"I might not blame you had you sought consolation once, though even that would be a violation of your promise," Libbie said. "But, having reacquired the habit you abandoned so long ago, you have indulged it not once but repeatedly."
The reason for that was simple: after twenty years, Custer had rediscovered how much he enjoyed the feel of whiskey coursing through him. Coming right out and saying so, however, struck him as impolitic. What he did say was "I am far more moderate than in the old days."
"If you mean you aren't staggering down the street puking every few steps, well, yes, that is true." Such acid filled Libbie's voice, Custer flinched from it as he never had from enemy fire. Inexorably, she went on, "But if you think you are fulfilling your promise, I cannot agree."
Custer did not answer. He felt trapped. Not only did the blizzard keep him from escaping his wife, it also kept him from escaping Colonel Henry Welton. Welton was a model of military punctilio; nothing he did, nothing he said, could possibly be construed as offensive toward the newly promoted superior now residing in what had been his fort for so long. All the same, Custer felt about as welcome as a man in the last stages of cholera.
Libbie might have picked the thought out of his head. She said, "That foolish infantry colonel thinks he should have more of the credit for winning the battle by the Teton, Autie. I can't imagine why, but he plainly does. Everyone wants some of the glory that should rightly attach to you."
Whatever she thought of Custer's shortcomings-and she was seldom reticent in telling him what she thought-she was as determined as he to wring the greatest possible advantage out of his virtues. He said, "I still maintain, and shall continue to maintain, that we should have done as well against the British without the Gatling guns as we did with them. Tom would back me, I know it. Dear Lord, if only he could have then! I wish the stupid things had not been on the field at all; in that case, no occasion for argument would have or could have arisen."
"Of course not," Libbie said soothingly. Then her brow, which she prided herself on keeping smooth, furrowed. "I wish that that Colonel Roosevelt had not been on the field, either. He has stolen much of the approbation that would otherwise have gone to you."
"I've thought about that," Custer said, ''and I have decided it does not matter."
"It certainly does," Libbie exclaimed indignantly. He nodded, ever so slightly; he'd succeeded in diverting her from his flaws. She continued, "How can you possibly say it does not matter when he has what should be yours?"
"Because whether he has it or not, what can he do with it?" Custer said. "He is a colonel of Volunteers whose regiment has been mustered out of U.S. service, so he cannot harm my Army career. And he is a puppy of twenty-three, so he cannot be my rival for any political office, the Constitution disqualifying him from such a pursuit on account of his age. Q.E.D., as my instructors in the mysteries of geometry were given to saying."
"All that may be so," Libbie said, and then, grudgingly, "I suppose all that is so. Nonetheless, I am ever so glad he has left Fort Benton. Say what you will about him, enough ambition burns in that man for a hundred Henry Weltons. Deny it if you can." Her chin jutted defiance.
"Let him be as ambitious as he likes," Custer said. "His desires cannot impinge on mine."
Her voice dropped almost to a whisper: "Do you think you can be nominated for the presidency? Do you think you will be nominated for the presidency?"
"I can be," he answered. " Jackson was. Harrison was. Taylor was. Winfield Scott was, too, though he failed of election."
"Whoever faces Blaine year after next will not lose," Libbie said.
"No, I shouldn't think so," Custer agreed. "Whether I will be nominated depends on whether I can keep my name in the public's eye between now and then, and also on whether the leaders of the party decide I am the man whose name they want to put forward at the convention."
"And whatever fame this Roosevelt gained at your expense will make both of those things less likely," Libbie pointed out. "There. Do you see? You have contradicted yourself." She looked as triumphant as if she had just driven back an invading British army.
Before Custer could reply, someone knocked on the door to his quarters. Through the yowling wind, a soldier called, "Colonel Welton's compliments, General, and would you and your lady care to join him for supper?"
"Yes, we'll come," Custer said, and then, to Libbie, "Wrap yourself up warm, my dear, and we'll see what the cooks have done with- or to-supper." Her coat was of Angora sheep, and warm. His own, of buffalo hide, had served him well in the field.
