by Judy Alter
"They're not worth dignifying with anger," Autie said, and when I expressed some fear, he scoffed. "They were only barking, not biting."
Still I decided never to travel in Texas again without a division of cavalry. It was a sad farewell from a state I'd come to like so well.
From Brennan to Galveston we rode in a shaky railroad—once over a trestle that the conductor told us he expected to go down each time he crossed it and then proceeded to describe our danger so graphically that I was terrified out of my wits. Autie later pointed out to all about us that I had met danger in my usual fashion—with my head buried in the folds of my cloak. In Galveston we were detained—the steamer we were to board for New Orleans had not arrived—and we spent a day exploring the glistening white beach. But our sights were really on home and an uncertain future.
Chapter 9
We had an interim in civilization, though it was brief and not very pleasant. It began with a nightmarish storm at sea.
When we boarded the steamer in Galveston, both Autie and I were so besotted with thoughts of going home that we paid scant attention to the vessel. A captured blockade-runner, it had been built up with two stories of cabins and staterooms for passengers. Before that modification, crew and passengers were quartered in the hull, but now the so-called prize quarters were on the upper deck. Even so, our staterooms were tiny and smelled badly of bilge water.
We were barely out of the harbor when a norther struck. After a sojourn in Texas, we thought ourselves veterans of these storms, but a norther on land is mild compared to a storm on the maelstrom of the Gulf. The waves seemed to lash themselves from shore to shore, speeding toward the borders of Texas and Mexico, then rushing back to the Florida peninsula so fast that I wondered why that strip of land had not been swept out of existence. No matter which way the waves went, as we proceeded northeast toward New Orleans, the wind seemed dead set against us, and the ship labored to make its way ahead.
By nightfall I crept into my berth, hoping to lose my terror in sleep, but the creaking and groaning of the ship's timbers kept me watchfully awake.
"Autie, doesn't it seem to you that this whole new top part on the boat shall be loosed and washed overboard?"
He laughed and then reached a comforting hand from the berth above me. "Libbie, that's impossible. Calm yourself and sleep."
"I wish we were in the hull," I wailed.
"And then you'd be afraid of being closed in down there and wish yourself above. I'll tell you what I wish...."
"What?"
"That these damn berths were big enough for two!"
I giggled. "Impossible!"
"Right," he sighed.
I slept fitfully, with fierce dreams, until a terrible crashing awoke me. The boat veered quickly and began to roll from side to side, with the immediate result that the water pitcher overturned and deluged me in my berth. For just an instant, I thought myself plunged into the ocean's depths. My scream of terror brought Autie to my side in a moment, but he had no words of comfort as together we listened to the creaking and groaning—and an even more deadly silence, signifying machinery, somewhere, had stopped.
"The ship is sinking," I announced. "It's breaking to pieces."
"Nonsense, Libbie, it's simply a fierce storm... a bad one, I'll grant you. But it'll blow over."
Outside we could hear the shouting of the sailors, and orders of the captain coming through his trumpet, then the creaking of chains and flapping of canvas. At the very moment that we heard the sound of the canvas—the sails torn from the spars, I was sure—everything in the cabin broke loose. Furniture broke from fastenings and flew about the tiny cabin, lamps smashed, and crockery in the adjoining dining room shattered. Above it all we could hear the wails of women in nearby cabins.
"Autie, you must go to the captain and find out if we're going down."
"You will stay right here?" he asked. "You promise not to move?"
"I promise." Where in heaven's name would I go?
He threw on some clothes and left, while Eliza crept from her place on the sofa at the far end of the cabin and came to comfort me. Though she must have been as terrified as I was—she had vowed never again to set foot in a boat after our mild journeys on the Mississippi and Red rivers—she held me in her arms, crooning words of comfort. At long last Autie came to the door to report that waves were crashing over the entire deck—he had had to creep on his hands and knees, clinging to ropes and spars as best he could until he reached the pilothouse. I, of course, went into a new tizzy at this description of how close he'd come to being washed overboard.
