The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-06
THE FIELD OF LITERATURE
ssBoots and satidles.o


ssBoots and Saddles"
Mrs. Elizabeth B. Clusters ingenious biography
of her life with her gallant and daring but unfor
tunate husband, Gen. G.. A. Custer, will be
found truly refreshing in the unaffected style in
which the many stirring events it recounts are
narrated. 'Boots and Saddles Harper g.
Brothers, New York; The Bowen Merrill Com
pany, Indianapolis,) gives delightful insight to
garrison and camp life, and reveals one of the
happiest. most congenial married lives that fall
to the lot of man and woman.
Barely glancing at the life of General Custer
from the day ''he graduated at West Point In
time to take part in the battle of Bull Run and
just touching his part in the civil war; his visit
to his sisters home, in Mrs Clusters native
town, Monroe, Mich, during the winter of 1863"
when the writer. first met him, their marriage la
February 1864, and her own first experience
ION the extreme wing of the army of the Poto-
mac, in an isolated Virginia farmhouse, finish
ing my honeymoon alone" Mrs. Custer begins
the detail of her book with the order that sent
Custer to Dakota, in 1873, and closes abruptly
and properly with the reception of the news
of the battle of the Little Big
Horn, in the summer of 1876 It will be seen,
therefore, that she has confined herself to that
portion of the Generals life in which he was ac-
lively engaged in service on the frontier. Her
recital of incidents in frontier life is as natural
as though she were seated before the reader and
relating them by word of mouth, so that they
will be found very entertaining. 1t is as though
one were with her in all the varied adventures
she recounts.
Mrs. Custer says that ''when orders came in
the spring of 1873 for the Seventh Cavalry to 90
into the field again, General Custer was de-
lighted. The regiment was stationed in various
parts of the South on the very disagreeable duty
of breaking up illicit distlleries and suppressng
the Ku-klux, and not an hour elapsed after tho
official document announcing our charge of sta
ton had arrived before our house was torn up.
In the confusion managed to retire to corner
with atlas and surreptitiously look up the
territory to which we were going. From
the first day of our marriage General Custer
celebrated every order to move with wild demon
STATIONS of joy. His exuberance of spirits
always found expression in some boyish FRANKS
before he could set to work seriously to prepare
for duty. AS soon as the officer announcing the
order to move had disappeared, all sorts of wild
hilarity began / had learned to take up a safe
position on the top of the table, that is if I had
not already been forcibly placed there as spec
tator." Occasionally at such times the General
would accidentally break a weak chair or two,
when ELIAS woolly head" would thrust itself
through the door to reprimand her master and
say: "Chairs don't grow on trees in these yere
parts, Genl." But the hilarity went on
all %ha bn,,c DO
and gods were got into few gunny
sacks and barrels. So began the move for the
summer campaigns against the Indians. In all
the confusion nobody was cross. To the General
it meant reunion with his regiment and a new
activity, and also good deal more than that.
To Mrs. Custer it meant new and vigorous
life, alternating with months of loneliness,
anxiety and terror" Fortunately, there was
too much to do to leave leisure for thoughts"
After some days in the cars Mrs. Custer says
they "were glad to stop on open plain about
a mile from Yankton, where the railroad ended"
It was on the Missouri bottom-land. east Of
Yankton. 1.-THE long trains were unloaded Of
their freight, and the plains about them
seemed to swarm with men and horses"
Mrs. Custer was ''helped down from the
Pullman car, where inlaid woods, mir
rors and plush surrounded them, to the
ground, perfectly bare of every earthly comfort.
The other ladies of the regiment went on to the
hotel in the town." The General and Mrs. Gus
ter undertook to hire and fit up little frame
shanty found near the hating ground. AS night
came on there came also one of Dakota's worst
spring billiards. The household belongings
were gathered together, the Generals dogs,
feeling the storm in advance, crowded into
the shanty. There was family of little new
puppies a cage of hooking birds and another
of canaries. The General himself grew sick.
The blizzard came; the shanty rocked in the
roaring winds. Mrs. Custer was frightened at
the change from the mild Southern weather to
this inhuman cold, and for once in her life gave
up to tears. While the storm ragged the
adjutant came for orders and the
General ordered the breaking of camp
and directed that the regiment should 90
into town and seek quarters among the citizens.
AS the night came on stray herd of hogs came
grunting about the shanty. crowdng against
the door, and it was altogether fearful night,
which, with its bitter experiences, are we'll de-
scribed. OF course it wore away. Some soldiers
had their feet frozen. But the Yankton people,
always noted for their generous hospitality to
strangers made up for this bleak introduction by
giving the regiment ball. and the Clusters had
delightful time there before starting on their
way. When the day came for them to begin
their march the sun shone and the townspeople
wished them good luck and goodbye. The
march was taken up the Missouri river valley,
and the book is full of charming descriptions Of
incidents that occurred on the way.
The well-known figure of General Custer was
famous enough during and after the war But
no hand has ever sketched him as clearly as he
is pictured in these pages. During their Dakota
marches the General used often to break away
from and ahead OF his regiment tamnfed hv thA