud to himself--as is
still his custom--what he considered the soul-convincing editorial
columns of a favorite paper, his progeny were in some sheltered corner
of the guards, plotting the discomfiture of their father. The plans were
well laid; but the General was obliged to give as much time to it, in a
way, as when projecting a raid, for he knew he had to encounter a wily
foe who was always on guard. The father, early in their childhood,
playing all sorts of tricks on his boys, was on the alert whenever he
was with them, to parry a return thrust. I believe several attempts had
been made to take the old gentleman's money, but he was too wary. They
knew that he had sewed some bills in his waistcoat, and that his steamer
ticket and other money were in his purse. These he carefully placed
under his pillow at night. He continues in his letter: "Tommy and I had
a stateroom together, and on one night in particular, all the folks had
gone to bed in the cabin, and Tom was hurrying me to go to bed. I was
not sleepy, and did not want to turn in, but he hung round so, that at
last I did go to our stateroom. He took the upper berth. I put my vest
under the pillow, and was pulling off my boots, when I felt sure I saw
something going out over the transom. I looked under the pillow, and my
vest was gone. Then I waked Tommy, who was snoring already. I told him
both my purse and vest were gone, and, as the saying is, I 'smelt the
rat.' I opened the door, and felt sure that Autie had arranged to
snatch the vest and purse when it was thrown out. I ran out in the cabin
to his stateroom, but he had the start of me, and was locked in. I did
not know for sure which was his room, so I hit and I thundered at his
door. The people stuck their heads out of their staterooms, and over the
transom came a glass of water. So I, being rather wet, concluded I would
give it up till the next morning. And what do you think those scamps
did? Tom, though I gave it to him well, wouldn't own up to a thing, and
just said 'it was too bad such robberies went on in a ship like that;'
he was very sorry for me, and alluded to the fact that the door being
unlocked was proof that the thief had a skeleton key, and all that
nonsense. Next morning Autie met me, and asked what on earth I had been
about the night before. Such a fracas! all the people had come out to
look up the matter, and there I was pounding at a young lady's door, a
friend of Libbie's, and a girl I liked (indeed, I had taken quite a
shine to her). They made out--those shameless rogues, and very solemn
Autie was about it, too--that it was not a very fine thing for my
reputation to be pounding on a young lady's door late at night,
frightening her half to death, and obliging her to defend herself with a
pitcher of water. She thought I had been trying to break in her door,
and I had better go to her at once and apologize, as the whole party
were being compromised by such scandal. They failed there; for I knew I
was not at her door, and I knew who it was that threw the water on me. I
was bound to try and get even with them, so one morning, while they were
all at breakfast, I went to Autie's stateroom; Eliza was making up the
bed. I looked for Autie's pocket-book, and found it under the pillow. I
kept out of the way, and did not come near them for some days; but they
got desperate, and were determined to beat me; so they made it up that
Tommy was to get round me, seize me by my arms at the back, and Autie go
through my pockets. Well, they left me without a dime, and I had to
travel without paying, and those outlaws of boys got the clerk to come
to me and demand my ticket. I told him I had none, that I had been
robbed. He said he was sorry, but I would have to pay over again, as
some one who stole the ticket would be likely to use it. I tried to tell
him I would make it right before I left the boat, but I hadn't a penny
then. Well, daughter, I came out best at the last, for Autie, having
really all the money, though he wouldn't own up to it, had all the bills
to pay, and when I got home I was so much the gainer, for it did not
cost me anything from the time I left the boat, either, till we got
home, and then Autie gave me up my pocket-book with all the money, and
we all had a good laugh, while the boys told their mother of the pranks
they had played on me."
[Illustration: "STAND THERE, COWARDS, WILL YOU, AND SEE AN OLD MAN
ROBBED?"]
My father's story ceases without doing justice to himself; for the
cunning manner in which he circumvented those mischievous fellows I
remember, and it seems my husband had given a full account to our friend
the Hon. Harry Conant. He writes to me, what is very true, that "it
seems one must know the quaint and brave old man, to appreciate how
exquisitely funny the incident, as told by the General, really was. The
third day after the robbery the General and Tom, thinking their father
engaged at a remote part of the boat, while talking over their escapade
incautiously exhibited the pocket-book. Suddenly the hand that held it
was seized in the strong grasp of the wronged father, who, lustily
calling for aid, assured the passengers that were thronging up (and,
being strangers, knew nothing of the relationship of the parties) that
this purse was his, and that he had been robbed by these two scoundrels,
and if they would assist in securing their arrest and restoring the
purse, he would prove all he said. Seeing the crowd hesitate, he called
out: 'For shame! stand there, cowards, will you, and see an old man
robbed?' It was enough. The spectators rushed in, and the General was
outwitted by his artful parent and obliged to explain the situation. But
the consequent restoration of his property did not give him half the
satisfaction that it did to turn the tables on the boys. Though they
never acknowledged this robbery to their father, none were so proud of
his victory as Tom and the General."
