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Around many a camp-fire in the summer, and in our winter-quarters before the huge fireplaces, where the wood merrily crackled and the flame danced up the chimney, have I heard the oft-told tales of the battle of the Washita, the first great fight of the Seventh Cavalry. The regiment was still new, having been organized during the year after the war. It had done much hard work, and had not only accomplished some genuine successes in a small way, but its records of long untiring marches in the chill of early spring, during the burning heat of a Kansas summer sun, and in the sharp frosts of a late autumn campaign, were something to be proud of. Still, the officers and men had little in the way of recognized achievement to repay them for much patient work, and they longed individually and as a regiment for a war record. This would not have been so powerful a desire had not the souls of our men been set on fire by the constant news of the torture of white prisoners by the Indians. History traces many wars to women; and women certainly bore a large though unconscious part in inciting our people to take up arms in attempts to rescue them, and to inflict such punishments upon their savage captors as would teach the Indian a needed lesson.

From the Department of the Platte, which has its headquarters in Nebraska, to the Indian Territory and Texas the trails of the regiment could be traced. It is customary to keep a daily record of each march, and a small pen-and-ink map is added. From these a larger one is made after the summer is over, and when the War Department issues yearly maps the new routes or fresh discoveries are recorded. One of these regimental journals lies before me. The map for each day marks the course of the stream, the place where the regiment encamped overnight, the "ford", the "rolling prairie", "high ridges", "level prairie", with dots to mark the line of the Pacific Railway, in course of construction; "small dry creek", "marshy soil", "level bottom", "stone bluff", etc.. One of the written records goes on to state where, as the days advanced, the troops encamped at night without water, and all the men and horses had to drink was got by digging down into the dry bed of a stream; or where, at another time, they found a "stream impassable", and "halted to build a bridge", together with such hints of experience as these: "struck an old wagon trail"; "marched over cactus-beds and through a deep ravine"; "made camp where there was standing water only"; "banks of stream miry obliged to corduroy it"; "grass along the stream poor, sandy soil"; "banks of next stream forty feet high great trouble in finding a crossing"; "obliged to corduroy another stream for each separate wagon"; "took four hours to cross twenty wagons"; "timber thick, grass poor; struck what is called by the Indians Bad Lands, being a succession of ridges with ravines fifty feet deep between"; two wagons rolled over and went down one ravine; "passed four ranches destroyed by the Indians and abandoned"; "left camp at 5 A.M.; so misty and foggy, could not see a hundred yards in advance; distance of march this day guessed, odometer out of order; marched up a cañon with banks fifty feet high"; "Company E left the columns to pursue Indians"; "all this day marched over Captain S——'s old trail"; "this was a dry camp, poor grass and plenty of cacti"; "found water-holes, the head of the river"; "total distance of march, seven hundred and four miles."

The names of the streams, the elevated points of ground, or the gulches were seldom taken from the musical nomenclature of the Indian; they seemed to have been given by the outspoken, irreverent pioneer or miner.

Evidently, if these first wayfarers had difficulty in making a crossing of a stream, they caused the name to record the obstacles. Our refined officers sometimes hesitated in their replies if asked by peace commissioners from the East, whom they were escorting to an Indian village, what the place was called. For instance, one of them said when he replied to such a question, "Hell Roaring Creek", etc. He looked out over the surrounding scenery till the effect of these shocking names had passed. A humorous Western paper, in commenting on this national idiosyncrasy, wonders, since the law requires that our national cruisers shall be called after cities, if "You Bet", "Hang Town", "Red Dog", "Jackass Gap", and "Yuba Dam" would answer. The worst of it all is that these names, given by a passing traveller with careless indifference to the future of the places on which they were bestowed, rest as an incubus upon localities that afterwards became the sites of places of prominence; and it is as hard for a town or region so afflicted as for the traditional dog to get rid of a bad name.

The brief itinerary of this one march, out of the many the Seventh Cavalry made, gives a faint idea of the daily history of a regiment. Concise as is the record, it served to point the way for many a tired pioneer who came after; for, on his map, compiled from these smaller ones, were the locations of places where he could stop for wood and water, as well as the warning where neither of these necessaries could be obtained.

Still, there was often a weary sigh among the young sters who had no war record, and who longed to make some sort of soldier's name for themselves. Besides, they passed the dismantled, deserted home of many a venturesome frontiersman; they saw the burned stage stations; they met in forts or small settlements placed in a safe position ranchmen whose wives had been killed, or, worse still, made captives; they came upon the mutilated and horribly disfigured bodies of Lieutenant Kidder and eleven soldiers; everywhere on all its marches the regiment followed the trail of the Indian on his frightful career of rapine, murder, and outrage. Many a time the question was asked, what was the good of galloping after foes who knew the country thoroughly, who were mounted on the fleetest, hardiest animals in the world, that needed no grain, and who could go directly to rivers or streams where they could graze their ponies for a few days and start off refreshed for a long raid, and who each day could be bountifully fed on the game of the country without being hampered with a train of supplies. The odds were all against our fine fellows.

They had marched and countermarched over the country so constantly that the wit of the regiment said to the engineer officer who made the daily map: "Why fool with that? Just take the pattern supplement of the Harper's Bazar, and no better map of our marches could be found."

Much enthusiasm was felt when the announcement was made that a winter campaign was to be undertaken. "Now we have them!" was the sanguine boast.

