Chapter I   

On Leaving The Army Of The Potomac

General Custer graduated at West Point just in time to take part in the battle of Bull Run. He served with his regiment—the Fifth Cavalry—for a time, but eventually was appointed aide-de-camp to General McClellan. He came to his sister’s home in my native town, Monroe, Michigan, on leave of absence, during the winter of 1863, and there I first met him.

In the spring he returned to the army in Virginia, and was promoted that summer, at the age of twenty-three, from captain to brigadier-general. During the following autumn he came to Monroe again to recover from a flesh-wound, which, though not serious, disabled him somewhat. At that time we became engaged. When his twenty days’ leave of absence had expired he went back to duty, and did not return until a few days before our marriage, in February, 1864.

We had no sooner reached Washington on our wedding-journey than telegrams came, following one another in quick succession, asking him to give up the rest of his leave of absence, and hasten without an hour’s delay to the front. I begged so hard not to be left behind that I finally prevailed. The result was that I found myself in a few hours on the extreme wing of the Army of the Potomac, in an isolated Virginia farm-house, finishing my honeymoon alone. I had so besought him to allow me to come that I did not dare own to myself the desolation and fright I felt. In the preparation for the hurried raid which my husband had been ordered to make he had sent to cavalry headquarters to provide for my safety, and troops were in reality near, although I could not see them.

The General’s old colored servant, Eliza, comforted me, and the Southern family in the house took pity upon my anxiety. It was a sudden plunge into a life of vicissitude, and I hardly remember the time during the twelve years that followed when I was not in fear of some immediate peril, or in dread of some danger that threatened. After the raid was ended, we spent some delightful weeks together, and when the regular spring campaign began I returned to Washington, where I remained until the surrender and the close of the war. After that we went to Texas for a year, my husband still acting as major-general in command of volunteers.

He did not even see the last of that grand review of the 23d and 24^th of May, 1865. On the first day he was permitted to doff his hat and bow low, as he proudly led that superb body of men, the Third Division of Cavalry, in front of the grand stand, where sat the “powers that be.” Along the line of the division, each soldier straightened himself in the saddle, and felt the proud blood fill his veins, as he realized that he was one of those who, in six months, had taken one hundred and eleven of the enemy’s guns, sixty-five battle-flags, and upward of 10,000 prisoners of war, while they had never lost a flag, or failed to capture a gun for which they fought.

In the afternoon of that memorable day General Custer and his staff rode to the outskirts of Washington, where his beloved Third Cavalry Division had encamped after returning from taking part in the review. The trumpet was sounded, and the call brought these war-worn veterans out once more, not for a charge, not for duty, but to say farewell. Down the line rode their yellow-haired “boy general,” waving his hat, but setting his teeth and trying to hold with iron nerve the quivering muscles of his speaking face; keeping his eyes wide open, that the tears might not fall.

Cheer after cheer rose on that soft spring air. Some enthusiastic voice started up afresh, before the hurrahs were done, “A tiger for old Curley!” Off came the hats again, and up went hundreds of arms, waving the good-bye and wafting innumerable blessings after the man who was sending them home in a blaze of glory. I began to realize, as I watched this sad parting, that no friendship was like that cemented by danger on the battlefield.

The soldiers, accustomed to suppression through strict military discipline, now vehemently expressed their feelings; and though it gladdened the General’s heart, it was still hard work to endure it without show of emotion. As he rode up to where I was waiting, he could not trust himself to speak to me. To those intrepid men he was indebted for his success. Their unfailing trust in his judgment, their willingness to follow where he led—ah! He knew well that one looks upon such men but once in a lifetime. Some of the soldiers called out for the General’s wife. The staff urged me to ride forward to the troops, and I tried to do so, but after a few steps I begged those beside whom I rode to take me back, I was too overcome from having seen the suffering on my husband’s face to endure it.

As the officers gathered about the General and wrung his hand in parting, to my surprise the soldiers gave me a cheer. Though very grateful for the tribute to me as their acknowledged comrade, I did not feel that I deserved it.