I must not leave to the imagination of the literal-minded people who may
chance to read, the suspicion that my husband and Tom ever made their
father in the least unhappy by their incessant joking. He met them
half-way always, and I never knew them lack in reverence for his snowy
head. He was wont to speak of his Texas life with his sons as his
happiest year for many preceding, and used to say that, were it not for
our mother's constantly increasing feebleness, he would go out to them
in Kansas.
When he reached his own ground, he made Tom and the General pay for some
of their plots and plans to render him uncomfortable, by coming to the
foot of the stairs and roaring out (and he had a stentorian voice) that
they had better be getting up, as it was late. Father Custer thought 6
o'clock A. M. was late. His sons differed. As soon as they found the
clamor was to continue, assisted by the dogs, which he had released from
the stable, leaping up-stairs and springing on our beds in excitement,
they went to the head of the stairs, and shouted out for everything that
the traveler calls for in a hotel--hot water, boot-black, cocktail,
barber, morning paper, and none of these being forthcoming in the simple
home, they vociferated in what the outsider might have thought angry
voices, "What sort of hotel do you keep, any way?"
Father Custer had an answer for every question, and only by talking so
fast and loud that they talked him down did they get the better of him.
Our mother Custer almost invariably sided with her boys. It made no sort
of difference if father Custer stood alone, he never seemed to expect a
champion. He did seem to think that she was carrying her views to an
advanced point, when she endeavored to decline a new cur that he had
introduced into the house, on the strength of its having "no pedigree."
Her sons talked dog to her so much that one would be very apt to be
educated up to the demand for an authenticated grandfather. Besides,
the "Towsers" and "Rovers" and all that sort of mongrels, to which she
had patiently submitted in all the childhood of her boys and their
boyish father, entitled her to some choice in after years.
At Cairo our partings began, for there some of the staff left us for
their homes. We dreaded to give them up. Our harmonious life, and the
friendships welded by the sharing of hardships and dangers, made us feel
that it would be well if, having tested one another, we might go on in
our future together. At Detroit the rest of our military family
disbanded. How the General regretted them! The men, scarce more than
boys even then, had responded to every call to charge in his Michigan
brigade, and afterward in the Third Cavalry Division. Some, wounded
almost to death, had been carried from his side on the battle-field, as
he feared, forever, and had returned with wounds still unhealed. One of
those valiant men has just died, suffering all these twenty-three years
from his wound; but in writing, speaking in public when he could,
talking to those who surrounded him when he was too weak to do more, one
name ran through his whole anguished life, one hero hallowed his days,
and that was his "boy-general." Still another of our military family,
invalided by his eleven months' confinement in Libby Prison, set his
wan, white face toward the uncertain future before him, and began his
bread-winning, his soul undaunted by his disabled body. Another--oh,
what a brave boy he was!--took my husband's proffered aid, and received
an appointment in the regular army. He carried always, does now, a
shattered arm, torn by a bullet while he was riding beside General
Custer in Virginia. That did not keep him from giving his splendid
energy, his best and truest patriotism, to his country down in Texas
even after the war, for he rode on long, exhausting campaigns after the
Indians, his wound bleeding, his life sapped, his vitality slipping away
with the pain that never left him day or night. That summer when we were
at home in Monroe, the General sent for him to come to us, and get his
share of the pretty girls that Tom and the Michigan staff, who lived
near us, were appropriating. The handsome, dark-haired fellow carried
off the favors; for though the others had been wounded--Tom even then
bearing the scarlet spot on his cheek where the bullet had
penetrated--the last comer won, for he still wore his arm in a sling.
