For household help, Nannie had a woman cook, and her soldier husband, Lenon, did many chores about the house, but otherwise Nannie managed the household; made my shirts, underwear and stockings, doing all the mending and keeping me neat. We apportioned certain allowances from my salary for necessities, cutting everything to the lowest possible cost. Table supplies purchased from the commissary were to cost no more than thirty dollars per month. It was Nannie's work to keep within the allowances, so that we might lay by money each month for a rainy day. She kept this rule throughout our equal partnership.
Although her education in household economy and management was incomplete, she was quick to learn. But her time was not all spent in housekeeping. The garrison of five companies of the 18th Infantry and two of the 2d Cavalry had an occasional dance or ball, which she greatly enjoyed and became prominent as a dancer and in the social life of the post.
There were no settlements for a hundred miles in any direction. Julesburg, three miles across the river, was one of the largest stations because of its proximity to the post. The river was a torrential stream, half a mile wide, and its quicksands made it almost impassable. In the winter, when ice crowded the channels, it was difficult to cross with any kind of vehicle. The nearest posts were Fort Omaha, Nebraska, three hundred and fifty miles east, and Fort D. A. Russell, at Cheyenne, two hundred and fifty miles west. These distant points were the only ones with a sufficient degree of civilization to entice visits. The Union Pacific, just completed to these points, with the capable assistance of the army, adopted the generous policy of giving passes to officers and their families desiring to visit these remote posts, so that during our six months' stay at Sedgwick we attended a regimental ball of the 9th Infantry at Omaha, and a regimental ball of the 30th Infantry at Fort D. A. Russell. These were about the only diversions we had from the monotonous life of the garrison at Sedgwick.
Nannie knew the expense of visiting home would be so great she probably would not see her family again for two years, and she did not; but she was sometimes homesick, and more than once I saw her with dampened eyes.
Feeling the necessity for a large army obviated by the nearly accomplished reconstruction, Congress passed a law decreasing the army from sixty to thirty thousand, in 1870. The law stopped promotions pending that event to absorb as many surplus officers as possible. In April, 1869, my regiment was ordered to Atlanta, Georgia, with five others, to be consolidated into three regiments of infantry. Half the officers of these regiments were on sick leave or detached service, but when it was announced that the officers retained would be those best suited for service, nearly every ill officer in each regiment immediately recovered! No one wanted to be ordered home for discharge, with even a year's pay and allowances.
We left by rail to Omaha, took steamboat to Memphis, and finished the journey to Atlanta by rail.
The influx of these six regiments, with almost a full complement of officers, rendered even the quarters of a complete regimental post insufficient. The unmarried officers lived in tents, the married ones crowding the houses. It often happened that eight captains with their wives would be quartered in eight rooms. This discomfort, added to summer heat, rendered life almost unbearable, but deciding who was to remain and who to be sent on waiting orders occupied time. Meanwhile, concentration of too many people caused various contagious diseases, especially typhoid, to become epidemic.
However, the consolidation was finally accomplished, the 16th merging with the 18th, retaining that designation, and I retaining my captaincy in Company H.
General Ruger was mustered out as General of Volunteers and assigned to the colonelcy of the 18th. A most excellent executive officer, he soon had us organized and assigned to comfortable quarters with nearly all the officers present. General Upton was assigned as lieutenant colonel. He was then developing his tactics and selected Captain Christopher and myself to review with him every Saturday the progress he had made, and to apply during the week his new principles of tactics in drilling our companies, and occasionally a battalion.