Tenting on the Plains; or, General Custer in Kansas and Texas

by Elizabeth Bacon Custer

The triumph of the citizens was complete. Their tales were outdone by our actual experience. After that there was no story they told us which we did not take in immediately without question.

The hunting included alligators also. In the stream below us there were occasional deep pools, darkened by the overhanging trees. As we women walked on the banks, we kept a respectful distance from the places where the bend in the creek widened into a pond, with still water near the high banks. In one of these dark pools lived an ancient alligator, well known to the neighbors, on which they had been unsuccessfully firing for years. The darkeys kept aloof from his fastness, and even Eliza, whose Monday-morning soul longed for the running water of the stream, for she had struggled with muddy water so long, trembled at the tales of this monster. She reminds me now "what a lovely place to wash that Gros wash-house was, down by the creek. But it was near the old alligator's pool, and I know I hurried up my wash awfully, for I was afraid he might come up; for you know, Miss Libbie, it was reckoned that they was mighty fond of children and colored people."

MEASURING AN ALLIGATOR.

One of the young officers was determined to get this veteran, and day after day went up and down the creek, coming home at night to meet the jeers of the others, who did not believe that alligator-hunting in a hot country paid. One night he stopped at our tent, radiant and jubilant. He had shot the old disturber of the peace, the intimidator of the neighborhood, and was going for help to haul him up to the tents. He was a monster, and it cost the men tough pulling to get him up the bank, and then to drag him down near our tent. There he was left for us women to see. We walked around and around him, very brave, and quite relieved to think that we were rid of so dangerous a neighbor, with a real old Jonah-and-the-whale mouth. The General congratulated the young officer heartily, and wished it had been his successful shot that had ended him. Part of the jaw had been shot away, evidently years ago, as it was then calloused over. It was distended to its utmost capacity, and propped open with a stick. Nettie brought out a broom from her tent, with which to get a rough estimate of his length, as we knew well that if we did not give some idea of his size in our letters home, they would think the climate, which enervates so quickly, had produced a total collapse in our power to tell the truth. The broom did not begin to answer, so we pieced out the measure with something else, in order to arrive at some kind of accuracy. Then we thought we would like to see how the beast looked with his mouth closed, and the officers, patient in humoring our whims, pulled out the props. There was a sudden commotion. The next thing visible was three sets of flying petticoats making for the tent, as the alligator, revived by the sudden let-down of his upper jaw, sprawled out his feet and began to walk over the grass. The crack of the rifle a moment after brought the heads of three cowards from their tents, but after that no woman hovered over even his dead hide. The General was convulsed over our retreat. The drying skin of his majesty, the lord of the pool, flung and flapped in the wind, suspended to the pole of the officers' arbor for weeks, and it was well tanned by the air long before they ceased to make sly allusions to women's curiosity.

At last, in November, the sealed proposals from citizens to the quartermaster for the contract for transporting the camp equipage and baggage, forage, etc., over the country, were all in, and the most reasonable of the propositions was accepted. Orders had come to move on to Austin, the capital, where we were to winter. It was with real regret that I saw our traps packed, the tents of our pretty encampment taken down, the arbors thrown over, and our faces turned toward the interior of the State. The General, too buoyant not to think that every move would better us, felt nothing but pleasure to be on the march again. The journey was very pleasant through the day, and we were not compelled to rise before dawn, for the sun was by no means unbearable, as it had been in August. It was cold at night, and the wind blew around the wagon, flapping the curtains, under which it penetrated, and lifting the covers unless they were strongly secured. As to trying to keep warm by a camp-fire in November, I rather incline to the belief that it is impossible. Instead of heat coming into the tent where I put on my habit with benumbed fingers, the wind blew the smoke in. Sometimes the mornings were so cold I begged to be left in bed, and argued that the mules could be attached and I could go straight on to camp, warm all the way. But my husband woke my drowsy pride by saying "the officers will surely think you a 'feather-bed soldier,'" which term of derision was applied to a man who sought soft places for duty and avoided hardships, driving when he ought to ride.

If we all huddled around one of my husband's splendid camp-fires, I came in for the smoke. The officers' pretty little gallantries about "smoke always following beauty," did not keep my eyes from being blistered and blinded. It was, after all, not a very great hardship, as during the day we had the royal sun of that Southern winter.

My husband rode on in advance every day to select a camp. He gave the choice into my hands sometimes, but it was hard to keep wood, water and suitable ground uppermost; I wanted always the sheltered, pretty spots. We enjoyed every mile of our march. It rained sometimes, pouring down so suddenly that a retreat to the traveling wagons was impossible. One day I was wet to the skin three times, and my husband wondered what the anxious father and mother, who used frantically to call "rubbers" after me, as a girl, when I tried to slip out unnoticed, would say to him then; but it did not hurt me in the least. The General actually seemed unconscious of the shower. He wore a soldier's overcoat, pulled his broad hat down to shed the rain, and encouraged me by saying I was getting to be a tough veteran, which among us was very high praise. Indeed, we were all then so well, we snapped our fingers at the once-dreaded break-bone fever. If we broke the ice in the bucket for our early ablutions, it became a matter to joke over when the sun was up and we all rode together, laughing and singing, at the head of the column.

Our march was usually twenty-five miles, sometimes thirty, in a day. The General and I foraged at the farms we passed, and bought good butter, eggs and poultry. He began to collect turkeys for the winter, until we had enough for a year. Uncle Charley was doing his best to awe Eliza with his numerous new dishes. Though he was a preacher, he put on that profession on Sundays as he did his best coat; and if during the week the fire smoked, or a dog stole some prepared dish that was standing one side to cool, he expressed himself in tones not loud but deep, and had as extensive a collection of negro oaths as Texas afforded, which, I believe, is saying a good deal. My husband, observant as he always was, wondered what possessed the old fellow when preparing poultry for dinner. We used slyly to watch him go one side, seize the chicken, and, while swiftly wringing its neck, mumble some unintelligible words to himself, then throw down the fowl in a matter-of-fact way, and sit down to pluck it. We were mystified, and had to get Eliza to explain this peculiar proceeding that went on day after day. She said that "though Uncle Charley does swear so powerful, he has a kind of superstition that poultry has a hereafter." Evidently he thought it was not right to send them to their last home without what he intended for a funeral oration. Sometimes he said, as fast as his nimble old tongue could clatter:

"Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound,
Mine ears attend the cry!
Ye living hens, come view the ground
Where you must shortly die."