The bewitching girls had before them the evidence of his valor, and into
what a garden he stepped! He was a modest fellow, and would not demand
too much pity, but made light of his wound, as is the custom of
soldiers, who, dreading effeminacy, carry the matter too far, and ignore
what ought not to be looked upon slightingly. One day he appeared
without his sling, and a careless girl, dancing with him, grasped the
arm in the forgetfulness of glee. The waves of torture that swept over
the young hero's face, the alarm and pity of the girl, the instant
biting of the lip and quick smile of the man, dreading more to grieve
the pretty creature by him than to endure the physical agony--oh, how
proud the General was of him, and I think he felt badly that a soldier
cannot yield to impulse, and enfold his comrade in his arms, as is our
woman's sweet privilege with one another.
Proudly the General followed the career of those young fellows who had
been so near him in his war-life. Of all those in whom he continued
always to retain an interest, keeping up in some instances a desultory
correspondence, the most amazing evolution was that of the
provost-marshal into a Methodist minister. Whether he was at heart a
stern, unrelenting character, is a question I doubted, for he never
could have developed into a clergyman. But he had the strangest, most
implacable face, when sent on his thankless duty by his commanding
officer. He it was who conducted the ceremonies that one awful day in
Louisiana, when the execution and pardon took place. I remember the
General's amazement when he received the letter in which the
announcement of the new life-work was made. It took us both some time to
realize how he would set about evangelizing. It was difficult to imagine
him leading any one to the throne of grace, except at the point of the
bayonet, with a military band playing the Dead March in Saul. I know how
pleased my husband was, though, how proud and glad to know that a
splendid, brave soldier had given his talents, his courage--and oh, what
courage for a man of the world to come out in youth on the side of one
mighty Captain!--and taken up the life of poverty, self-denial, and
something else that the General also felt a deprivation, the roving life
that deprives a Methodist minister of the blessings of a permanent home.
The delightful letters we used to get from our military family when any
epoch occurred in their lives, like the choice of a profession or
business (for most of them went back to civil life), their marriage, the
birth of a son--all gave my husband genuine pleasure; and when their
sorrows came he turned to me to write the letter--a heart-letter, which
was his in all but the manipulation of the pen. His personal influence
he gave, time and time again, when it was needed in their lives, and,
best of all in my eyes, had patience with those who had a larger sowing
of the wild-oat crop, which is the agricultural feature in the early
life of most men.
Since I seek to make my story of others, I take the privilege of
speaking of a class of heroes that I now seldom hear mentioned, and over
whom, in instances of my husband's personal friends, we have grieved
together. It is to those who, like his young staff-officer, bear
unhealed and painful wounds to their life's end that I wish to beg our
people to give thought. We felt it rather a blessing, in one way, when a
man was visibly maimed; for if a leg or an arm is gone, the empty sleeve
or the halting gait keeps his country from forgetting that he has braved
everything to protect her. The men we sorrowed for were those who
suffered silently; and there are more, North and South, than anyone
dreams of, scattered all over our now fair and prosperous land.
Sometimes, after they die, it transpires that at the approach of every
storm they have been obliged to stop work, enter into the seclusion of
their rooms, and endure the racking, torturing pain, that began on the
battle-field so long ago. If anyone finds this out in their lifetime,
it is usually by accident; and when asked why they suffer without
claiming the sympathy that does help us all, they sometimes reply that
the war is too far back to tax anyone's memory or sympathy now. Oftener,
they attempt to ignore what they endure, and change the subject
instantly. People would be surprised to know how many in the community,
whom they daily touch in the jostle of life, are silent sufferers from
wounds or incurable disease contracted during the war for the Union. The
monuments, tablets, memorials which are strewn with flowers and bathed
with grateful tears, have often tribute that should be partly given to
the double hero who bears on his bruised and broken body the torture of
daily sacrifice for his country. People, even if they know, forget the
look, the word of acknowledgment, that is due the maimed patriot.
I recall the chagrin I felt on the Plains one day, when one of our
Seventh Cavalry officers, with whom we had long been intimately
associated--one whom our people called "Fresh Smith," or "Smithie," for
short--came to his wife to get her to put on his coat. I said something
in bantering tones of his Plains life making him look on his wife as the
Indian looks upon the squaw, and tried to rouse her to rebellion. There
was a small blaze, a sudden scintillation from a pair of feminine eyes,
that warned me of wrath to come. The captain accepted my banter, threw
himself into the saddle, laughed back the advantage of this new order of
things, where a man had a combination, in his wife, of servant and
companion, and tore out of sight, leaving me to settle accounts with the
flushed madame. She told me, what I never knew, and perhaps might not
even now, but for the outburst of the moment, that in the war "Smithie"
had received a wound that shattered his shoulder, and though his arm was
narrowly saved from amputation, he never raised it again, except a few
inches. As for putting on his coat, it was an impossibility.
