ORDERED BACK TO FORT HARKER.
AFTER the high-water experience, our things were scarcely dry before I
found, for the second time, what it was to be under the complete
subjection of military rule. The fiat was issued that we women must
depart from camp and return to garrison, as it was considered unsafe for
us to remain. It was an intense disappointment; for though Fort Hays and
our camp were more than dreary after the ravages of the storm, to leave
there meant cutting myself off from any other chance that might come in
my way of joining my husband, or of seeing him at our camp. Two of the
officers and an escort of ten mounted men, going to Fort Harker on duty,
accompanied our little cortege of departing women. At the first
stage-station the soldiers all dismounted as we halted, and managed by
some pretext to get into the dug-out and buy whiskey. Not long after we
were again _en route_ I saw one of the men reel on his saddle, and he
was lifted into the wagon that carried forage for the mules and horses.
One by one, all were finally dumped into the wagons by the teamsters,
who fortunately were sober, and the troopers' horses were tied behind
the vehicles, and we found ourselves without an escort. Plains whiskey
is usually very rapid in its effect, but the stage-station liquor was
concocted from drugs that had power to lay out even a hard-drinking old
cavalryman like a dead person in what seemed no time at all. Eliza said
"they only needed to smell it, 'twas so deadly poison." A barrel of
tolerably good whiskey sent from the States was, by the addition of
drugs, made into several barrels after it reached the Plains.
The hours of that march seemed endless. We were helpless, and knew that
we were going over ground that was hotly contested by the red man. We
rose gradually to the summit of each divide, and looked with anxious
eyes into every depression; but we were no sooner relieved to find it
safe, than my terrors began as to what the next might reveal. When we
came upon an occasional ravine, it represented to my frightened soul any
number of Indians in ambush.
In that country the air is so clear that every object on the brow of a
small ascent of ground is silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky.
The Indians place little heaps of stones on these slight eminences, and
lurk behind them to watch the approach of troops. Every little pile of
rocks seemed, to my strained eyes, to hide the head of a savage. They
even appeared to move, and this effect was heightened by the waves of
heat that hover over the surface of the earth under that blazing sun. I
was thoroughly frightened, doubtless made much more so because I had
nothing else to think of, as the end of the journey would not mean for
me what the termination of ever so dangerous a march would have been in
the other direction. Had I been going over such country to join my
husband, the prospect would have put temporary courage into every nerve.
During the hours of daylight the vigilance of the officers was
unceasing. They knew that one of the most hazardous days of their lives
was upon them. They felt intensely the responsibility of the care of us;
and I do not doubt, gallant as they were, that they mentally pronounced
anathemas upon officers who had wanted to see their wives so badly that
they had let them come into such a country. When we had first gone over
the route, however, its danger was not a circumstance to this time. Our
eyes rarely left the horizon; they were strained to discern signs that
had come to be familiar, even by our hearing them discussed so
constantly; and we, still novices in the experience of that strange
country, had seen for ourselves enough to prove that no vigilance was
too great. If on the monotonous landscape a whirl of dust arose,
instantly it was a matter of doubt whether it meant our foe or one of
the strange eccentricities of that part of the world. The most peculiar
communions are those that the clouds seem to have with the earth, which
result in a cone of dust whirlpooling itself straight in the air, while
the rest of the earth is apparently without commotion, bearing no
relation to the funnel that seems to struggle upward and be dissolved
into the passing wind. With what intense concentration we watched to see
it so disappear! If the puff of dust continued to spread, the light
touching it into a deeper yellow, and finally revealing some darker
shades, and at last shaping itself into dusky forms, we were in agony of
suspense until the field-glasses proved that it was a herd of antelopes
fleeing from our approach. There literally seemed to be not one inch of
the way that the watchful eyes of the officers, the drivers, or we women
were not strained to discover every object that specked the horizon or
rose on the trail in front of us.