Once more the General leaped into the saddle, and we rode out of sight. How glad I was, as l watched the set features of my husband’s face, saw his eyes fixed immovably in front of him, listened in vain for one word from his overburdened heart, that I, being a woman, need not tax every nerve to suppress emotion, but could let the tears stream down my face, on all our silent way back to the city.

Then began the gathering of our “traps,” a hasty collection of a few suitable things for a Southern climate, orders about shipping the horses, a wild tearing around of the improvident, thoughtless staff—good fighters, but poor providers. It was a comfort, when I found myself grieving over the parting with my husband’s division, that our military family were to go with us. At dark we were on the cars, with our faces turned southward. To General Custer this move had been unexpected. General Sheridan knew that he needed little time to decide, so he sent for him and asked if he would like to take command of a division of cavalry on the Red River in Louisiana, and march throughout Texas, with the possibility of eventually entering Mexico.

The Great Powers of Europe, casting jealous eyes on the promise of a greater power in our young republic, and thinking to take advantage of the Civil War, had agreed to place the supernumerary Austrian Prince, Maximilian, on the throne in Mexico, and cede the country to France to keep a balance of power. Our Government felt the time had come to convince France that if there was to be an invasion of Mexico the one to do the seizure and gather in the spoils was Brother Jonathan. So an army of sufficient strength was sent into Texas, led by General Custer, to settle the question of invasion by the mere presence of our troops so near the border.

Very wisely the General kept a part of the understanding why he was sent South from the “weepy” member of his family. He preferred transportation by steamer rather than to be floated southward on a flood of feminine tears. In order to spare me anxiety he spoke only of that part of the order pertaining to the establishment of law in Texas. The State having been outside the limit where the armies marched and fought, was unhappily unaware that the war was over, and it had become the home of bushwhackers and all kinds of lawless desperadoes. Before the winter was over the civil authorities of Texas began to be able to carry out the laws. It was considered unnecessary to retain the division of cavalry in the South. The anticipated trouble with Mexico was over and the General was ordered North to await his assignment to a new station.

Chapter II

Political Temptations

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. 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. 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. 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? When the General was offered an appointment as foreign Minister, I kept silence as best I could, but it was desperately hard work. I was inwardly very proud, but I concealed the fact because my husband expressed such horror of inflated people.

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.

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. 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. 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, 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.

Maximilian was then uncertain in his hold on the Government he had established, and it would have been 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 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.

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. 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 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 dangers and anxieties, stepped into heaven as peacefully as if going into another room. His last words were to urge me to do my duty as a soldier’s wife. In the autumn the appointment to the Seventh Cavalry came, with orders to go to Fort Garland. One would have imagined, by the jubilant manner in which this official document was unfolded and read to me, that it was the inheritance of a principality. Out of our camp-luggage a map was produced, and Fort Garland was discovered, after long prowling about with the first finger, in the space given to the Rocky Mountains. Then the General launched into visions of what unspeakable pleasure he would have, fishing for mountain trout and hunting deer.

It would have been a stolid soul indeed that did not begin to think Fort Garland a sort of earthly paradise. The sober colors in this vivid picture meant a small, obscure post, several hundred miles from any railroad, not much more than a handful of men to command, the most complete isolation, and no prospect of an active campaign, as it was far from the range of the warlike Indians. But Fort Garland soon faded from our view, in the excitement and interest over Fort Riley, as soon as our orders were changed to that post. We had no difficulty in finding it on the map, as it was comparatively an old post, and the Kansas Pacific Railroad was within ten miles of the Government reservation.

We ascertained, by inquiry, that it was better to buy household articles at Leavenworth, than to attempt to carry along even a simple outfit. It was difficult to realize that Kansas had a city of 25,000 inhabitants, with several daily papers. Still, I was quite willing to trust to Leavenworth for the purchase of household furniture, as it seemed to me that housekeeping in garrison quarters was a sort of camping out after all, with one foot in a house and another in position to put into the stirrup and spin “over the hills and far away.”