One day in New York my husband and I were paying our usual homage to the
shop windows and to the beautiful women we passed, when he suddenly
seized my arm and said, "There's Kiddoo! Let's catch up with him." I was
skipped over gutters, and sped over pavements, the General unconscious
that such a gait is not the usual movement of the New Yorker, until we
came up panting each side of a tall, fine-looking man, apparently a
specimen of physical perfection. The look of longing that he gave us as
we ran up, flushed and happy, startled me, and I could scarcely wait
until we separated, to know the meaning. It was this: General Joseph B.
Kiddoo, shot in the leg during the war, had still the open wound, from
which he endured daily pain and nightly torture, for he got only
fragmentary sleep. To heal the hurt was to end his life, the surgeons
said. When at last I heard he had been given release and slept the
blessed sleep, what word of sorrow could be framed?
In the case of another friend, with whom we were staying in Tennessee,
from whom my husband and I extracted the information by dint of
questions and sympathy, when, late one night, we sat about the open
fire, and were warmed into confidence by its friendly glow, we found
that no single night for the twelve years after the war had such a boon
as uninterrupted sleep been known to him. A body racked by pain was
paying daily its loyal, uncomplaining tribute to his country. Few were
aware that he had unremitting suffering as his constant companion. I
remember that my husband urged him to marry, and get some good out of
life and from the sympathy that wells perpetually in a tender woman's
heart. But he denied himself the blessing of such companionship, from
unselfish motives, declaring he could not ask a woman to link her fate
with such a broken life as his. When we left his fireside, my husband
counted him a hero of such rare mettle that few in his experience could
equal him, and years afterward, when we sometimes read his name in
print, he said, "Poor ----! I wonder if there's any let-up for the brave
fellow."
Our home-coming was a great pleasure to us and to our two families. My
own father was proud of the General's administration of civil as well
as military affairs in Texas, and enjoyed the congratulatory letter of
Governor Hamilton deeply. The temptations to induce General Custer to
leave the service and enter civil life began at once, and were many and
varied. He had not been subjected to such allurements the year after the
war, when the country was offering posts of honor to returned soldiers,
but this summer of our return from Texas, all sorts of suggestions were
made. Business propositions, with enticing pictures of great wealth,
came to him. He never cared for money for money's sake. No one that
does, ever lets it slip through his fingers as he did. Still, his heart
was set upon plans for his mother and father, and for his brothers'
future, and I can scarcely see now how a man of twenty-five could have
turned his back upon such alluring schemes for wealth as were held out
to him. It was at that time much more customary than now, even, to
establish corporations with an officer's name at the head who was known
to have come through the war with irreproachable honor, proved possibly
as much by his being as poor when he came out of service as when he went
in, as by his conduct in battle. The country was so unsettled by the
four years of strife that it was like beginning all over again, when old
companies were started anew. Confidence had to be struggled for, and
names of prominent men as associate partners or presidents were sought
for persistently.
Politics offered another form of temptation. The people demanded for
their representatives the soldiers under whom they had served,
preferring to follow the same leaders in the political field that had
led them in battle. The old soldiers, and civilians also, talked openly
of General Custer for Congressman or Governor. It was a summer of
excitement and uncertainty. How could it be otherwise to a boy who, five
brief years before, was a beardless youth with no apparent future before
him? I was too much of a girl to realize what a summer it was--indeed,
we had little chance, so fast did one proposition for our future follow
upon the other. When the General was offered the appointment of foreign
Minister, I kept silence as best I could, but it was desperately hard
work. Honors, according to old saws, "were empty," but in that hey-day
time they looked very different to me. I was inwardly very proud, and if
I concealed the fact because my husband expressed such horror of
inflated people, it was only after violent effort.
Among the first propositions was one for the General to take temporary
service with Mexico. This scheme found no favor with me. It meant more
fighting and further danger for my husband, and anxiety and separation
for me. Besides, Texas association with Mexicans made me think their
soldiery treacherous and unreliable. But even in the midst of the
suspense pending the decision I was not insensible to this new honor
that was offered.