With all the terror and suspense of those dragging miles, I could not be
insensible to the superb and riotous colors of the wild flowers that
carpeted our way. It was the first time that I had ever been where the
men could not be asked, and were not willing, to halt or let me stop and
gather one of every kind. The gorgeousness of the reds and orange of
those prairie blossoms was a surprise to me. I had not dreamed that the
earth could so glow with rich tints. The spring rains had soaked the
ground long enough to start into life the wonderful dyes that for a
brief time emblazon the barren wilderness. The royal livery floats but a
short period over their temporary domain, for the entire cessation of
even the night dews, and the intensity of the scorching sun, shrivels
the vivid, flaunting, feathery petals, and burns the venturesome roots
down into the earth. What presuming things, to toss their pennants over
so inhospitable a land! But what a boon to travelers like ourselves to
see, for even the brief season, some tint besides the burnt umber and
yellow ochre of those plains! All the short existence of these flowers
is condensed into the color, tropical in richness; not one faint waft
of perfume floated on the air about us. But it was all we ought to have
asked, that their brilliant heads appear out of such soil. This has
served to make me very appreciative of the rich exhalation of the
Eastern gardens. I do not dare say what the first perfume of the
honeysuckle is to me, each year now; nor would I infringe upon the few
adjectives vouchsafed the use of a conventional Eastern woman when, as
it happened this year, the orange blossoms, white jessamine and woodbine
wafted their sweet breaths in my face as a welcome from one garden to
which good fortune led me. I remember the starvation days of that
odorless life, when, seeing rare colors, we instantly expected rich
odors, but found them not, and I try to adapt myself to the customs of
the country, and not rave, but, like the children, keep up a mighty
thinking.
Buffalo, antelope, blacktail deer, coyote, jack-rabbits, scurried out of
our way on that march, and we could not stop to follow. I was looking
always for some new sight, and, after the relief that I felt when each
object as we neared it turned out to be harmless, was anxious to see a
drove of wild horses. There were still herds to be found between the
Cimmaron and the Arkansas rivers. The General told me of seeing one of
the herds on a march, spoke with great admiration and enthusiasm of the
leader, and described him as splendid in carriage, and bearing his head
in the proudest, loftiest manner as he led his followers. They were not
large; they must have been the Spanish pony of Cortez' time, as we know
that the horse is not indigenous to America. The flowing mane and tail,
the splendid arch of the neck, and the proud head carried so loftily,
give the wild horses a larger, taller appearance than is in reality
theirs. Few ever saw the droves of wild horses more than momentarily.
They run like the wind.
[Illustration: A BUFFALO AT BAY. (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE SPOT.)]
After the introduction of the dromedary into Texas, many years since,
for transportation of supplies over that vast territory, one was brought
up to Colorado. Because of the immense runs it could make without water,
it was taken into the region frequented by the wild horses, and when
they were sighted, the dromedary was started in pursuit. Two were run
down, and found to be nearly dead when overtaken. But the poor dromedary
suffered so from the prickly-pear filling the soft ball of its feet,
that no farther pursuit could ever be undertaken.
I had to be content with the General's description, for no wild horses
came in our way. But there was enough to satisfy any one in the way of
game. The railroad had not then driven to the right and left the
inhabitants of that vast prairie. Our country will never again see the
Plains dotted with game of all sorts. The railroad stretches its iron
bands over these desert wastes, and scarcely a skulking coyote, hugging
the ground and stealing into gulches, can be discovered during a whole
day's journey.
As the long afternoon was waning, we were allowed to get out and rest a
little while, for we had reached what was called the "Home Station," so
called because at this place there was a woman, then the only one along
the entire route. I looked with more admiration than I could express on
this fearless creature, long past the venturesome time of early youth,
when some dare much for excitement. She was as calm and collected as her
husband, whom she valued enough to endure with him this terrible
existence. How good the things tasted that she cooked, and how different
the dooryard looked from those of the other stations! Then she had a
baby antelope, and the apertures that served as windows had bits of
white curtains, and, altogether, I did not wonder that over the hundreds
of miles of stage-route the Home Station was a place the men looked
forward to as the only reminder of the civilization that a good woman
establishes about her. There was an awful sight, though, that riveted my
eyes as we prepared to go on our journey, and the officers could not, by
any subterfuge, save us from seeing it. It was a disabled stage-coach,
literally riddled with bullets, its leather hanging in shreds, and the
woodwork cut into splinters. When there was no further use of trying to
conceal it from us, we were told that this stage had come into the
station in that condition the day before, and the fight that the driver
and mail-carrier had been through was desperate. There was no getting
the sight of that vehicle out of my mind during the rest of the journey.
