Being in Washington for a short time towards mid-winter enjoying the social side of military life at the Capital, an opportunity came to me to meet President Cleveland, and although his administration was nearing its close, and the stress of official cares was very great, he seemed to have leisure and interest to ask me about my life on the frontier; and as the conversation became quite personal, the impulse seized me, to tell him just how I felt about the education of our children, and then to tell him what I thought and what others thought about the unjust way in which the promotions and retirements in our regiment had been managed.
He listened with the greatest interest and seemed pleased with my frankness. He asked me what the soldiers and officers out there thought of "So and So." "They hate him," I said.
Whereupon he laughed outright and I knew I had committed an indiscretion, but life on the frontier does not teach one diplomacy of speech, and by that time I was nerved up to say just what I felt, regardless of results.
"Well," he said, smiling, "I am afraid I cannot interfere much with those military matters;" then, pointing with his left hand and thumb towards the War Department, "they fix them all up over there in the Adjutant General's office," he added.
Then he asked me many more questions; if I had always stayed out there with my husband, and why I did not live in the East, as so many army women did; and all the time I could hear the dull thud of the carpenters' hammers, for they were building even then the board seats for the public who would witness the inaugural ceremonies of his successor, and with each stroke of the hammer, his face seemed to grow more sad.
I felt the greatness of the man; his desire to be just and good: his marvellous personal power, his ability to understand and to sympathize, and when I parted from him he said again laughingly, "Well, I shall not forget your husband's regiment, and if anything turns up for those fine men you have told me about, they will hear from me." And I knew they were the words of a man, who meant what he said.
In the course of our conversation he had asked, "Who are these men? Do they ever come to Washington? I rarely have these things explained to me and I have little time to interfere with the decisions of the Adjutant General's office."
I replied: "No, Mr. President, they are not the men you see around Washington. Our regiment stays on the frontier, and these men are the ones who do the fighting, and you people here in Washington are apt to forget all about them."
"What have they ever done? Were they in the Civil War?" he asked.
"Their records stand in black and white in the War Department," I replied, "if you have the interest to learn more about them."