"The storm broke in the wheelhouse and disabled the machinery," Autie reported, "but we're perfectly safe... the sails, that noise we heard, will keep us from being tossed to shipwreck." Only months later did Autie tell me that he had told only part of the truth to two weeping women—the captain had in fact said that our fate was very uncertain in this hurricane.
The storm rolled the boat from side to side in a sickening manner, and everyone soon succumbed to mal de mer except Eliza and me. From the next cabin, we could hear the sounds of Jacob and Nettie becoming violently ill, and more distantly, down the line of cabins, similar sounds from folks we knew less well. I worried particularly about Nettie, who was still suffering from morning sickness and needed no further reason for nausea, but Autie, weakly from his bunk, forbade me to go to her.
"Jacob's with her," he managed to say. To my amazement even Autie was laid low—so miserable, he did not care if the ship went down. He lay in his bunk and was absolutely quiet until morning, when, in a quavery voice, he called out, "Is something the matter with Jacob and Nettie? Their stomachs?"
"You best be lookin' to your own stomach, Ginnel," Eliza commanded, and when I called out for Autie to reassure us once again that we were safe, she said, "Ginnel, you just look out for yourself—I'll see to Miss Libbie."
Daylight diminishes all terrors, and whether it was true or not, we thought the seas subsided a bit with dawn. Autie's voice began to strengthen, and he went so far as to crawl to Jacob's door to let him know what he thought of those who give in to seasickness, though I begged him to be charitable because of Nettie.
We began to gather in the dining hall for breakfast, and around me I saw officers with white, exhausted faces. Father Custer brought the only merriment when he tottered into the dining cabin and fixed Autie with a steely glare: "The next time I follow you to Texas, it will be when this pond is bridged over."
Even safe seas gave me no security, and I was uneasy until we stepped ashore in New Orleans. That city was again a delight to us, though Autie and I, our thoughts racing ahead to a penurious future, were much more careful of our finances. Then it was onto a steamer for Cairo, where Autie bid farewell to some of his officers, and then to Detroit, where others left us. By the time we arrived in Monroe, our traveling party had shrunk to include only Tom and Father Custer, Jacob and Nettie, and Autie and myself.
We arrived in Monroe on March 3, and oh! Such a homecoming as we had! What with the local band turned out at the station and bonfires built late into the night of our arrival, we had all the glory of the welcome we'd missed some months earlier.
Papa puffed with pride. "Your husband honors us all," he said, beaming with satisfaction, when we'd settled to a late-night cup of Mama's hot chocolate. "You've made a fine choice of a husband, Libbie."
Autie darted me a devilish look that I knew hinted at all the objections to our marriage, but he was gracious and polite. "Father Bacon, you give me too much credit. All that I do, I do because of Libbie."
Someone walked on my grave again, I suppose, for I remember shuddering ever so slightly. But I managed to laugh away Autie's compliment. "It's amazing to me you can do all you do while also putting up with a squeamish, scaredy-cat wife."
"I wouldn't have it any other way," he said, putting a protective arm around me.
We were play-acting for Mama and Papa, but they were a most easily convinced audience.
For four days we were busy every minute—the Boyds had an evening's social for us, and some of our own friends prepared a party another night. Mama took me in the daytime to have tea with several of her friends and mine—women like Mrs. Oldman, who had watched me grow up, and even Mrs. Morrison, the dressmaker, who'd made so many of my clothes, including my wedding dress. Mama said Mrs. Fifeld asked us to tea, but that she declined for the time being—Fanny Fifeld having been my archrival for Autie's affections before our marriage. And, of course, we spent a great deal of time with Autie's family, where the boys continued to harass poor Father Custer until I thought I could stand it no more.
One evening they attached firecrackers to his chair before the fire, then howled in glee as the old man jumped up in alarm, sure that his house was ablaze. I thought it a wonder he didn't have a heart attack, but he simply glowered at his sons and stored away the memory. Frequently at the dinner table they would entice him into an argument—such an ardent Democrat as he was, they simply had to take the other side for a brief moment, and then he would be off, spouting and lecturing, ignoring his dinner plate all the while.