Even so, that first dreadful breath of air once he left his quarters almost froze him from the lungs outwards. His teeth chattered. A moment later, he heard Libbie's clicking away, too.
Snow swirled around him, making even the short walk to the officers' dining room an adventure. The way was made more uncertain because the dining-room shutters, like most of the rest at Fort Benton, were closed to help hold in heat. Custer had to grope for the latch. Only when he opened the door did yellow lamplight spill out and illuminate the endlessly blowing snow-and no sooner had he opened the door than shouts of "Close it!" rang out from within.
He waved Libbie in ahead of him, then went into the dining room and shut the door after himself. The first breath of warm air inside was nearly as stunning as the first frigid breath outside had been. Sweat sprang out on his forehead. He got out of his overcoat in a hurry. So did Libbie.
"Good evening, General Custer, ma'am," Henry Welton said. He rose and saluted.
Custer returned the salute. "Good evening, Colonel," he said. Yes, everything was perfectly proper, perfectly correct, and colder than the blizzard outside. Everything had been that way since he'd brought the Fifth Cavalry down to Fort Benton after the first of the year. He sniffed and smiled. "What's for supper?" he asked. "Whatever it is, it sure smells good."
Sometimes his pretense broke the ice for a little while. Today was one of those times. Henry Welton actually smiled back and answered in civil tones: "Fried potatoes from our own garden, boiled beans and salt pork, and roast prairie chickens." He even essayed a small joke: "Not too hard keeping meat fresh, this season of the year."
"No, indeed." Custer tried to joke back: "Not too hard keeping meat hard, cither, this season of the year."
Welton smiled again. So did a couple of his junior officers. So did Custer, with some effort. It didn't help much. He and the officers of Welton's Seventh Infantry were smiling past one another, like carriages going by on opposite sides of the road.
Custer was fond of fried potatoes, though he would have liked fried onions-or onions of any sort-even more. The beans and pork were beans and pork; he'd been eating them for so many years, he hardly noticed them on his plate except insofar as they helped fill his belly. He enjoyed the prairie chickens. They were all dark meat, and full of flavor.
A couple of whiskey bottles and a pitcher of lemonade from concentrate went around the table. Most of the officers drank whiskey. Libbie filled her tin cup with lemonade and pointedly passed the pitcher to Custer. "Wouldn't you like some, Autic?"
That would have sounded harmless to anyone who didn't know her well. To Custer, it was anything but. "With the weather like this, I do believe I'd sooner have something to help keep me warm," he said. One of the whiskey bottles sat within reach. He poured some-not an enormous tot, by any means-into his cup, then raised it high. "Confusion to our enemies!"
Not even Welton and his officers could find fault with that toast. They drank with Custer. As the liquor ran down his throat, Libbie gave him a look that should have completely counteracted its warming effect, but somehow didn't quite. She did no more than that. In public, she stood foursquare behind Custer, for behaving in any other way might have harmed his chances. What she was liable to say when they went back to their quarters was another matter. Custer didn't care to think about that. To help keep him from thinking about it, he poured more whiskey into the cup. Libbie sent him another glacial glance.
When it came to politics-with, no doubt, the exception of Custer's political ambitions-Custer and the officers of the Seventh Infantry were not so far apart. Almost to a man, they loathed the administration currently in Washington, or rather in Philadelphia, having been shelled out of Washington. Only the presence of Libbie Custer and some of the other officers' wives kept them from expressing their opinion in terms even more forceful than the ones they used.
Custer said, "We didn't know what the devil we were doing when we made war, and we don't know what the devil we're doing now that we're trying to make peace, either."
" Blaine can't stomach giving away half of Maine," Welton said scornfully. "If he does, it'll make the state we ship him back to smaller."
"We should have hanged Lincoln — look at the rabble-rousing he's doing now-and we should hang that dashed idiot Blaine, too," Custer said. Even with whiskey in him, he would not curse in the presence of women.
"That's what comes of electing Republicans," Libbie said. There her opinions marched with her husband's.
