Tenting on the Plains Part 8

I was driving with him in Monroe not long since, and as the train was pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.s 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.

"TEc.u.mSEH, 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."

CHAPTER X.

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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 gla.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ne 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 circ.u.mvented 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, l.u.s.tily calling for aid, a.s.sured the pa.s.sengers that were thronging up (and, being strangers, knew nothing of the relations.h.i.+p of the parties) that this purse was his, and that he had been robbed by these two scoundrels, and if they would a.s.sist 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, a.s.sisted 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, c.o.c.ktail, 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, ent.i.tled 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 friends.h.i.+ps welded by the sharing of hards.h.i.+ps 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sociated--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 pa.s.sed, 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 companions.h.i.+p, 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 a.s.sociate 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sumed in organizing this force to be paid by the Mexican Liberal Government. Senor 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 a.s.sociates. 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 sc.r.a.p 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 pa.s.sed the appropriation. To satisfy myself, I have inquired if they lost by this, and been a.s.sured 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 compet.i.tion 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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.smate 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 cla.s.smate, 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."