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

by Elizabeth Bacon Custer

The planters came to bid us good-by, and we parted from them with reluctance. We had come into their State under trying circumstances, and the cordiality, generosity and genuine good feeling that I know they felt, made our going a regret. There was no reason why they should come from their distant plantations to say good-by and wish us godspeed, except from personal friendship, and we all appreciated the wish they expressed that we might remain.

The journey from Austin to Hempstead was made much more quickly than our march over. We had relays of horses, the roads were good, and there was no detention. I only remember one episode of any importance. At the little hotel at which we stopped in Brennan, we found loitering about the doors and stoop and inner court a lounging, rough lot of men, evidently the lower order of Confederate soldiers, the lawless set that infest all armies, the tramp and the bummer. They gathered in knots, to watch and talk of us. As we passed them on our way to the dining-room, they muttered, and even spoke audibly, words of spiteful insult. At every such word I expected the fiery blood of the General and his staff would be raised to fighting heat. But they would not descend to altercation with fellows to whom even the presence of a woman was no restraint. It was a mystery, it still is, to me, that hot-blooded men can control themselves if they consider the foeman unworthy of the steel. My husband was ever a marvel to me, in that he could in this respect carry out his own oft-repeated counsel. I began very early with that old maxim, "consider the source," as a subterfuge for the lack of repartee, in choking senseless wrath; but it came to be a family aphorism, and I was taught to live up to its best meaning. The Confederates were only "barking," not "biting," as the General said would be the case; but they gave me a genuine scare, and I had serious objections to traveling in Texas unaccompanied by a Division of cavalry. I think the cold nights, smoky camp-fires, tarantulas, etc., that we encountered on our march over, would have been gladly undertaken rather than run into the face of threatening men, unaccompanied by a single trooper, as we then traveled.

I wonder what the present tourist would think of the bit of railroad over which we journeyed from Brennan to Galveston! I scarcely think it had been touched, in the way of repairs, during the war. The coaches were not as good as our present emigrant cars. The rails were worn down thin, and so loosely secured that they moved as we rolled slowly over them. We were to be constantly in some sort of peril, it seemed. There was a deep gully on the route, over which was stretched a cobweb trestle, intended only as a temporary bridge. There was no sort of question about its insecurity; it quivered and menacingly swayed under us. The conductor told us that each time he crossed he expected to go down. I think he imagined there could be no better time than that, when it would secure the effectual departure of a few Yankee officers, not only from what he considered his invaded State, but from the face of the earth. At any rate, he so graphically described to me our imminent peril that he put me through all the preliminary stages of sudden death. Of course, our officers, inured to risks of all sorts, took it all as a matter of course, and the General slyly called the attention of our circle to the usual manner in which the "old lady" met danger, namely, with her head buried in the folds of a cloak.

My husband knew what interest and admiration my father Bacon had for "old Sam Houston," and he himself felt the delight that one soldier takes in the adventures and vicissitudes of another. Consequently, we had listened all winter to the Texans' laudation of their hero, and many a story that never found its way into print was remembered for my father's sake. We were only too sorry that Houston's death, two years previous, had prevented our personal acquaintance. He was not, as I had supposed, an ignorant soldier of fortune, but had early scholarly tastes, and, even when a boy, could repeat nearly all of Pope's translation of the Iliad. Though a Virginian by birth, he early went with his widowed mother to Tennessee, and his roving spirit led him among the Indians, where he lived for years as the adopted son of a chief. He served as an enlisted man under Andrew Jackson in the war of 1812, and afterward became a lieutenant in the regular army. Then he assumed the office of Indian agent, and befriended those with whom he had lived.

From that he went into law in Nashville, and eventually became a Congressman. Some marital difficulties drove him back to barbarism, and he rejoined the Cherokees, who had been removed to Arkansas. He went to Washington to plead for the tribe, and returning, left his wigwam among the Indians after a time, and went to Texas. During the tumultuous history of that State, when it was being shifted from one government to another with such vehemence, no citizen could tell whether he would rise in the morning a Mexican, or a member of an independent republic, or a citizen of the United States.

