Following the Guidon (Illustrated Edition). Elizabeth Bacon Custer

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      It is chiefly remarkable for its fossil flora of fan-palms and other tropical plants, which points to the conclusion that along the shores of this great lake grew luxuriant forests like those in Central America and Brazil.

      We who roamed the vast plains had every reason to corroborate all the investigations that the scientists made. The great trackless waste of land all about our camp was like nothing but the sea, and the rolling country we rode over day after day was as if the earth had been indented by waves of a powerful ocean. We came suddenly, on our marches, upon canons that were sharp fissures in the earth extending for many miles. These chasms, in an otherwise comparatively level surface, could mean nothing but cracks in the cooling earth's crust, through which a mighty rush of water had once plunged, deepening and widening the gorge. If we halted for luncheon, and spread our simple meal on the stunted grass, we could reach about us and pick up the vertebrae of fish that had once glided through water where we then sat.

      In geological research the officers of our army have been of incalculable use to their Government. They explored the Indian infested countries long before the colleges or Government sent out scientists for the purpose. The remains of fishes, serpents, birds, crocodiles, lizards, turtles, bats, etc., were gathered by our officers and sent to the East. It was a strange sensation to find ourselves monarchs in a land which once was given up to all forms of vegetable and animal life, many varieties of which are now forever gone from the earth. The moss-agate was as common as the pebbles along a country road, and we broke off large flakes of rough surface to find incased in its transparent tomb exquisite sprays of delicate foliage, which reproduced in stone the fairy, fragile flora of a by-gone time. There was nothing remaining of that time of exquisite herbage. The dull sage-bush, or grease-root, or the sparse buffalo-grass, were all that the sun spared from its scorching rays.

      The understanding was that we should have a permanent camp during the summer. By that it was meant that the regiment would have a headquarters in the field, and scouting parties be sent out from it. As we were so near a post, it was not difficult to get all the canvas we wanted. Our regimental quartermaster made requisition for the tents, which would be returned to the post in the autumn. We felt very rich, for, by borrowing from our Uncle Sam, we had as many rooms as some houses have—that is, calling each tent a room. The sitting-room was a hospital tent which is perhaps fourteen by sixteen. It was clean, and had no association of illness to keep one awake with imaginings at night. These huge tents are really designed for hospital purposes, but, fortunately, I never knew them to be used except in one epidemic of cholera. In the few cases of illness or injury occurring among the soldiers the patients were sent to a garrison hospital, for most posts have a regular building for this purpose. Opening out at the rear of our sitting-room was our own room, a wall tent ten by twelve. In pitching these tents General Custer had an eye for a tree with wide-spreading branches to shade us, and in order to utilize it he put the tents on the side bank running down to the stream. Of course it was necessary to build up a rough embankment of stones and earth, and that left the tent floor at the rear almost up to the limbs of the tree. We then thought how foolish of us not to continue the floor around the tree. The company carpenter built such a comfortable little platform, with a railing, that we felt as if we had a real gallery to our canvas house; and sitting out there, Tom smoking, I sewing, and General Custer reading, we imagined Big Creek to be the Hudson, and the cotton-wood, whose foliage is anything but thick, to be a graceful maple or a stately, branching elm. Our brother Tom, while he enjoyed our arbor, refused to call it anything but the "beer-garden"—but calling names did not destroy our delight. The floors of the tents were an especial luxury, for every board in that region counted, as it was difficult to get lumber. The cotton-wood warped before it was fairly nailed down, and a pine plank even now looks to me like rare wealth.

      The canvas of our rear tent was cut and bound, and a roller of wood to keep it down in wind-storms was sewed in, so that when tied up it left a broad window, seven feet wide, opening on the platform and giving a fine circulation of air. A huge tarpaulin of very thick canvas, used to cover grain and military stores, for which there was not room in the storehouses, was spread over the large tent and extended far in front, so that we had a wide porch, under which we sat most of the time.

      It was with great relief that I saw the holes dug in which to sink the poles at the four corners of each tent. These were usually young saplings with a notch near the top; and across the two on either side was laid another long pole, to which the ropes were lashed so securely that no storm tore the tent down during all the summer. To have a whole summer of relief from fear that our cotton-house would blow over was a great boon, for a Kansas wind can do much havoc with canvas, and it is not comfortable to lie watching a swaying ridge-pole in a storm and imagine yourself crushed in its downfall.

      We had, of course, only the barest necessities in the tents—a rude bunk for a bed, a stool, with tin wash-basin, a bucket for water, and a little shaving-glass for a mirror. The carpenter had nailed together some benches and a cumbrous table. These, with our camp-chairs, were our furniture. There was a monotonous similarity of construction in the chairs made by the carpenter. Each consisted of one long board rounded at the top, to which another shorter board was nailed for the seat, and another put on as a brace at the back. One of our friends had a chair of this pattern, and as her husband, coming home to the tent at dusk, saw this white-pine board gleaming through the twilight, he called out, merrily: "If you do turn up your toes to the daisies, we can just set this up at your head, with the inscription, 'Died so-and-so'; it would make a beautiful tombstone." They were truly sepulchral-looking, but we were not inclined to be over-critical of the style. It never occurred to us that we wanted anything more; for if all the camp-chairs, benches, and stools were occupied, the young officers threw themselves down on the buffalo-robes, or smoked sitting, à la Turque, on a blanket spread under the fly. Several Indian articles of luxury had been given us, out of which we had much comfort. They consisted of a light framework of interwoven willow withes about the width of a chair-back, and were called head-rests. These were laid on the ground, raised at the farther end at a gentle inclination, and strongly propped at the back. They could be rolled into small compass for carrying, and were vastly superior in strength to anything we could buy. When the officers reclined on these primitive but comfortable affairs, smoking, they looked so at ease that we addressed them as "bashi-bazouk", or pacha, or by some Eastern term that suggested habits of luxurious indulgence.

      On the right of our tent began the others—one for guests, another for the dining-tent, then the round Sibley, that General Custer had used during the winter, for the cook tent. This must have been modelled after an Indian tepee, as it looked much like it. At that time Sibley tents were not in use, but why, we could never understand, as the wind had so little purchase upon them, finding no corners to toy with, that this circular house could almost defy a hurricane. The fire was built in the centre, and the smoke escaped through an aperture at the top, which could be half covered, according to the direction of the wind, by pulling ropes attached to a little fly. The Indians had the same arrangement, only they managed the opening a little better.

      Next to the Sibley was a veritable tepee, that General Custer had brought from an abandoned Indian village. It was made of tanned buffalo skins sewed together with leather thongs, and stretched over a framework of thirty-six lodge-poles. These poles are fastened together at the top, and extend out in all directions above the hide covering. They are a precious possession in the eyes of an Indian, as he is often obliged to travel hundreds of miles to procure them, in the heavily timbered part of the country, where strong, light, flexible saplings can be cut. The buffalo hides were covered with rude drawings representing the history of the original owner, his prowess in killing Indians at war with his tribe, the taking of the white man's scalp, or the stealing of ponies. Instead of the flap of the entrance opening down to the ground, the aperture began some distance up, so that one had to undo and pull out innumerable little sticks that were put through holes in the hide, and made quite a step up before getting into the tepee. As it was carefully staked down with picket-pins all about the edge, and a ditch was dug around to carry off the water, such a tepee could challenge almost any storm. In this house of the aborigine lived our Henry, a colored coachman, who had come with us СКАЧАТЬ