Читать книгу Defending General Custer's Legacy: Complete Illustrated Trilogy - Elizabeth Bacon Custer - Страница 37
ОглавлениеTHE YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1873.
Extracts from Letters written by General Custer to his Wife during the Expedition to the Yellowstone in 1873.
[Many of the letters from which the following extracts are taken are very long, but so much of them is of a personal nature that I have sought here to give only those portions that convey an idea of the camp-life and daily experiences of a campaign on the frontier.
I regret that I have not the letters giving an account of the Indian fights. I have substituted a copy of General Custer’s official report to complete the story of the summer of 1873.—E. B. C.]
Camp on Heart River, D. T., June 26, 1873.
When I may have an opportunity to send this, or when it may reach you, I cannot tell; but I will have it ready, and when the first courier leaves he shall carry these tidings to you.
This is our sixth day out from Fort Rice. We reached this river yesterday about noon, and are remaining in camp to-day as it is somewhere in this locality that we expect to find the railroad engineers, and Lieut. D—— and four companies of infantry that left Fort Rice before you did.
Our march has been perfectly delightful thus far. We have encountered no Indians, although yesterday we saw the fresh tracks of about fifteen ponies, showing that they are in our vicinity.
I never saw such fine hunting as we have constantly had since we left Fort Rice. I have done some of the best shooting I ever did, and as you are always so interested I want to tell you about it. I take twenty-five picked men with me, and generally have several officers in the party besides. It is not necessary to go out of sight of the column, as the game is so abundant we can even eclipse your story about antelope running into the men’s arms! They actually ran through our wagon-train, and one was run over by a wagon and caught! Tom2 immediately remarked, “Well, by George, we can beat Libbie’s story now!”
The first day out the dogs caught an antelope and I shot one, since when I have brought in from two to four daily. Day before yesterday the members of our mess killed eight antelope. But I must tell you of some of my recent shots with my new Springfield rifle.
Three days ago F—— and I with a party were out in sight of the column, when an antelope started up fully two hundred yards distant, and ran rapidly parallel to us. I fired five times at it while running, at this distance. It then stopped, and I got about twenty-five paces nearer when I fired off-hand, aiming directly at the head. It fell, and I measured the distance, which proved to be one hundred and seventy yards, and the antelope was found to be shot through the head. Of the five shots which I had fired at it while running at a distance of two hundred yards, four had struck the antelope, one breaking its thigh and two going through its body.
Yesterday a fine large buck came bounding over the hill across our path. He was so far that no one seemed to think it worth while to aim at him, but I thought I would try. Jumping off my thorough-bred, Vic, in an instant I had my rifle at my shoulder and levelled at the buck, which was running at full speed. I pressed the trigger, and waiting an instant to give the bullet time to reach its mark, the buck was seen to fall lifeless in the grass. To be accurate in the distance I requested F—— to measure it. He did so, and found it to be two hundred and eighty yards. Galloping to where the antelope had fallen, I found him shot directly through the centre of the neck, about one foot from the head, the neck being broken by the shot. I put him entire on the orderly trumpeter’s horse and sent him to the wagons to be carried to camp, where I butchered him. He was the fattest antelope I ever saw.
I sent H—— and M——’s messes each a quarter. I have not only been fortunate enough to keep our own mess supplied with game every meal since we left Fort Rice, but have had quantities to send to the infantry officers, to the band, and to many of our own officers.
Poor Fred and Tom! They have accompanied me frequently—Fred always along—and yet neither of them has been able thus far to kill a single antelope. I tease them a great deal, for they use the Winchester rifle. It is remarkably accurate up to one hundred yards, and not so beyond that distance.
You know when Tom takes a notion to get anything of mine how very persistent he is. Well, his latest dodge is to obtain possession of my Springfield rifle, which I allow my orderly, Tuttle, to carry. Night before last he carried it off to his tent without saying anything about it; but Tuttle slipped down while Tom was at breakfast and recaptured the rifle!
I wish you could have seen one of our hunting-parties coming into camp a few days ago, after a hunt of not more than four hours, in sight of the column all the time. My orderlies and I had four antelope strapped to our saddles; then came Captain F——, with a fine, large buck strapped behind him and a saddle in his front, while his orderly was similarly loaded; then McD—— and his orderly, each with a splendid antelope on his saddle, while others of the men who had accompanied me were well provided with game—except poor H——. He and the four men of his company who went with us had equal chances with the rest, but they had nothing. The officers give H—— no rest now on the subject of antelope; the last advice given him was that his only chance now is to spread his fish-net (which the officers ridicule him for bringing into such a country as this) and catch the antelope in that way! Tuttle killed two antelope at one shot with my Springfield at pretty long range.
Yesterday Fred and I had an exciting time with an elk that swam the river twice near us, but we only succeeded in wounding him before he got away to the bluffs beyond sight of the command, where we did not deem it prudent to follow him.
I am glad that I posted myself with regard to taxidermy; for yesterday, after reaching camp, I devoted all the afternoon to preparing the head of the antelope I killed for preservation. The antlers the officers think the finest they ever saw. I have prepared the entire head, and the skin of about one foot of the neck. I also have a beautiful set of elk antlers that I hope to get through safely. I carry them strapped on top of the ambulance of Mary, our cook.