With all that period Sam Houston was identified. He was evidently the man for the hour, and it is no wonder that our officers dwelt with delight upon his marvelous career. In the first revolutionary movement of Texas against Mexican rule, he began to be leader, and was soon commander-in-chief of the Texan army, and in the new Republic he was reëlected to that office. The dauntless man confronted Santa Anna and his force of 5,000 men with a handful of Texans—783 all told, undisciplined volunteers, ignorant of war. But he had that rare personal magnetism, which is equal to a reserve of armed battalions, in giving men confidence and inciting them to splendid deeds. Out of 1,600 regular Mexican soldiers, 600 were killed, and Santa Anna, disguised as a common soldier, was captured. Then Houston showed his magnanimous heart; for, after rebuking him for the massacres of Goliad and the Alamo, he protected him from the vengeance of the enraged Texans. A treaty made with the captive President resulted in the independence of Texas. When, after securing this to the State of his adoption, Houston was made President of Texas, he again showed his wonderful clemency—which I cannot help believing was early fostered and enhanced by his labors in behalf of the wronged Cherokees—in pardoning Santa Anna, and appointing his political rivals to offices of trust. If Mr. Lincoln gave every energy to promoting the perpetual annexation of California, by tethering that State to our Republic with an iron lariat crossing the continent, how quickly he would have seen, had he then been in office, what infinite peril we were in of losing that rich portion of our country.

The ambition of the soldier and conqueror was tempered by the most genuine patriotism, for Sam Houston used his whole influence to annex Texas to the Union, and the people in gratitude sent him to Washington as one of their first Senators. As President he had overcome immense difficulties, carried on Indian wars, cleared off an enormous debt, established trade with Mexico, made successful Indian treaties, and steadily stood at the helm, while the State was undergoing all sorts of upheavals. Finally he was made Governor of the State, and opposed secession, even resigning his office rather than take the oath required by the convention that assembled to separate Texas from the Union. Then, poor old man, he died before he was permitted to see the promised land, as the war was still in progress. His name is perpetuated in the town called for him, which, as the centre of large railroad interests, and as a leader in the march of improvement in that rapidly progressing State, will be a lasting monument to a great man who did so much to bring out of chaos a vast extent of our productive land, sure to become one of the richest of the luxuriant Southern States.

At Galveston we were detained by the non-arrival of the steamer in which we were to go to New Orleans. With a happy-go-lucky party like ours, it mattered little; no important interests were at stake, no business appointments awaiting us. We strolled the town over, and commented, as if we owned it, on the insecurity of its foundations. Indeed, for years after, we were surprised, on taking up the morning paper, not to find that Galveston had dropped down into China. The spongy soil is so porous that the water, on which rests the thin layer of earth, appears as soon as a shallow excavation is attempted. Of course there are no wells, and the ungainly cistern rises above the roof at the rear of the house. The hawkers of water through the town amused us vastly, especially as we were not obliged to pay a dollar a gallon, except as it swelled our hotel-bill. I remember how we all delighted in the oleanders that grew as shade-trees, whose white and red blossoms were charming. To the General, the best part of all our detention was the shell drive along the ocean. The island on which Galveston has its insecure footing is twenty-eight miles long, and the white, firm beach, glistening with the pulverized shells extending all the distance, was a delight to us as we spent hours out there on the shore.

It must surely have been this white and sparkling thread bordering the island, that drew the ships of the pirate Lafitte to moor in the harbor early in 1800. The rose-pink of the oleander, the blue of the sky, the luminous beach, with the long, ultramarine waves sweeping in over the shore, were fascinating; but on our return to the town, all the desire to remain was taken away by the tale of the citizens, of the frequent rising of the ocean, the submerging of certain portions, and the evidence they gave that the earth beneath them was honeycombed by the action of the water.