"Once we finally do have peace-if we finally do have peacethat'll be a sham, too, nothing but a hoax and a humbug," Custer said. "It always has been. Sooner or later, the Fifth will go back to Kansas, and we'll ride along the border with the CSA, and sure as the devil the Kiowas and the Comanches will ride up and burn a farm and kill the men and do worse to the women, and then they'll go back down into Indian Territory where we can't follow 'em. It's been going on ever since the War of Secession, and what can we do about it? Not a blasted thing I can see." A considerable silence followed. Into it, Custer added, "That's the way it's always been, and I don't sec it changing any time soon. I wish I did, but I don't."
Not quite quietly enough, one of Henry Welton's officers muttered, "I wish to Jesus the Fifth would go back to Kansas, and get the devil out of our hair."
Another considerable silence filled the room, this one not nearly so sympathetic nor companionable as the first. Custer might have blown up. Instead (and he saw Libbie looking at him in surprise), he sipped his whiskey and affected not to hear. When the Fifth did go back to Kansas, he would not be going back with it, at least not as regimental commander. That was too small a position for a brigadier general to hold. Maybe, as John Pope had been doing before being sent to Utah, he would take charge of several regiments. Maybe the War Department would send him back to Washington, to help clean up the mess there. Whether or not he did that, someone would have to take care of it.
And maybe, when 1884 rolled around, he would lay down his commission, take off his uniform, put on a civilian sack suit and top hat, and campaign not against the British or the Confederates or the Indians but against the manifest and manifold iniquities of the Republican Party. That, though, was not entirely up to him. He would have to see what-and whom-the leaders of the Democrats had in mind.
Henry Welton said, "General, when you do go back to Kansas, would you arrange to leave behind some of your Gatling-gun crews as a defense against another British invasion?"
"Why, certainly," Custer said. "As a matter of fact…" He was about to say, You 're welcome to every blasted one of them. Before he could, he saw Libbie looking intently at him. That look reminded him of the slaughter the Gatlings had wreaked on the Kiowas. They might do the same again. Tom would surely have thought so. He softened his words: "As a matter of fact, you can have several of them."
"Thank you, sir." By Welton's tone, he'd expected Custer to give him all the contraptions.
Maybe the whiskey helped fuel Custer's chuckle. Being too predictable didn't do. "See me tomorrow, Colonel, and we'll see if we can't settle on how many can stay here and how many will go with us."
"Yes, sir, I'll do that," Welton answered. "I do wish you all the best on your return to Kansas." That was more polite than the way his junior officer had phrased it, but meant the same thing. Henry Welton did not care for having a bigger chief in the teepee with him.
When supper was over, Custer and Libbie made their way back to their quarters. It was cold outside, and had got colder since they'd come to the dining room. Inside, it was nice and warm. Libbie spoke one word: "Whiskey." All at once, it was chillier in there than out in the snow. Custer wanted another drink.
Chapter 20
"As it then agreed, General?" Alfred Von Schlieffen asked. "You will send officers to Berlin to study the methods of the German Empire?" You will send officers to Berlin to learn how to do things right? was what he meant, but, although no diplomat, he knew better than to phrase it so.
Major General William S. Rosecrans scratched the end of his long nose, then nodded. "It is agreed, Colonel," he told the German military attache, "or rather, the president, the secretary of state, and I agree to it. The Royal Navy, unfortunately, has other ideas."
Schlieffen said, "Had President Blaine made peace some time ago, the British would not have found it necessary the blockade of your coast to resume."
"I am painfully aware of that," Rosecrans said, and his voice did indeed hold pain. "The entire country, I would say, is painfully aware of that-the entire country, less one man."
"What can be done to persuade him?" Schlieffen asked. "Even if he would for more war make ready, he cannot fight more now. He needs to win time in which the United States can get over this fight. So it has always been. So, I think, it will always be."
"Do you know the fable about the goddamn donkey dithering between two bales of hay, Colonel?" Rosecrans asked. After Schlieffen had nodded, the U.S. general-in-chief went on, "Well, sir, James G. Blaine is that donkey, except both bales are poisoned. If you were one of my colonels instead of one of the Kaiser's colonels, I'd say he was a prize horse's ass, too. But you aren't, so I won't."