What a friend the darkness seemed, as it wrapped its protecting mantle
about us, after the long twilight ended! yet it was almost impossible to
sleep, though we knew we were comparatively safe till dawn. At daybreak
the officers asked us to get out, while the mules were watered and fed,
and rest ourselves, and though I had been so long riding in a cramped
position, I would gladly have declined. Cleanliness is next to
godliness, and, one of our friends said, "With a woman, it is before
godliness," yet that was an occasion when I would infinitely have
preferred to be numbered with the great unwashed. However, a place in
the little stream at the foot of the gully was pointed out, and we took
our tin basin and towel and freshened ourselves by this early toilet;
but there was no lingering to prink, even on the part of the pretty
Diana. Our eyes were staring on all sides, with a dread impossible to
quell, and back into the ambulance we climbed, not breathing a long,
free breath until the last of those terrible eighty miles were passed,
and we beheld with untold gratitude the roofs of the quarters at Fort
Harker.
I felt that we had trespassed as much as we ought upon the hospitality
of the commanding officer of the post, and begged to be allowed to sleep
in our ambulance while we remained in the garrison. He consented, under
protest, and our wagon and that of Mrs. Gibbs were placed in the space
between two Government storehouses, and a tarpaulin was stretched over
the two. Eliza prepared our simple food over a little camp-fire. While
the weather remained good, this was a very comfortable camp for us--but
when, in Kansas, do the elements continue quiet for twenty-four hours?
In the darkest hour of the blackest kind of night the wind rose into a
tempest, rushing around the corners of the buildings, hunting out with
pertinacity, from front and rear, our poor little temporary home. The
tarpaulin was lifted on high, and with ropes and picket-pins thrashing
on the canvas it finally broke its last moorings and soared off into
space. The rain beat in the curtains of the ambulance and soaked our
blankets. Still, we crept together on the farther side of our narrow bed
and, rolled up in our shawls, tried to hide our eyes from the lightning,
and our ears from the roar of the storm as it swept between the
sheltering buildings and made us feel as if we were camping in a tunnel.
Our neighbor's dog joined his voice with the sobs and groans of the
wind, while in the short intervals of quiet we called out, trying to get
momentary courage from speech with each other. The curtain at the end of
the ambulance jerked itself free, and in came a deluge of rain from a
new direction. Pins, strings and four weak hands holding their best, did
no earthly good, and I longed to break all military rule and scream to
the sentinel. Not to speak to a guard on post is one of the early
lessons instilled into every one in military life. It required such
terror of the storm and just such a drenching as we were getting, even
to harbor a thought of this direct disobedience of orders. Clutching the
wagon-curtains and watching the soldier, who was revealed by the
frequent flashes of lightning as he tramped his solitary way, might have
gone on for some time without the necessary courage coming to call him,
but a new departure of the wind suddenly set us in motion, and I found
that we were spinning down the little declivity back of us, with no
knowledge of when or where we would stop. Then I did scream, and the
peculiar shrillness of a terrified woman's voice reached the sentinel.
Blessed breaker of his country's laws! He answered to a higher one,
which forbids him to neglect a woman in danger, and left his beat to run
to our succor.
Our wagon was dragged back by some of the soldiers on night duty at the
guard-house, and was newly pinioned to the earth with stronger
picket-pins and ropes, but sleep was murdered for that night. Of course
the guard reported to the commanding officer, as is their rule, and soon
a lantern or two came zigzagging over the parade-ground in our
direction, and the officers called to know if they could speak with us.