Carvajal, who was then at the head of the Juarez military government,
offered the post of Adjutant-General of Mexico to General Custer. The
money inducements were, to give twice the salary in gold that a
major-general in our army receives. As his salary had come down from a
major-general's pay of $8,000 to $2,000, this might have been a
temptation surely. There was a stipulation that one or two thousand men
should be raised in the United States, any debts assumed in organizing
this force to be paid by the Mexican Liberal Government. Señor Romero,
the Mexican Minister, did what he could to further the application of
Carvajal, and General Grant wrote his approval of General Custer's
acceptance, in a letter in which he speaks of my husband in unusually
flattering terms, as one "who rendered such distinguished service as a
cavalry officer during the war," adding, "There was no officer in that
branch of the service who had the confidence of General Sheridan to a
greater degree than General Custer, and there is no officer in whose
judgment I have greater faith than in Sheridan's. Please understand,
then, that I mean to endorse General Custer in a high degree."
The stagnation of peace was being felt by those who had lived a
breathless four years at the front. However much they might rejoice
that carnage had ceased and no more broken hearts need be dreaded, it
was very hard to quiet themselves into a life of inaction. No wonder our
officers went to the Khedive for service! no wonder this promise of
active duty was an inviting prospect for my husband! It took a long time
for civilians, even, to tone themselves down to the jog-trot of peace.
Everything looked, at that time, as if there was success awaiting any
soldier who was resolute enough to lead troops against one they
considered an invader. Nothing nerves a soldier's arm like the wrong
felt at the presence of foreigners on their own ground, and the prospect
of destruction of their homes. Maximilian was then uncertain in his hold
on the Government he had established, and, as it soon proved, it would
have been what General Custer then thought comparatively an easy matter
to drive out the usurper. The question was settled by the Government's
refusing to grant the year's leave for which application was made, and
the General was too fond of his country to take any but temporary
service in another.
This decision made me very grateful, and when there was no longer danger
of further exposure of life, I was also thankful for the expressions of
confidence and admiration of my husband's ability as a soldier that this
contemplated move had drawn out. I was willing my husband should accept
any offer he had received except the last. I was tempted to beg him to
resign; for this meant peace of mind and a long, tranquil life for me.
It was my father's counsel alone that kept me from urging each new
proposition to take up the life of a civilian. He advised me to forget
myself. He knew well what a difficult task it was to school myself to
endure the life on which I had entered so thoughtlessly as a girl. I had
never been thrown with army people, and knew nothing before my marriage
of the separations and anxieties of military life. Indeed, I was so
young that it never occurred to me that people could become so attached
to each other that it would be misery to be separated. And now that
this divided existence loomed up before me, father did not blame me for
longing for any life that would ensure our being together. He had a keen
sense of humor, and could not help reminding me occasionally, when I
told him despairingly that I could not, I simply _would_ not, live a
life where I could not be always with my husband, of days before I knew
the General, when I declared to my parents, if ever I did marry it would
not be a dentist, as our opposite neighbor appeared never to leave the
house. It seemed to me then that the wife had a great deal to endure in
the constant presence of her husband.
My father, strict in his sense of duty, constantly appealed to me to
consider only my husband's interests, and forget my own selfish desires.
In an old letter written at that time, I quoted to the General something
that father had said to me: "Why, daughter, I would rather have the
honor which grows out of the way in which the battle of Waynesboro was
fought, than to have the wealth of the Indies. Armstrong's battle is
better to hand down to posterity than wealth." He used in those days to
walk the floor and say to me, "My child, put no obstacles in the way to
the fulfillment of his destiny. He chose his profession. He is a born
soldier. There he must abide."
In the midst of this indecision, when the General was obliged to be in
New York and Washington on business, my father was taken ill. The one
whom I so sorely needed in all those ten years that followed, when I was
often alone in the midst of the dangers and anxieties and vicissitudes
attending our life, stepped into heaven as quietly and peacefully as if
going into another room. His last words were to urge me to do my duty as
a soldier's wife. He again begged me to ignore self, and remember that
my husband had chosen the profession of a soldier; in that life he had
made a name, and there, where he was so eminently fitted to succeed, he
should remain.
My father's counsel and his dying words had great weight with me, and
enabled me to fight against the selfishness that was such a temptation.