The buffalo-hunting among the tribes was over for the year. Enough meat had been jerked or dried to keep them during cold weather, and the villages were established for the winter. In the summer the tribes travelled great distances. As soon as the grass in a river valley was exhausted by the ponies, everything was packed, the village moved, and another point was chosen. At certain seasons of the year there was a journey to timber lands, where lodge poles could be cut; another was made to certain clay-beds, where material for pipes was obtained; another to regions where the buffaloes were most numerous, and the winter's meat was prepared, or the hides dressed for robes or tepee covers. It is difficult to estimate the hundreds of miles that the villages traversed in the summer; but in the winter a remote spot was chosen, on a stream where the timber offered some protection from the winter storms, and the grass would last longest, and here the nomad "settled down" for a few months. It was such a village that our regiment was seeking. The command starting into the Indian Territory was formidable enough, and had not the Indians been much emboldened by former successes, they would not have dared dash upon the rear-guard or rush in from a ravine to stampede the animals of the wagon train, as they often did on that march. General Custer, in an unpublished letter to a friend in the East, describes the first attacks of the Indians after the march south began. "I had not been in my camp where I first joined two hours, when we were attacked by a war party. I wish that you could have been with us. You would never ask to go to a circus after seeing Indians ride and perform in a fight. I took my rifle and went out on the line, hoping to obtain a good shot, but it was like shooting swallows on the wing, so rapid were they in their movements. Their object had been to dash into camp and secure some of our horses. Disappointed in this, they contented themselves with circling around us on their ponies, firing as they flew along the line, but doing no injury. As it was late in the evening and our horses all unsaddled, I prevented the men from going from camp to fight. Sometimes a warrior, all feathered and painted, in order to show his bravery to his comrades, started alone on his pony, and with the speed of a quarter-horse would dash along the entire length of my line, and even within three or four hundred yards of it, my men pouring in their rifle-balls by hundreds, yet none bringing down the game. I could see the bullets knock up the dust around and beneath his pony's feet, but none apparently striking him. We shot two ponies, however, in this way, and may have inflicted greater damage; but in this as in all things pertaining to warfare, the Indians are so shrewd as to prevent our determining their losses. Occasionally a pony is captured. I have one now which is white, with a tail dragging on the ground. We have also captured an article of great value to them, an Indian shield. It is made of the thickest part of the buffalo-hide, adorned with rude paintings, and is usually hung in front of a tepee to keep off evil spirits."

It gave the men excellent practice, this running fire on the march. The necessity for troops was so great that raw recruits were sent out, without taking time to drill them in target practice. It came to pass that many a soldier drew his carbine on an Indian in the first shot he had ever fired. A corps of forty sharp-shooters was formed from men who day by day showed unusual skill in the use of fire-arms, and these were allowed some privileges, such as being marched as a separate organization, which of itself is a great favor. It is far from agreeable to submit to the irksome rules of a marching column. No guard or picket duty was expected from these sharp-shooters, so that they attained what is the supreme good of a soldier's life, "all their nights in bed". The soldier detailed for guard duty has two hours on and two off for twenty-four hours, and unless the command is large these times of duty come very often in the estimation of the men.

In looking over some of the war poetry that filled the papers from 1861 to 1865, I came across a little jingle that describes a soldier's glory and grumbling, whether he be fighting the white or the red man:

"And how we fought and how we tramped,

Too long a tale perhaps I'll spin ye;

But, first and last, I think we camped

In every field in old Virginny!

" 'Twas a gay old life, but Lord! 'twas hard

No rest for the good, no peace for the wicked;

When you didn't fight you were put on guard,

And when you came off you went on picket."

On the expedition the cavalry marched in a column of fours; then came a long wagon train, hauling the forage, tents, rations, and extra ammunition, and following all this was the rear-guard. The great struggle of the Indian when not actually ready for battle which he never is unless all odds are in his favoris to cut off the wagon train; this he tries to accomplish by frightening the mules. Sometimes the country admitted of the wagons being marched in four linesan arrangement which required fewer soldiers to be deployed on either flank and in the rear for their protection.

In letters to his Eastern friend, from one of which quotations have been made, General Custer speaks with the greatest enthusiasm of the stag and fox hounds his correspondent had given him. The former were a new breed to him, and their feats, while only puppies, were daily marvels to their proud owner.

"Maida and Blucher both seized the first buffalo they saw while running, which was pretty plucky for pups, I think. The dogs have gone beyond my highest expectations. Three days ago Maida alone ran down a jack-rabbit and killed it, and they are the fleetest animals we have, except the antelope. Yesterday while looking for camp, accompanied by a few scouts and headquarters men, we jumped a prairie-wolf. Maida and Blucher, Rover and the other little fox-hound, started after it, the stag-hounds, of course, leaving the other two far behind. Blucher was the first to come up with the wolf; he had never seen one before. As soon as he reached it he seized it across the back, and never relinquished his hold until he had killed it, and this he did by breaking its backbone. Blucher held on like a bull-dog. A wolf is one of the ugliest animals a dog can handle. Of the many dogs that are in this regiment there is but one that will attack a wolf, and he needs to be encouraged. Don't you think that is pretty good for a pup? The other day all the dogs went in chase after a jack-rabbit quite out of sight. An officer mounted and started after them, and met the dogs, Blucher at the head carrying the rabbit in his mouth. What do you think of a stag-hound as a retriever?"