[A] My horse was captured from a staff-officer of General Custis Lee during the war, purchased by my husband from the Government, and named for the Confederate general.
CHAPTER V.
OUT OF THE WILDERNESS.
As we came out of the forest, the country improved somewhat. The farm-houses began to show a little look of comfort, and it occurred to us that we might now vary the monotony of our fare by marketing. My husband and I sometimes rode on in advance of the command, and approached the houses with our best manners, soliciting the privilege of buying butter and eggs. The farmer's wife was taking her first look at Yankees, but she found that we neither wore horns nor were cloven-footed, and she even so far unbent as to apologize for not having butter, adding, what seemed then so flimsy an excuse, that "I don't make more than enough butter for our own use, as we are only milking seven cows now." We had yet to learn that what makes a respectable dairy at home was nothing in a country where the cows give a cupful of milk and all run to horns. It was a great relief to get out of the wilderness, but though our hardships were great, I do not want them to appear to outnumber the pleasures. The absence of creature comforts is easily itemized. We are either too warm or too cold, we sleep uncomfortably, we have poor food, we are wet by storms, we are made ill by exposure. Happiness cannot be itemized so readily; it is hard to define what goes to round and complete a perfect day. We remember hours of pleasure as bathed in a mist that blends all shades into a roseate hue; but it is impossible to take one tint from colors so perfectly mingled, and define how it adds to the perfect whole.
The days now seemed to grow shorter and brighter. In place of the monotonous pines, we had magnolia, mulberry, pecan, persimmon and live-oak, as well as many of our own Northern trees, that grew along the streams. The cactus, often four feet high, was covered with rich red blossoms, and made spots of gorgeous color in the prairie grass. I had not then seen the enormous cacti of old Mexico, and four feet of that plant seemed immense, as at home we labored to get one to grow six inches. The wild-flowers were charming in color, variety and luxuriance. The air, even then beginning to taste of the sea, blew softly about us. Stillman no longer blackened his soul with prophecies about the streams on which we nightly pitched our tents. The water did flow in them, and though they were then low, so that the thousands of horses were scattered far up and down when watering-time came, the green scum of sluggish pools was a thing of the past.
A few days before we reached what was to be a permanent camp, a staff-officer rode out to meet us, and brought some mail. It was a strange sensation to feel ourselves restored by these letters to the outside world. General Custer received a great surprise. He was brevetted major, lieutenant-colonel and brigadier-general in the regular army. The officers went off one side to read their sweethearts' letters; and some of our number renewed their youth, sacrificed in that dreadful forest to fever, when they read the good news of the coming of their wives by sea. At Hempstead we halted, and the General made a permanent camp, in order to recruit men and horses after their exhausting march. Here General Sheridan and some of his staff came, by way of Galveston, and brought with them our father Custer, whom the General had sent for to pay us a visit. General Sheridan expressed great pleasure at the appearance of the men and horses, and heard with relief and satisfaction of the orderly manner in which they had marched through the enemy's country, of how few horses had perished from the heat, and how seldom sunstroke had occurred. He commended the General—as he knew how to do so splendidly—and placed him in command of all the cavalry in the State. Our own Division then numbered four thousand men.
I was again mortified to have to be compelled to lie down for a day or two, as so many weeks in the saddle had brought me to the first discovery of a spinal column. It was nothing but sheer fatigue, for I was perfectly well, and could laugh and talk with the rest, though not quite equal to the effort of sitting upright, especially as we had nothing but camp-stools, on which it is impossible to rest. Indisposition, or even actual illness, has less terrors in army life than in the States. We were not condemned to a gloomy upper chamber in a house, and shut in alone with a nurse whom we had never before seen. In our old life, ailing people lay on a lounge in the midst of all the garrison, who were coming and going a dozen times a day, asking, "How does it go now?" and if you had studied up anything that they could do for you? I principally recall being laid up by fatigue, because of the impetuous assault that my vehement father Custer made on his son for allowing me to share the discomforts; and when I defended my husband by explaining how I had insisted upon coming, he only replied, "Can't help it if you did. Armstrong, you had no right to put her through such a jaunt." It was amusing to see the old man's horror when our staff told him what we had been through. It would have appeared that I was his own daughter, and the General a son-in-law, by the manner in which he renewed his attack on the innocent man. Several years afterward it cost Lieutenant James Calhoun long pleading, and a probationary state of two years, before the old man would consent to his taking his daughter Margaret into the army. He shook his gray head determinedly, and said, "Oh, no; you don't get me to say she shall go through what Libbie has." But the old gentleman was soon too busy with his own affairs, defending himself against not only the ingenious attacks of his two incorrigible boys, but the staff, some of whom had known him in Monroe. His eyes twinkled, and his face wrinkled itself into comical smiles, as he came every morning with fresh tales of what a "night of it he had put in." He had a collection of mild vituperations for the boys, gathered from Maryland, Ohio and Michigan, where he had lived, which, extensive as the list was, did not, in my mind, half meet the situation.