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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 dinner-tables for years afterwards. Certain ludicrous affairs fastened themselves on officers seemingly for all time. For instance, one night during the winter, when the regiment was away from its base of supplies, tents, and luggage, except what could be carried on the horses, the troops were obliged to sleep on the ground, and blankets were so scarce that everybody took a bunkey, officers and all, in order to double the bedding. One very small officer rolled himself against the back of a huge man, six feet four inches high, who on other windy nights had served as a protection; but he did not combine every virtue, and when it was both windy and cold he had the inhumanity to turn in the night, and leave the poor little dot of an officer entirely uncovered. This is never thought to be an agreeable thing for a bedfellow to do, but on a bitter winter night, when the only awning over the victim was the starry sky, it was such a trial that the manner in which the sufferer told of his woes the next morning made him the laughing-stock of his comrades all winter and long afterwards.

Officers will run almost any risk to get a bath, but the way in which two of our brave fellows retreated from their toilet was also for years kept as a standing subject of jesting. I believe that it was their first and only retreat. In going into the Indian country the officers sometimes relaxed vigilance for a time. Perhaps days would pass with no sight of Indians. At such a time these two daring fellows went down the stream some distance to bathe, and to their delight found water deep enough in which to swim. They forgot everything in the enjoyment of clear water, for many of the streams west of the Mississippi are muddy and full of sand. Their horses saved their lives. Their attention was called to the telltale ears, quivering and vibrating, the nervous starts and the snorts that many old cavalry horses give at sight of Indians or buffaloes. Heeding these warnings, the bathers sprang to the bank. Within a few hundred yards of them Indians approached. There was no pause for clothes or for saddles. Unfastening their horses, and with a leap that would have done credit to a circus rider, they sprang upon the bare backs of the terrified horses, and digging their naked heels into the sides of the animals, they ran a race for life. Fortunately, the Indians came from a direction opposite that of the camp, but they had the temerity to follow with all the speed of their swift ponies until almost within sight of the troops. Our officers' perfect horsemanship and the fright of the animals saved their lives. As the Indians yelled behind them, and finally sent their almost unerring arrows whizzing about the ears of our two men, they had little idea of escape. When they entered camp, if there had been a back way, an alley, a tree-bordered walk, through which these lately imperilled men could have reached their tents, it would have been a boon; but everything in military life is en évidence, and the camp is often laid out in one long line. Past all these tents, where, at the entrance of each, appeared at once the occupants, on hearing the unusual sound of horses' flying hoofs within the company street, and in the face, indeed, of all the regiment, these nude Gilpins reached their own canvas, and flinging themselves from their foaming horses, darted under cover. Then came the scramble for other clothes, which was a very difficult affair, as few officers carried extras, save underclothes, and the quartermaster's supplies were at Camp Supply, far in the rear. But every one shares freely with a comrade on the frontier, and a pair of pantaloons from one, a jacket from another, a cap from a third, fitted out the unfortunates.

Later a misfortune happened to one of these same men, our brother Tom, which bade fair to oblige him to adopt the costume of his red brethrena blanket and a war-bonnet. His favorite dog, Brandy, the most tenacious of bull-dogs, refused to let go of a polecat that he had chased, with the dog delusion that it was a rabbit. Colonel Tom plunged into the fight in an effort to drag Brandy off, when the animal used the defence that nature has provided, and Colonel Tom's clothes were gone the second time. He realized that with this adventure added to his late aquatic episode, which had been followed by a deluge of jokes from his brother officers, there would be no mercy shown him, and he quickly decided to share with the others his unsought baptism. It was nearly dark; the tents were closed, the candles lighted, the pipes at full blast. Captain Hamilton, whose sense of fun was irrepressible, started out with the victim of misfortune to pay visits. Several of the tents were crowded, but both of the visitors being jolly men, room was made for them; but soon there was a general sniffing around and forcible expletives used about the dogs. "They've been hunting on their own hook again", was said, "and pretty close here, you bet"; and hands were stretched out for something with which to drive the creatures out. The guests having made sure the aroma Tom carried had become sufficiently apparent, departed, only to enter another crowd farther on. A tent is supposed to be well ventilated; but fill one with officers whose tobacco, obtained far away from a good base of supplies, is, to say the least, questionable, add the odor of rain-soaked clothes, the wet leather of troop boots, a dog or two with his shaggy, half-dry coat, and one can well imagine that Colonel Tom was the traditional "last straw."

