A Scouting Detail Returning to the Fort.
Fort Garland, November 21, 1864. Back at the fort life goes on about as before. Nights are getting cold. We sit inside evenings now next to fires of piñon logs. Some spend the hours playing cards, others read or study, and some form small groups and sing. The inside of the quarters look good after months in the open. The white walls and blue furniture and woodwork have come to mean home to me. The wooden beds, designed to sleep two, may be covered only with a straw tick, but it’s a lot softer than the ground. The food is better at the fort than in the field, of course. The hardtack and provisions carried on march leave something to be desired. The hardtack we’re getting must have been made by the Rebs. Even the hot coffee won’t soften it. Corporal White said the other night that once he found something soft inside a hardtack biscuit and when he looked to see what it was, he found that it was an old rifle ball. “Looked like the kind used during the War of 1812,” cracked White.
December 5, 1864. Just heard the news of Colonel Chivington wiping out a whole tribe of Indians at Sand Creek. If word gets back to any friends of those poor devils I’m thinking we’d better all start cleaning our carbines and looking for a hole to crawl into.
News from the East is that Lincoln has been re-elected. War seems about won by the Union forces. Things been going bad for Lee since Gettysburg.
May 4, 1865. Lee gives up at a place called Appomattox. Even the Texans have decided to quit. The boys here are looking to be sent home, since most are volunteers. Only a handfull of regulars like myself have been at the fort during these war years. Might take a leave myself or just give up being a soldier.
April 2, 1866. Back from leave. Brought a wife with me. Never thought of getting married, but while in Denver last winter I met Molly and first thing I knew she had me. We moved into the married quarters for non-coms over northeast of the general inclosure. Molly don’t seem to mind life at the fort, in spite of the fact that she, like all the other non-com wives, has to spend considerable time every week washing shirts and socks in the post laundry.
Being married throws a new light on life in the fort. People get together for parties and talk. The wives are more ambitious for the men than the men are for themselves. “When are you going to be promoted?” they all ask their husbands. What’s the difference if you’re making $13 as a private or $17 as a sergeant?