"But you just-" Schlieffen broke off, realizing exactly what Rosecrans had done. The military attache sniffed, as if he had a cold. He'd smelled liquor on Rosecrans' breath before. He didn't smell it now. Anger and frustration could also drive a man into indiscretion.
Rosecrans went on, "One bale of hay is making peace with the bastards who beat us. But that means admitting they beat us, and he can't stomach it. The other bale is going back to war with 'cm. But if we do, the only thing that'll happen is that they'll lick us some more. He knows as much, but he keeps trying to sick it up, too. And that leaves him nothing to do but dither. Stupid fool's got pretty good at it, too, wouldn't you say? He's had practice enough lately, anyway."
"This dithering, though-" Schlieffen liked the sound of the word, and repeated it: "This dithering cannot last. President Blaine must remember, he is not the only one who can begin again the war. Come soon or come late, your enemies will force you to fight if you do not obey now. This blockade is only a small thing. Much more could come. Much more would come."
Rosecrans' wrinkles got deeper. "I know that, damn it. You'll have a friend in Richmond — your attache to the Confederate States, I mean."
"Aber naturlich, a colleague." Schlieffen made the correction without noticing he'd done it. Since his wife's death-to a large degree before his wife's death, too-he'd so immersed himself in work that he had no time for friends.
"Then you'll have got word from him, one way or another, that the Confederate States are moving troops toward the Potomac," Rosecrans said.
"I had heard this, yes," Schlieffen said, nodding. "I was not going to speak of it if you did not; such is not my place."
"They're moving a good many troops." Rosecrans' voice was sour, heavy. "The railroad makes it easy to move a lot of troops in a hurryhell of a lot easier than moving 'em on roads knee-deep in mud would be. They aren't coming up toward the border for their amusement, or for ours."
"You are also moving troops, I know," Schlieffen said.
"Oh, yes." The U.S. general-in-c
hief bobbed his head up and down. "If they hit us, we'll give 'em the best damn fight we can-don't doubt it for a minute, Colonel, the best fight we can. But what you may not have heard"-he was almost whispering now, like a boy talking about some bugbear or hobgoblin-"is that General Jackson is back in Richmond."
"No, I had not heard that," Schlieffen said. On hearing it, he heard also that Rosecrans was a beaten man. No matter how many men the USA moved down to the Potomac, Jackson would find a way to beat them, because Rosecrans thought Jackson would find a way to beat them. Someone-Schlieffen annoyed himself by not recalling whether it was Napoleon or Clausewitz-had wisely said that the moral was to the physical in war as three was to one. As Austrian and Prussian armies had for so long gone into battle against Bonaparte convinced before the fighting started that they would lose, so Rosecrans faced the prospect of confronting Jackson.
"Well, it's true; God damn it to hell, it's true," Rosecrans said.
Schlieffen listened with half an ear, trying to remember which military genius had come up with the maxim. He couldn't. Like a bit of gristle stuck between two back teeth, it would bother him till he did. He became aware that Rosecrans had said something else, something he'd missed entirely. "Excuse me, please?" he said, embarrassed at piling one professional failure on another.
"I said, a few friends in the world sure would come in handy about now," Rosecrans repeated.
"For this war, you have no friends who can give you help," Schlieffen said. "This was, I hear from every American, the idea of your President Washington. This man has not been your president for many years. Maybe it is time to think that matters have perhaps changed since his day."
"I'll tell you what I'm starting to think," Rosecrans said savagely. "I'm starting to think Washington was nothing but a stinking Virginian, and the Rebs can damn well keep him and his ideas both."
Schlieffen did not smile. He made a point of not smiling. Not only would smiling have been against his interest and his country's, he was such a resolutely moderate man that smiling did not come easy to him anyhow. In his usual careful way, he said, "I hope you will also say this to your president and to your foreign minister-no, secretary of state you call him."
How Few Remain (great war) Page 67