Tom, meantime, would sneak his father's plate away, eat heartily from it, and return it empty to its place in front of his parent. Then he'd say, "Come, come, Father, eat your dinner and stop all this foolish talk." Father Custer's face would turn completely blank as he looked at his empty plate, as though he were not sure if he'd really eaten yet or not. And then it would dawn on him that his sons had played yet another joke, and a sly grin would appear on his face.
* * *
"Libbie, I must leave for New York tomorrow."
We were staying with my parents, again in the spare bedroom where Autie had once declared the gulf between us large enough to be filled with alligators.
"Autie," I complained, "you've given me no notice. How can I be ready to go so soon?" The million details of packing flitted through my mind.
"I... ah, I thought... that you should stay here, Libbie." He spoke slowly; then all of a sudden, the words came in a rush. "Not that I wouldn't want you with me everywhere I go, but because of our financial problems... I thought it more economical for me to go alone."
I knew he was right. "Oh, but Autie, I shall miss you so, and shall hate hearing all the wonderful things you're doing."
"They won't be wonderful without you," he said passionately, tiptoeing from his bed to mine and planting himself firmly—and suggestively—next to me on the bed.
"Autie... ," I began.
He kissed the words away. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. Shhh! We don't want to wake Mama and Papa."
Given more warning, I would have rejected his advances because of Mama and Papa—promising to keep quiet was a bit chancy for me—but Autie sneaked up on me and, lost in passion, I could only echo "Shhh!"
We did not talk about New York the next day—at least, Autie and I did not talk privately. Instead, he talked to Papa at the breakfast table.
"I'm off to New York today, sir. Wish me luck?"
"Luck?" Papa exclaimed. "You never need anybody else's luck. You carry it with you! But what takes you to New York?"
"Perhaps Custer's Luck." Autie smiled, and then said seriously, "I've had several business opportunities put before me, now that I'm at loose ends. I thought it best to explore them in person."
"Very wise." Papa nodded sagaciously. "Offers from whom?"
"Oh," Autie said, a trifle too nonchalantly, "some bankers and some railroad people both seem to think I could make a great killing in their business."
"Autie!" I broke in. "You know nothing about railroads, and as for banking... what would you do?"
He did not like being doubted. "That's what I intend to explore, Libbie," he said very formally, his words seeming to come through his nose rather than out his mouth. It was a tone I'd noticed from Autie of late when he was uncertain and trying to be impressive.
Papa said nothing more, and shortly we escorted Autie to the railroad station. It was a particularly sad leave-taking for me, for Nettie and Jacob had gone to visit his family in New England—later Jacob would decide the army too uncertain a career and would accept a position with an insurance company there, robbing me of Nettie's company permanently. And Eliza left on the same train to return to Virginia.
"My ol' missus," she said, "I got to check on her—and show her where I buried everything during the war. I 'spect she needs that silver now. But, Miss Libbie, don't you fret—I'll come right back to Monroe."
When Autie tried to hurry her onto the train, she fixed him with a stern look and said, "Ginnel, I ain't eatin' no meals with you in no railroad restaurants." Then, skirts swishing, she mounted the stairs into the train.
Autie enveloped me in one last embrace, declaring his undying love and his hatred of being alone.
"Autie, I'll miss you ever as much, and I'll be lonely. Do hurry home... but do whatever you need to." I felt very noble, sending my husband off without a selfish care of my own, even though days of boredom—possibly weeks—were staring me in the face.
"I'll probably go down to Washington, too," he said hurriedly, and was then gone before I could protest. Washington, where I had friends, where many of our shared friends would be! My nobleness collapsed into a fit of anger and jealousy.
Papa and I walked home from the railroad station, and, of course, he noticed that I was more quiet than usual. "Libbie?"
"I should be with him if he's going to Washington," I said angrily. "I don't mind missing New York, but Washington..." I saw myself briefly as a bit of a snob, for I knew I would be jealous of Autie hobnobbing with those in power.
"And why didn't you go with him?"
"We have no money, Papa. Autie has to find work soon, and at a good income."
