Following the Guidon (Illustrated Edition) - The Life of General Custe

CHAPTER II.
GENERAL CUSTER'S LETTERS DESCRIBING THE MARCH.

 I here make some extracts from many of my own letters from General Custer, in the belief that they will make the daily life on the march, and in camps which were established for unavoidable delays, on the journey into the Indian Territory clearer than it would otherwise be to the reader, who knows little of the progress of a military expedition.

FORT HAYS, KANSAS, October 4, 1868.

I breakfasted with General Sheridan and the staff. The general said to me, "Custer, I rely upon you in everything, and shall send you on this expedition without giving you any orders, leaving you to act entirely upon your judgment."

The expedition will consist of eleven companies of cavalry, four of infantry, and two howitzers, accompanied by a large train. 

FORTY-TWO MILES FROM FORT DODGE, October 18th. 

We have been on the war-path but one week. I joined the regiment near our present camp a week since, and within two hours the Indians attacked camp. We drove them away, killing two ponies. That night I sent out two scouting parties of a hundred men each, to scour the country for thirty miles round. 

I never heard of wild turkeys in such abundance. We have them every day we care for them, and there are five dressed in the mess chest now. All the men have them, and in one day eighty were killed. Tom shot five in a few moments.  

Now I want to tell you about my splendid stag-hounds. The other day Maida caught a jack-rabbit alone. Yesterday she and Blucher took hold of a buffalo, and to-day, as we came into camp, Blucher started a wolf and caught it alone. Within half an hour a jack-rabbit was started near camp. My three stag-hounds, Flirt, Blucher, and Maida, and two greyhounds, went in pursuit.  

We could see the chase for nearly a mile, and it was a pretty sight; then they disappeared over a hill. The officers are constantly trying to buy the stag-hounds of me.

I wish that Eliza1 was out here to make some nice rolls instead of the solid shot our cook gives us.  

Tell Eliza she is the awfulest scold and the most quarrelsomest woman I ever met. She and the man who waits on the table have constant rows.2

TWELVE MILES FROM DODGE, October 22d.

We will probably remain here ten days before moving towards the Washita mountains. Some of the officers think that this may be like others before ita campaign on paper; but I know General Sheridan too well to think that he will follow any such example; he does not readily relinquish an idea. The general has sent to the Osage Indians to employ them on our side; they will be a profitable assistance.

October 24, 1868.

The general has finally decided upon a winter campaign. If we cannot find the Indians, and inflict considerable injury upon them, we will be on the wing all winter. We are going to the heart of the Indian country, where white troops have never been before. The Indians have grown up in the belief that soldiers cannot and dare not follow them there. They are now convinced that all the tribes that have been committing depredations on the plains the past season have gone south, and are near each other in the vicinity of the Washita mountains. They will doubtless combine against us when they find that we are about to advance into their country.

To-day I gave the regimental saddler directions how to make me a large pair of saddle-bags. They will contain nearly all that I desire to carry, and can be put on my led-horse.

The men are at target practice, and it sounds like a battle. All the officers of the regiment are now learning signals. Books have been furnished us from Washington. I found all the line-officers to-day in the classes. Most of the officers can now converse quite readily as far as they can see the signals. This is just the country for signalling, Nature having formed admirable signal stations over this part of the territory. General Sheridan, in his letter yesterday, said furloughs would be given to every enlisted man who would do well.

CAMP "SANDY" FORSYTH, November 3d.

You see I have named our camp after the brave "Sandy". I suppose that you have seen considerable excitement to-day over the Presidential campaign. I do not presume that of the many hundreds of men here a dozen remembered that today is Election Day, so little is the army interested in the event. I have been quite busy coloring the company horses. Don't imagine that I have been painting them; but I have been classifying all the horses of the regiment, so that instead of each company representing all the colors of the rainbow by their horses, now every company has one color. There are pure bays, browns, sorrels, grays, and blacks.