Very few women, even the most ambitious for their husbands' future, but
would have confessed, at the close of the war, that glory came with too
great sacrifices, and they would rather gather the husbands, lovers and
brothers into the shelter of the humblest of homes, than endure the
suspense and loneliness of war times. I am sure that my father was
right, for over and over again, in after years, my husband met his
brother officers who had resigned, only to have poured into his ear
regrets that they had left the service. I have known him to come to me
often, saying he could not be too thankful that he had not gone into
civil life. He believed that a business man or a politician should have
discipline in youth for the life and varied experience with all kinds of
people, to make a successful career. Officers, from the very nature of
their life, are prescribed in their associates. They are isolated so
much at extreme posts that they know little or nothing of the life of
citizens. After resigning, they found themselves robbed of the
companionship so dear to military people, unable, from want of early
training, to cope successfully with business men, and lacking, from
inexperience, the untiring, plodding spirit that is requisite to the
success of a civilian. An officer rarely gives a note--his promise is
his bond. It is seldom violated. It would be impossible for me, even in
my twelve years' experience, to enumerate the times I have known, when
long-standing debts, for which there was not a scrap of written proof,
were paid without solicitation on the part of the friend who was the
creditor. One of our New York hotels furnishes proof of how an officer's
word is considered. A few years since, Congress failed to make the usual
yearly appropriation for the pay of the army. A hotel that had been for
many years the resort of military people, immediately sent far and wide
to notify the army that no bills would be presented until the next
Congress had passed the appropriation. To satisfy myself, I have
inquired if they lost by this, and been assured that they did not.
Men reared to consider their word equal to the most binding legal
contract ever made, would naturally find it difficult to realize, when
entering civil life, that something else is considered necessary. The
wary take advantage of the credulity of a military man, and usually the
first experience is financial loss to an officer who has confidingly
allowed a debt to be contracted without all the restrictive legal
arrangements with which citizens have found it necessary to surround
money transactions. And so the world goes. The capital with which an
officer enters into business is lost by too much confidence in his
brother man, and when he becomes richer by experience, he is so poor in
pocket he cannot venture into competition with the trained and skilled
business men among whom he had entered so sanguinely.
Politics also have often proved disastrous to army officers. Allured by
promises, they have accepted office, and been allowed a brief success;
but who can be more completely done for than an office-holder whose
party goes out of power? The born politician, one who has grown wary in
the great game, provides for the season of temporary retirement which
the superseding of his party necessitates. His antagonist calls it
"feathering his nest," but a free-handed and sanguine military man has
done no "feathering," and it is simply pitiful to see to what obscurity
and absolute poverty they are brought. The men whose chestnuts the
ingenuous, unsuspecting man has pulled out of the fire, now pass him by
unnoticed. Such an existence to a proud man makes him wish he had died
on the field of battle, before any act of his had brought chagrin.
All these things I have heard my husband say, when we have encountered
some heartbroken man; and he worked for nothing harder than that they
might be reinstated in the service, or lifted out of their perplexities
by occupation of some sort. There was an officer, a classmate at West
Point, who, he felt with all his heart, did right in resigning. If he
had lived he would have written his tribute, and I venture to take up
his pen to say, in my inadequate way, what he would have said so well,
moved by the eloquence of deep feeling.
My husband believed in what old-fashioned people term a "calling," and
he himself had felt a call to be a soldier, when he could scarcely speak
plain. It was not the usual early love of boys for adventure. We realize
how natural it is for a lad to enjoy tales of hotly contested fields,
and to glory over bloodshed. The boy in the Sunday-school, when asked
what part of the Bible he best liked, said promptly, "The fightenest
part!" and another, when his saintly teacher questioned him as to whom
he first wished to see when he reached heaven, vociferated loudly,
"Goliath!" But the love of a soldier's life was not the fleeting desire
of the child, in my husband; it became the steady purpose of his youth,
the happy realization of his early manhood. For this reason he
sympathized with all who felt themselves drawn to a certain place in the
world. He thoroughly believed in a boy (if it was not a pernicious
choice) having his "bent." And so it happened, when it was our good
fortune to be stationed with his classmate, Colonel Charles C. Parsons,
at Leavenworth, that he gave a ready ear when his old West Point chum
poured out his longings for a different sphere in life. He used to come
to me after these sessions, when the Colonel went over and over again
his reasons for resigning, and wonder how he could wish to do so, but he
respected his friend's belief that he had another "calling" too
thoroughly to oppose him. He thought the place of captain of a battery
of artillery the most independent in the service. He is detached from
his regiment, he reports only to the commanding officer of the post, he
is left so long at one station that he can make permanent arrangements
for comfort, and, except in times of war, the work is garrison and guard
duty. Besides this, the pay of a captain of a battery is good, and he is
not subject to constant moves, which tax the finances of a cavalry
officer so severely. After enumerating these advantages, he ended by
saying, "There's nothing to be done, though, for if Parsons thinks he
ought to go into an uncertainty, and leave what is a surety for life,
why, he ought to follow his convictions."
