When the day dawned, we were surrounded by water, and the havoc about us was dreadful. But what a relief it was to have the rain cease, and feel the comfort of daylight! Eliza broke up her bunk to make a fire, and we had breakfast for everybody, owing to her self-sacrifice! The water began to subside, and the place looked like a vast laundry. All the camp was flying with blankets, bedding and clothes. We were drenched, of course, having no dry shoes even, to replace those in which we had raced about in the mud during the night. But these were small inconveniences, compared with the agony of terror that the night had brought. As the morning advanced, and the stream fell constantly, we were horrified by the sight of a soldier, swollen beyond all recognition, whose drowned body was imbedded in the side of the bank, where no one could reach it, and where we could not escape the sight of it. He was one who had implored us to save him, and our failure to do so seemed even more terrible than the night before, as we could not keep our fascinated gaze from the stiffened arm that seemed to have been stretched out entreatingly.
Though we were thankful for our deliverance, the day was a depressing one, for the horror of the drowning men near us could not be put out of our minds. As night came on again, the clouds began to look ominous; it was murky, and it rained a little.
A BUFFALO UNDECIDED AS TO AN ATTACK ON GENERAL CUSTER.
At dark word came from the fort, to which some of the officers had returned, that we must attempt to get to the high ground, as the main stream, Big Creek, was again rising. All the officers were alarmed. They kept measuring the advance of the stream themselves, and guards were stationed at intervals, to note the rise of the water and report its progress. The torch-lights they held were like tiny fire-flies, so dark was the night. An ambulance was driven to our tent to make the attempt to cross the water, which had abated there slightly, and, if possible, to reach the divide beyond. One of the officers went in advance, on horseback, to try the depth of the water. It was a failure, and the others forbade our going, thinking it would be suicidal. While they were arguing, Diana and I were wrapping ourselves in what outside garments we had in the tent. She had been plucky through the terrible night, writing next morning to the General that she never wished herself for one moment at home, and that even with such a fright she could never repay us for bringing her out to a life she liked so much. Yet as we tremblingly put on our outside things, she began to be agitated over a subject so ridiculous in such a solemn and dangerous hour, that I could not keep my face from what might have been a smile under less serious circumstances. Her trepidation was about her clothes. She asked me anxiously what she should do for dresses next day, and insisted that she must take her small trunk. In vain I argued that we had nowhere to go. We could but sit in the ambulance till dawn, even if we were fortunate enough to escape to the bluff. She still persisted, saying, "What if we should reach a fort, and I was obliged to appear in the gown I now wear?" I asked her to remember that the next fort was eighty miles distant, with enough water between it and us to float a ship, not to mention roving bands of Indians lying in wait; but this by no means quieted her solicitude about her appearance. At last I suggested her putting on three dresses, one over the other, and then taking, in the little trunk from which she could not part, the most necessary garments and gowns. When I went out to get into the wagon, after the other officers had left, and found our one escort determined still to venture, I was obliged to explain that Diana could not make up her mind to part with her trunk. He was astounded that at such an hour, in such a dangerous situation, clothes should ever enter anyone's head. But the trunk appeared at the entrance of the tent, to verify my words. He argued that with a wagon loaded with several people, it would be perilous to add unnecessary weight in driving through such ground. Then, with all his chivalry, working night and day to help us, there came an instant when he could no longer do justice to the occasion in our presence; so he stalked off to one side, and what he said to himself was lost in the growl of the thunder.
The trunk was secured in the ambulance, and Diana, Eliza and I followed. There we sat, getting wetter, more frightened and less plucky as the time rolled on. Again were we forbidden to attempt this mode of escape, and condemned to return to the tent, which was vibrating in the wind and menacing a downfall. No woman ever wished more ardently for a brown-stone front than I longed for a dug-out. Any hole in the side of a bank would have been a palace to me, living as I did in momentary expectation of no covering at all. The rarest, most valuable of homes meant to me something that could not blow away. Those women who take refuge in these days in their cyclone cellar—now the popular architecture of the West—will know well how comforting it is to possess something that cannot be readily lifted up and deposited in a neighboring county.
With the approach of midnight, there was again an abatement in the rain, and the water of the stream ceased to creep toward us; so the officers, gaining some confidence in its final subsidence, again left us to go to their tents. For three days the clouds and thunder threatened, but at last the sun appeared. In a letter to my husband, dated June 9, 1867, I wrote: "When the sun came out yesterday, we could almost have worshipped it, like the heathen. We have had some dreadful days, and had not all the officers been so kind to us, I do not know how we could have endured what we have. Even some whom we do not know have shown the greatest solicitude in our behalf. We are drenching wet still, and everything we have is soggy with moisture. Last evening, after two sleepless nights, Mrs. Gibbs and her two boys, Alphie and Blair, Diana and I, were driven across the plain, from which the water is fast disappearing, to the coveted divide beyond. It is not much higher, as you know, than the spot where our tents are; but it looked like a mountain, as we watched it, while the water rose all around us. Some of the officers had tents pitched there, and we women were given the Sibley tent with the floor, that sheltered me in the other storm. We dropped down in heaps, we were so exhausted for want of sleep, and it was such a relief to know that at last the water could not reach us." The letter (continued from day to day, as no scouts were sent out) described the moving of the camp to more secure ground. It was incessant motion, for no place was wholly satisfactory to the officers. I confessed that I was a good deal unnerved by the frights, that every sound startled me, and a shout from a soldier stopped my breathing almost, so afraid was I that it was the alarm of another freshet—while the clouds were never more closely watched than at that time.
A fresh trouble awaited me, for General Hancock came to camp from Harker, and brought bad news. The letter continues: "The dangers and terrors of the last few days are nothing, compared with the information that General Hancock brings. It came near being the last proverbial 'straw.' I was heart-sick, indeed, when I found that our schemes for being together soon were so ruthlessly crushed. General Hancock says that it looks as if you would be in the Department of the Platte for several months—at which he is justly indignant—but he is promised your return before the summer is ended. He thinks, that if I want to go so badly, I may manage to make you a flying visit up there; and this is all that keeps me up. The summer here, so far separated from you, seems to stretch out like an arid desert. If there were the faintest shadow of a chance that I would see you here again, I would not go, as we are ordered to. I will come back here again if I think there is the faintest prospect of seeing you. If you say so, I will go to Fort McPherson on the cars, if I get the ghost of an opportunity."