"Boots and Saddles"; Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer

by Elizabeth Bacon Custer

There was nothing left for us, then, but to go home. It was a sore disappointment. We were put on the steamer that was to take us to Bismarck, a heart-broken little group. I hated Dakota, the ugly river, and even my native land. We were nearly devoured with mosquitoes at once. Only the strongest ammonia on our faces and hands served to alleviate the torment. The journey was wretchedness itself. I had thrown myself on the berth in one of the little suffocating state-rooms, exhausted with weeping, and too utterly overcome with the anguish of parting to know much of the surroundings. I was roused by the gentle hand of a woman, who had forgotten her own troubles to come to me. Ah, even now, when the tears rain down my face at the remembrance of those agonizing good-byes, which were like death each time, and which grew harder with each separation, I think of the sympathy shown me. The sweet, tender eyes of the wives of officers come to me now, and I feel the soft touch of their hands as they came to comfort me, even when their own hearts were wrung. Grief is so selfish, I wonder now that they could have been such ministering angels.

At last the slow, wearisome journey was over, and we went into the little town of Bismarck to take the cars. The Department Commander, returning to his head-quarters, had offered to take charge of us to St. Paul, and was kind enough to share with us the car of the President of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which had been placed at his disposal. There were seven of us and his own personal staff. Another five hundred miles were before us, but in such luxury it hardly seemed that my sister and I were the same two who had been “roughing it” on the march a few days before.

The journey was very quiet and over an uninteresting country, but we ladies had something to occupy our time, as we began to prepare some of our meals, for the untidy eating-houses on the road were almost unendurable. The staff of the Commanding General went out at the stations and foraged for what food they could find to add to our bill of fare. At St. Paul we bade them all good-bye, and soon found ourselves welcomed by dear father and mother Custer, at Monroe. Their hearts were ever with the absent ones.

For several slow, irksome months I did little else than wait for the tardy mails, and count each day that passed a gain. I had very interesting letters from my husband, sometimes thirty and forty pages in length. He wrote of his delight at having again his whole regiment with him, his interest in the country, his hunting exploits, and the renewal of his friendship with General Rosser. The 7th Cavalry were sent out to guard the engineers of the Northern Pacific, while they surveyed the route to the Yellowstone. This party of citizens joined the command a few days out from Fort Rice. The general wrote me that he was lying on the buffalo-robe in his tent, resting after the march, when he heard a voice outside asking the sentinel which was General Custer’s tent. The general called out, “Halloo, old fellow! I haven’t heard that voice in thirteen years, but I know it. Come in and welcome!”

General Rosser walked in, and such a reunion as they had! These two had been classmates and warm friends at West Point, and parted with sorrow when General Rosser went into the Southern army. Afterwards they had fought each other in the Shenandoah Valley time and time again. Both of them lay on the robe for hours talking over the campaigns in Virginia. In the varying fortunes of war, sometimes one had got possession of the wagon-train belonging to the other. I knew of several occasions when they had captured each other’s head-quarters wagons with the private luggage. If one drove the other back in retreat, before he went into camp he wrote a note addressing the other as “dear friend,” and saying, “you may have made me take a few steps this way to-day, but I’ll be even with you to-morrow. Please accept my good-wishes and this little gift.” These notes and presents were left at the house of some Southern woman, as they retreated out of the village.

Once General Custer took all of his friend’s luggage, and found in it a new uniform coat of Confederate gray. He wrote a humorous letter that night thanking General Rosser for setting him up in so many new things, but audaciously asking if he “would direct his tailor to make the coat-tails of his next uniform a little shorter” as there was a difference in the height of the two men. General Custer captured his herd of cattle at one time, but he was so hotly pursued by General Rosser that he had to dismount, cut a whip, and drive them himself until they were secured.

To return to the Yellowstone expedition. The hour for starting never varied more than a few moments during the summer, and it was so early the civilians connected with the engineering party could not become reconciled to it. In the afternoon my husband sometimes walked out on the outskirts of camp, and threw himself down in the grass to rest with his dogs beside him.

It was a source of amusement to him if he accidentally overheard the grumbling. His campaigning dress was so like that of an enlisted man, and his insignia of rank so unnoticeable, that the tongues ran on, indifferent to his presence. Sometimes, in their growling, the civilians accused him of having something on his conscience, and declared that, not being able to sleep himself, he woke every one else to an unearthly reveille. At this he choked with laughter, and to their dismay they discovered who he was.

I remember his telling me of another occasion, when he unavoidably heard a soldier exclaim, “There goes taps, and before we get a mouthful to eat, reveille will sound, and ‘Old Curley’ will hike us out for the march.” The soldier was slightly discomfited to find the subject of his remarks was within hearing.

The enlisted men were constantly finding new names for the general, which I would never have known—thereby losing some amusement—if Mary had not occasionally told me of them. A favorite was “Jack,” the letters G. A. C. on his valise having served as a suggestion.