Papa sighed. "I suspected this was coming, and I'm in no position to do more than shelter you, but that I shall do as long as needed. But, daughter, I hope Armstrong's head is not swayed by glamorous business offers. The man is a born soldier, and that is where he belongs."
"Papa! You would have me be an army wife?" I was still angry at Autie, and now my anger sent a barb toward my father.
But he simply smiled. "I know, I fought against it. I remember fearing that you would end traveling in a wagon like some emigrant's wile...."
"I've already done that," I interrupted, "and it wasn't half-bad, though I fear my complexion is ruined forever."
"Mama mentioned your skin did not look as delicate as usual," he admitted, "but such fineries are lost on me. You are beautiful, and I am glad to have you home." He patted the hand I had slipped through his arm.
"But, Papa, why have you changed your mind about my being an army wife?"
He stopped in the midst of Monroe Street, regardless of those who looked curiously as they walked by and tipped their hats. "Because of Armstrong," he said. "He has convinced me that the army is a noble calling simply by his own nobility, and you could do no better than to follow him wherever he takes you, daughter."
Had Papa been a fly on our bedroom wall some nights, I thought irreverently, he would change his ideas about nobility. And then it occurred to me to wonder what Papa's reaction would have been to the execution ceremony in Louisiana. I did not ever tell him the story.
Autie wrote of offers and rumors... he should be appointed foreign minister, with a salary of 10,000 in gold, though the appointment would be brief... he should consider running for either congressman or governor, as the people wanted to be led by those who had defended them so bravely... most alarming of all, he should take temporary service with Mexico, where the trouble was far from over. Carvajal, head of the Juarez military government, offered Autie the post of adjutant general with a salary in gold twice that of a major general in the regular army.
Autie met the rich and famous—he breakfasted one day with poet William Cullen Bryant and lunched another with historian George Bancroft. After a rehearsal of A Child of Fortune, he was privileged to walk actress Maggie Mitchell to
her quarters, and another night he dined at the home of the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who dwelt on Autie's record as the youngest general ever brevetted in the army.
In New York and Washington both, he spent long evenings in the theater and, I began to suspect, as many hours in photographers studios. In Washington, sculptress Vinnie Ream wanted to make a medallion of him, and another wanted to cast his head for a bust; in New York he visited the studio of artist Ole Balling to see his large painting, Heroes of the Republic, which featured Autie himself with twelve other generals. Only Autie had his sword raised as if to smite the enemy. "It is extremely good," he wrote me, "but would have been more natural if my hair were not such a perfect golden hue."
I read these letters with growing impatience, in spite of passages that spoke of his loneliness—once he suffered a bad cold and had the nerve to wish that I were there to nurse him—and of his undying love for me. "I shall never again travel without you, Libbie—you must go everywhere I go." Fine, I thought, and yet I did not see him rushing home. Instead his visit lengthened, drawn out by this possibility and that.
I nearly lost my patience completely the day I received a letter describing a party at the home of some general or other. The company included Mrs. General Fremont and a baroness, whose dress was so low that Autie was inspired to write, "I have not seen such sights since I was weaned." He went on to add, "Of course, it did not make my passions rise... or nuthin' else, for I miss you, my darling girl." I burned the letter in anger and pondered how I could get Autie back to Monroe.
In truth, I did not want to stay in Monroe, for the days were long and deadly dull to me after the variety of life in our several camps. I breakfasted with Mama and Papa, sewed with Mama in the mornings, dined with them both, and napped after dinner, then took tea with various ladies in town. Then it was suppertime and an early bedtime, for Papa never had stayed upright past nine o'clock save on rare occasions. I began to feel sleep-logged among other things, and I longed for the gaiety of our small army family, the camaraderie and good times we'd known most recently in Austin. Occasional visits with the Custer family broke my routine—but even the scamp was generally away with Autie, who had managed to secure an officer's commission for his brother. I almost wrote to Autie, suggesting he reconsider the offer from Mexico, for I would follow him anywhere rather than spend my days in Monroe.