I do not think we are going to have any serious difficulty with the Indians—at least this is General Rosser’s opinion. He thinks this expedition is too large and unwieldy to perform the desired work promptly, and I agree with him.
There is an officer temporarily detailed with the command who inspires my respect because he regards the wishes of his mother so highly. He has some fine rifles at home, but did not bring any with him, merely to please his mother, who feared that if he brought his guns along he would be tempted to wander off alone hunting.
It is four days since I began this letter, but we have been moving in the mean while, so that but little opportunity for writing has been allowed.
With the ten companies of the 7th I started to join the engineers, leaving the infantry and train to follow us. I marched thirty miles over a bad country, besides building a bridge over a stream thirty feet wide and ten feet deep. I superintended and planned it, and about one hundred and eighty men worked to complete it. About twenty men had to cross the stream before the bridge could be begun. An officer must go with them, so I detailed McD—— and twenty of his men. They had to strip off and swim across. You ought to have heard the young officers on the bank hooting at McD—— when he was preparing to lead the “light brigade” across the water! I built a bridge in about two hours, over which the whole command and wagon-train passed.
The officers have a good joke on Lieut. H——. Nearly all of them have killed antelope, so Mr. H—— concluded he must kill his. He went out yesterday near the column and soon espied an antelope quietly lying in the grass about one hundred yards distant. Quickly dismounting from his horse, he crawled on the ground until near enough, as he thought, to kill it. Taking deliberate aim he fired, but the ball fell short a few feet; yet the antelope was not disturbed. This is not unusual. Again he took aim this time with great care, fired, and to his joy he saw the fur fly from the antelope. Never doubting but that he had given him a mortal wound, Mr. H—— leaped into his saddle and galloped up to the antelope to cut its throat. Imagine his disgust to find that the antelope had been dead several days, and had already been taken possession of by the flies! The officers will never let him hear the last of it.
Well, I have joined the engineers, and am having such pleasant visits with General Rosser. We talk over our West Point times and discuss the battles of the war. I stretch the buffalo-robe under the fly of the tent, and there in the moonlight he and I, lying at full length, listen to each other’s accounts of battles in which both had borne a part. It seemed like the time when we were cadets together, huddled on one blanket and discussing dreams of the future. Rosser said the worst whipping he had during the war was the one I gave him the 9th of October, when I captured everything he had, including the uniform now at home in Monroe. He said that on the morning of that fight, just as the battle was commencing he was on a hill on our front, which I well remember, watching us advance. He was looking at us through his field-glass, and saw and recognized me as plainly as if I had been by his side. I was at the head of my troops—all of which I remember—and advancing to the attack.
Rosser said as soon as he recognized me he sent for his brigade commanders and pointed me out to them, saying, “Do you see that man in front with long hair? Well, that’s Custer, and we must bust him up to-day.”
“And so,” General Rosser continued, “we would have done had you attacked us as we thought you intended to; but instead of that you slipped another column away around us, and my men soon began calling out, ‘We’re flanked! we’re flanked!’ then broke and ran, and nothing could stop them.”
Rosser wanted to meet you at the crossing, but failed, and wrote to his wife to try and see you in St. Paul, but you had already gone through.
He too asked if you did not accompany me almost everywhere; so you see what an extended reputation for campaigning you have. And, do you know, he tells me he thinks I am anxious to get back to you. But I did not tell him that I was already counting the days.
I killed another antelope yesterday, two the day before, and two the day before that. Mary made us a delicious pot-pie out of two curlew I shot. Whenever the subject of pot-pies comes up, Mr. Calhoun, Tom, and I at once begin talking of the place where we got the best pot-pies we ever tasted. One will say, “I’ll tell you where you can get the very nicest pot-pie you ever put in your mouth,” and before he can go any further the other two will call out, “At mother’s.”
I saw the most beautiful red-deer yesterday I ever have seen. It was a new species to me; of the deepest red, as red as the reddest cow you ever saw. I was too far away to get a shot.
All the officers were up at my tent last night at twilight, sitting under the awning in front, all jolly, all good-humored, full of their jokes, and prouder than ever of the 7th, as they modestly compared the regiment with the infantry.
This letter of forty-four closely-written pages would make a Galaxy article so far as its length goes; suppose you send me a check for it as the Galaxy people do for theirs?
You must read a good deal of it to mother, or tell her of its contents, and say that this time this letter must do for the family. I hope your going home will be a comfort to her and improve her health.
Tell D—— if she is going to come into the Custer family she must be prepared to receive little billet-doux something the size of this volume!
Tom says, “Tell Libbie I intended writing, but when I saw the length of this letter I knew that there was nothing left to tell her!”
Yellowstone River, July 19, 1873.
Well, here we are, encamped on the banks of the far-famed and to you far distant Yellowstone! How I have longed to have you see, during our progress, what seems to me almost like another world. Truly can this interesting region be termed the “Wonder-land!”