The next time we saw the Colonel, he was the rector of a small mission
church on the outskirts of Memphis. We were with the party of the Grand
Duke Alexis when he went by steamer to New Orleans. General Sheridan had
asked General Custer to go on a buffalo-hunt with the Duke in the
Territory of Wyoming, and he in turn urged the General to remain with
him afterward, until he left the country. At Memphis, the city gave a
ball, and my husband begged his old comrade to be present. It was the
first time since his resignation that the Colonel and his beautiful wife
had been in society. Their parish was poor, and they had only a small
and uncertain salary. Colonel Parsons was not in the least daunted; he
was as hopeful and as enthusiastic as such earnest people alone can be,
as certain he was right as if his duty had been revealed to him as
divine messages were to the prophets of old. The General was touched by
the fearless manner in which he faced poverty and obscurity.
It would be necessary for one to know, by actual observation, what a
position of authority, of independence, of assured and sufficient
income, he left, to sink his individuality in this life that he
consecrated to his Master. When he entered our room, before we went to
the ballroom, he held up his gloved hands to us and said: "Custer, I
wish you to realize into what extravagance you have plunged me. Why, old
fellow, this is my first indulgence in such frivolities since I came
down here." Mrs. Parsons was a marvel to us. The General had no words
that he thought high enough praise for her sacrifice. Hers was for her
husband, and not a complaint did she utter.
Here, again, I should have to take my citizen reader into garrison
before I could make clear what it was that she gave up. The vision of
that pretty woman, as I remember her at Leavenworth, is fresh in my
mind. She danced and rode charmingly, and was gracious and free from the
spiteful envy that sometimes comes when a garrison belle is so
attractive that the gossips say she absorbs all the devotion. Colonel
Parsons, not caring much for dancing, used to stand and watch with pride
and complete confidence when the men gathered round his wife at our
hops. There were usually more than twice as many men as women, and the
card of a good dancer and a favorite was frequently filled before she
left her own house for the dancing-room. I find myself still wondering
how any pretty woman ever kept her mental poise when queening it at
those Western posts. My husband, who never failed to be the first to
notice the least sacrifice that a woman made for her husband, looked
upon Mrs. Parsons with more and more surprise and admiration, as he
contrasted the life in which we found her with her former fascinating
existence.
The Colonel, after making his concession and coming to our ball, asked
us in turn to be present at his church on the following Sunday, and gave
the General a little cheap printed card, which he used to find his way
to the suburbs of the city. Colonel Parsons told me, next day, that when
he entered the reading-desk and looked down upon the dignified, reverent
head of my husband, a remembrance of the last time he had seen him in
the chapel at West Point came like a flash of lightning into his mind,
and he almost had a convulsion, in endeavoring to suppress the gurgles
of laughter that struggled for expression. For an instant he thought,
with desperate fright, that he would drop down behind the desk and have
it out, and only by the most powerful effort did he rally. It seems that
a cadet in their corps had fiery red hair, and during the stupid chapel
sermon Cadet Custer had run his fingers into the boy's hair, who was in
front of him, pretending to get them into white heat, and then, taking
them out, pounded them as on an anvil. It was a simple thing, and a
trick dating many years back, but the drollery and quickness of action
made it something a man could not recall with calmness.
Colonel Parsons and his wife are receiving the rewards that only Heaven
can give to lives of self-sacrifice. Mrs. Parsons, after they came North
to a parish, only lived a short time to enjoy the comfort of an Eastern
home. When the yellow fever raged so in the Mississippi Valley, in 1878,
and volunteers came forward with all the splendid generosity of this
part of the world, Colonel Parsons did not wait a second call from his
conscience to enter the fever-scourged Memphis, and there he ended a
martyr life: not only ready to go because in his Master's service, but
because the best of his life, and one for whom he continually sorrowed,
awaited him beyond the confines of eternity.