Following the Guidon (Illustrated Edition). Elizabeth Bacon Custer

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I send you a likeness which it may not occur to you is the picture of your husband. How do you like the beard? The costume is a very fine one, made of dressed buckskin and fringed. The cap is the one without a visor, that I have worn all winter. Frank, the tailor, is the maker of the suit.4 One of the officers said that he thought you would not recognize it, but would think that it was the man from California, the great hunter, who gave the President the bear-skin chair.

      You would not imagine that I was writing amid frequent interruptions. The officers are constantly coming in inquiring about preparations for the march. Several Indian chiefs have been in to talk to them I talk, and continue my writing at the same time, an interpreter being present. I send you a likeness of four of my scouts. The one on the right is California Joe, mentioned in General Sheridan's and my despatches. He is the odd genius, so full of originality, and constantly giving utterance to quaint remarks. He has been everywhere west of the Mississippi, clear to the Pacific coast. He has not seen any of his relations for fifteen years, and when asked the other day why he never visited home, replied, Oh, to tell the truth, gineral, our family never was very peart for caring much about each other.

      The third scout in the group is my interpreter, a young Mexican. Do you notice his long matted hair? Barnum would make a fortune if he had him. His hair never made the acquaintance of a comb, and his face is almost equally unacquainted with water. Yet he is a very good and deserving person, in his way. We have a great deal of sport with him. I threaten to put kerosene oil on his hair and set it on fire. He speaks several of the Indian languages, and is very useful. The fourth in the group is Jack Corbin, one of my most reliable scouts and couriers. He has made frequent trips to Camp Supply and back with the mail.

      WASHITA BATTLE-GROUND, March 24, 1869.

      We arrived here yesterday, having marched three hundred and fourteen miles. I will rest two days and then start with my entire command for Camp Supply.

      I have been successful in my campaign against the Cheyennes. I outmarched them, outwitted them at their own game, proved to them they were in my power, and could and would have annihilated the entire village of over two hundred lodges but for two reasons. 1st. I desired to obtain the release of the two white women held captive by them, which I could not have done had I attacked. 2d. If I had attacked them, those who escaped, and absent portions of the tribe also, would have been on the war-path all summer, and we would have obtained no rest. These reasons alone influenced me to pursue the course I have, and now, when I can review the whole matter coolly, my better judgment and my humanity tell me I have acted wisely. You cannot appreciate how delicately I was situated. I counselled with no one, but when we overtook the Cheyenne village, and saw it in our power to annihilate them, my command, from highest to lowest, desired bloodshed. They were eager for revenge, and could not comprehend my conduct. They disapproved and criticised it. I paid no heed, but followed the dictates of my own judgment—the judgment upon which my beloved commander (General Sheridan) said he relied for the attainment of the best results. He had authorized me to do as I pleased, fight or not. And now my most bitter enemies cannot say that I am either blood-thirsty or possessed of an unworthy ambition.

      Had I given the signal to attack, officers and men would have hailed it with a shout of gratification. I braved their opinion, and acted in opposition to their wishes, but to-day not one but says I was right, and any other course would have been disastrous. Many have come to me and confessed their error. The two women are bright, cultivated, and good-looking.

      I now have the Cheyenne chiefs prisoners, and intend to hold them as such until their tribe comes in. I think we have rendered them sick and tired of war. We are delighted to find a large mail here. The paymaster is at Camp Supply waiting to pay the troops. One-half the command is dismounted, and what few horses we have could not go out again for two months.

      General Custer refers in the letters written to me, from which quotations have just been made, to the rescue of the two white women. It was brought about after unending parleyings, delays, and excuses on the part of the Indians, by threatening to hang the three chiefs, Big Head, Fat Bear, and Dull Knife, who had been captured by our people with a view to holding them until all the white captives then with the hostiles were released. Indian messengers were sent to the tribe to report the danger to their chiefs, and finally, after long and weary watching of the hills over which the detachment from the village must come, a group of horsemen appeared. While they traversed several miles that separated them from our troops, the whole command watched with breathless interest. The young brother of a captured woman had been with the command all winter, and moving daily among our men, had kept their sympathies alive to the atrocity that had been perpetrated. All the troopers were watching this half-grown man, suddenly matured by anxiety and trouble, as he kept his eyes on the approaching Indians. The hearts of the soldiers beat faster and faster as the lad grew paler and more anxious. "The bravest are the tenderest", and that day proved it, for our rough men had scarcely any thought but for the suffering youth among them. Finally the Indians came near enough for an officer to perceive with his glass that there were two on one pony. A little nearer and they reported that they were women. The poor boy had no reason to be sure that one of them was his sister. СКАЧАТЬ