There was no use in arguing. Mrs. Gibbs and her boys, Diana drenched and
limp as to clothes, and I decidedly moist, were fished out of our watery
camp-beds, and with our arms full of apparel and satchels, we followed
the officers in the dark to the dry quarters, that we had tried our best
to decline rather than make trouble.
It was decided that we must proceed to Fort Riley, as there were no
quarters to offer us; and tent-life, as I have tried to describe it, had
its drawbacks in the rainy season. Had it not meant for me ninety miles
farther separation from my husband, seemingly cut off from all chance of
joining him again, I would have welcomed the plan of going back, as Fort
Harker was at this time the most absolutely dismal and melancholy spot I
remember ever to have seen. A terrible and unprecedented calamity had
fallen upon the usually healthful place, for cholera had broken out, and
the soldiers were dying by platoons. I had been accustomed to think, in
all the vicissitudes that had crowded themselves into these few months,
whatever else we were deprived of, we at least had a climate unsurpassed
for salubrity, and I still think so. For some strange reason, right out
in the midst of that wide, open plain, with no stagnant water, no
imperfect drainage, no earthly reason, it seemed to us, this epidemic
had suddenly appeared, and in a form so violent that a few hours of
suffering ended fatally. Nobody took dying into consideration out there
in those days; all were well and able-bodied, and almost everyone was
young who ventured into that new country, so no lumber had been provided
to make coffins. For a time the rudest receptacles were hammered
together, made out of the hardtack boxes. Almost immediate burial took
place, as there was no ice, nor even a safe place to keep the bodies of
the unfortunate victims. It was absolutely necessary, but an awful
thought nevertheless, this scurrying under the ground of the lately
dead, perhaps only wrapped in a coarse gray army blanket, and with the
burial service hurriedly read, for all were needed as nurses, and time
was too precious to say even the last words, except in haste. The
officers and their families did not escape, and sorrow fell upon every
one when an attractive young woman who had dared everything in the way
of hardships to follow her husband, was marked by that terrible finger
which bade her go alone into the valley of death. In the midst of this
scourge, the Sisters of Charity came. Two of them died, and afterward a
priest, but they were replaced by others, who remained until the
pestilence had wrought its worst; then they gathered the orphaned
children of the soldiers together, and returned with them to the parent
house of their Order in Leavenworth.
I would gladly have these memories fade out of my life, for the scenes
at that post have no ray of light except the heroic conduct of the men
and women who stood their ground through the danger. I cannot pass by
those memorable days in the early history of Kansas without my tribute
to the brave officers and men who went through so much to open the way
for settlers. I lately rode through the State, which seemed when I first
saw it a hopeless, barren waste, and found the land under fine
cultivation, the houses, barns and fences excellently built, cattle in
the meadows, and, sometimes, several teams ploughing in one field. I
could not help wondering what the rich owners of these estates would
say, if I should step down from the car and give them a little picture
of Kansas, with the hot, blistered earth, dry beds of streams, and soil
apparently so barren that not even the wild-flowers would bloom, save
for a brief period after the spring rains. Then add pestilence, Indians,
and an undisciplined, mutinous soldiery who composed our first recruits,
and it seems strange that our officers persevered at all. I hope the
prosperous ranchman will give them one word of thanks as he advances to
greater wealth, since but for our brave fellows the Kansas Pacific
Railroad could not have been built; nor could the early settlers, daring
as they were, have sowed the seed that now yields them such rich
harvests.
We had no choice about leaving Fort Harker. There was no accommodation
for us--indeed we would have hampered the already overworked officers
and men; so we took our departure for Fort Riley. There we found perfect
quiet; the negro troops were reduced to discipline, and everything went
on as if there were no such thing as the dead and the dying that we had
left a few hours before. There was but a small garrison, and we easily
found empty quarters, that were lent to us by the commanding officer.