When the pair had been in the second tent long enough to have the joke take effect, they bolted out into the night, roaring with laughter, and then went on to a third. The jeers of the officers next day were some-what toned down because of the evening episode, but poor Tom was around, begging for clothes again, and soon every one knew that his own outfit lay "without the camp" for all time.

Arrests are not at all unusual in military life, and the discipline is so strict it often happens that this punishment is inflicted for very small delinquencies. Sometimes, of course, it is a serious matter; a set of charges is preferred, and a trial by court-martial and sentence ensue. Still, to be in arrest is so common that it is not in the least like the serious affair of civil law. If an officer was missed from the line that winter, and inquiries made by his comrades for him, his messmate or captain, laughing lightly, replied, "Why, don't you know he's leading the pelican?" and this expression, as a synonym for being in arrest, stayed by the regiment for a long time after the bird had gone.

The pelican General Custer refers to in the letter already quoted was a rare specimen, and all the command had great curiosity about it, considering it was unusual in the country where it was captured, and it was also the first specimen most of our command had seen. The bird was carried in a box in the wagon train that always travels at the rear of a column, and as an officer or soldier is condemned to this ignominious position also, when deprived of his place with his company, it became the custom to describe arrest as "leading the pelican."

A perfect fusillade of wit was always being fired at men to whom accidents had happened or on whom jokes had been played. One unfailing subject for badinage was the matrimonial opportunities neglected in the winter's campaign. After the battle, the old squaws were as full of admiration for the successful troopers as they were for their liege lords, and the willingness to part with their daughters was quite equal to that of the predatory mother in the States, who is accused of roaming from one watering-place to another in search of game. But the primitive mother and father resort to no subtle plan; they offer their daughters outright. One officer was proffered a dusky bride by her father, and a cup of sugar was asked for in exchange; while the commanding officer, after hearing a mysterious mumbling going on near him, found himself already married, before any formal tender of the girl had been made by the parents. It was with difficulty that the fathers and mothers were made to understand that among white people a man was required by our laws to content himself with one partner at a time.

There were many references to the scouts in General Custer's letters, and the subject was an unfailing source of interest to me, so much romance attends the stories of these men's lives. Osage Indians were employed, being not only at peace with us, but imbittered against the Indians by the marauding of hostile tribes on their herds of ponies and their villages.

I find a few words about these friendly Indians in a letter General Custer wrote to a friend at that time: "Yesterday my twelve Osage guides joined me, and they are a splendid-looking set of warriors, headed by one of their chiefs called 'Little Beaver'. They are painted and dressed for the war-path, and well armed with Springfield breech-loading guns. All are superb horsemen. We mounted them on good horses, and to show us how they can ride and shoot, they took a stick of ordinary cord - wood, threw it on the ground, and then, mounted on their green, untried horses, they rode at full speed and fired at the stick of wood as they flew by, and every shot struck the target."

1. Eliza was our colored cook who was with me at Fort Leaven-worth.

2. This cook was the only woman on the expedition. She had been a camp woman many years, and was tanned and toughened by roughing it. She was perfectly fearless, but the life had sadly affected her temper. Even her brave husband (that is, brave in battle) approached her guardedly if anything went wrong. When the expedition was attacked at one time, she was cooking by a camp-fire, and was heard to mutter when a bullet passed her by, Git out, ye red divils ye, and went on with her work as if nothing were happening.

3. When the earth becomes much trodden, and it is difficult to keep camp clean, it is customary to move on for a short distance to fresh ground.