This morning I ordered "Phil" saddled, and rode up the valley looking for a new camp.3 I was accompanied by my inseparable companions, the dogs (except Flirt, who is lame). When about three-quarters of a mile from camp, I discovered a large wolf lying down about half a mile beyond. Calling the four dogs—Rover, the old fox-hound, Fanny, the little fox-hound, Blucher, and Maida—I started for the wolf.

When within a quarter of a mile he began to run. The two stag-hounds caught sight of him, and away went the dogs, and away went Phil and I, full chase after them. The fox-hounds, of course, could not begin to keep up.

Before the wolf had run three-quarters of a mile Maida had overtaken him. She grappled with him at once and threw him over and over; before he could regain his feet or get hold of Maida, Blucher dashed in upon him, and he was never allowed to rise afterwards. These two puppies killed the wolf before Rover and Fanny could reach the spot. I had put Phil to his mettle, and was near at hand when the wolf was caught. Blucher and Maida were perfectly savage; each time they closed their powerful jaws I could hear the bones crunch as if within a vice. There did not seem to be a bone unbroken when the dogs had finished him. All the officers and men were watching the chase from camp.

We started a jack-rabbit just at evening, and all the dogs joined in. I never saw any race so exciting. The dogs surpass my highest expectations. All four are lying on my bed or at my feet. I have a pair of buffalo overshoes, the hair inside, and I am to have a vest made from a dressed buffalo calf-skin, with the hair on. When we were encamped near Dodge I sent the tailor, Frank, in to buy some thread and buttons. He came home very "tight", and when I asked him if they kept thread and buttons in bottles at the sutler store, he answered me in droll broken English that made me shout with laughter.

November 7th.

I want to tell you something wonderful. A white woman has just come into our camp deranged, and can give no account of herself. She has been four days without food. Our cook is now giving her something to eat. I can only explain her coming by supposing her to have been captured by the Indians, and their barbarous treatment having rendered her insane. I send her to-night, by the mail party, to Fort Dodge. I shall send by the paymaster a live pelican, to be presented to the Audubon Club in Detroit. It is the first I ever saw. It measures nearly seven feet from tip to tip, and its bill is about ten inches long. One of my Cheyenne scouts caught it in the river near camp. He first struck it, and stunned it long enough to effect its capture.

CAMP ON BEAVER CREEK (100 Miles from Dodge), Nov. 21, '68.

The day that we reached here we crossed a fresh trail of a large war party going north. I sent our Indian scouts to follow it a short distance to determine the strength and direction of the party. The guides all report the trail of a war party going north-east, and that they evidently have just come from the village, which must be located within fifty miles of us in a southerly direction. Had the Kansas volunteers been here, as was expected, my orders would then have allowed me to follow the back trail of the war party right to their village; and we would have found the latter in an unprotected state, as their warriors had evidently gone north, either to Larned or Zarah, or to fight the Osage or Kaw Indians, who are now putting up their winter meat. We did not encounter an Indian coming to this last point, which proves that our campaign was not expected by them. Tonight six scouts start for Dodge with our mail and despatches for headquarters.

November 22d.

It lacks a few moments to twelve; reveille is at four, but I must add a few words more. To-day General Sheridan and staff, and two companies of the Kansas volunteers, arrived. I move to-morrow morning with my eleven companies, taking thirty days' rations. I am to go south from here to the Canadian River, then down the river to Fort Cobb, then south-west towards the Washita mountains, then north-west back to this point, my whole march not exceeding two hundred and fifty miles. Among the new horses sent to the regiment I have selected one, a beautiful brown, that I call Dandy. The snow is now five or six inches deep and falling rapidly. The general and his staff have given me a pair of buffalo overshoes, a fur cap with ear lappets, and have offered me anything they have, for winter is upon us with all its force.

As a winter's campaign against Indians was decidedly a new departure for our regiment, and, indeed, at that time for any troops, and as this one ended with a notable victory for our people, it was the subject of many conversations on the galleries of our quarters, at the fireside, and around our...