Then the life of watching and waiting, and trying to possess my soul in
patience, began again, and my whole day resolved itself into a mental
protest against the slowness of the hours before the morning mail could
be received. It was a doleful time for us; but I remember no uttered
complaints as such, for we silently agreed they would weaken our
courage. If tears were shed, they fell on the pillow, where the blessed
darkness came to absolve us from the rigid watchfulness that we tried to
keep over our feelings. My husband gladdened many a dark day by the
cheeriest letters. How he ever managed to write so buoyantly was a
mystery when I found afterward what he was enduring. I rarely had a
letter with even so much as a vein of discontent, during all our
separations. At that time came two that were strangely in contrast to
all the brave, encouraging missives that had cheered my day. The
accounts of cholera met our regiment on their march into the Department
of the Platte; and the General, in the midst of intense anxiety, with no
prospect of direct communication, assailed by false reports of my
illness, at last showed a side of his character that was seldom visible.
His suspense regarding my exposure to pestilence, and his distress over
the fright and danger I had endured at the time of the flood at Fort
Hays, made his brave spirit quail, and there were desperate words
written, which, had he not been relieved by news of my safety, would
have ended in his taking steps to resign. Even he, whom I scarcely ever
knew to yield to discouraging circumstances, wrote that he could not and
would not endure such a life.
Our days at Fort Riley had absolutely nothing to vary them after mail
time. I sat on the gallery long before the time of distribution,
pretending to sew or read, but watching constantly for the door of the
office to yield up next to the most important man in the wide world to
me. The soldier whose duty it was to bring the mail became so inflated
by the eagerness with which his steps were watched, that it came near
being the death of him when he joined his company in the autumn, and was
lost in its monotonous ranks. He was a ponderous, lumbering fellow in
body and mind, who had been left behind by his captain, ostensibly to
take care of the company property, but I soon found there was another
reason, as his wits had for some time been unsettled, that is--giving
him the benefit of a doubt--if he ever had any. Addled as his brain
might be, the remnant of intelligence was ample in my eyes if it enabled
him to make his way to our door. As he belonged to the Seventh Cavalry,
he considered that everything at the post must be subservient to my
wish, when in reality I was dependent for a temporary roof on the
courtesy of the infantry officer in command. If I even met him in our
walks, he seemed to swell to twice his size, and to feel that some of
the odor of sanctity hung around him, whether he bore messages from the
absent or not.
[Illustration: THE ADDLED LETTER-CARRIER.]
The contents of the mail-bag being divided, over six feet of anatomical
and military perfection came stalking through the parade-ground. He
would not demean himself to hasten, and his measured steps were in
accordance with the gait prescribed in the past by his sergeant on
drill. He appeared to throw his head back more loftily as he perceived
that my eyes followed his creeping steps. He seemed to be reasoning. Did
Napoleon ever run, the Duke of Wellington ever hasten, or General Scott
quicken his gait or impair his breathing by undue activity, simply
because an unreasoning, impatient woman was waiting somewhere for them
to appear? It was not at all in accordance with his ideas of martial
character to exhibit indecorous speed. The great and responsible office
of conveying the letters from the officer to the quarters had been
assigned to him, and nothing, he determined, should interfere with its
being filled with dignity. His country looked to him as its savior. Only
a casual and condescending thought was given to his comrades, who
perhaps at that time were receiving in their bodies the arrows of Indian
warriors. No matter how eagerly I eyed the great official envelope in
his hand, which I knew well was mine, he persisted in observing all the
form and ceremony that he had decided was suitable for its presentation.
He was especially particular to assume the "first position of a
soldier," as he drew up in front of me. The tone with which he addressed
me was deliberate and grandiloquent. The only variation in his
regulation manners was that he allowed himself to speak before he was
spoken to. With the flourish of his colossal arm, in a salute that took
in a wide semicircle of Kansas air, he said, "Good morning, Mrs.
Major-General George Armstrong Custer." He was the only gleam of fun we
had in those dismal days. He was a marked contrast to the disciplined
enlisted man, who never speaks unless first addressed by his superiors,
and who is modesty itself in demeanor and language in the presence of
the officers' wives. The farewell salute of our mail-carrier was funnier
than his approach. He wheeled on his military heel, and swung wide his
flourishing arm, but the "right about face" I generally lost, for, after
snatching my envelope from him, unawed by his formality, I fled into the
house to hide, while I laughed and cried over the contents.