"Boots and Saddles"; Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer

General Custer graduated at West Point just in time to take part in the battle of Bull Run. He served with his regiment--the 5th Cavalry--for a time, but eventually was appointe...

The three chief considerations for a camp are wood, water, and good ground. The latter we had, but we were at some distance from the water, and neither trees nor brushwood were...

his profession in the army, came promptly. He gave me some powerful medicine to administer every hour, and forbade the general to leave his bed. It was growing dark, and we were...

The citizens of Yankton, endeavoring to make up for the inhospitable reception the weather had given us, vied with one another in trying to make the regiment welcome. The hotel...

The length of each day’s march varied according to the streams on which we relied for water, or the arrival of the boat. The steamer that carried the forage for the horses and t...

Our march took us through the grounds set apart by the Government for the use of the Sioux Indians at peace with our country. We had not made much progress before we began to se...

A Sioux chief, called Two Bears, had the most picturesque village that we saw. The lodges were placed in a circle, as this was judged the most defensive position; the ponies wer...

My husband and I kept up our little _détours_ by ourselves as we neared the hour for camping each day. One day one of the officers accompanied us. We left the higher ground to g...

horse. I abandoned the bridle when we came to those ascents, and wound my hands in the horse’s mane to keep from sliding entirely off, while the animal took his own way. All thi...

The day at last came for our march of five hundred miles to terminate. A rickety old ferryboat that took us over the river made a halt near Fort Rice, and there we established o...

The hardest trial of my husband’s life was parting with his mother. Such partings were the only occasions when I ever saw him lose entire control of himself, and I always looked...

The companies each gave a ball in turn during the winter, and the preparations were begun long in advance. There was no place to buy anything, save the sutler’s store and the sh...

We had hardly finished arranging our quarters when, one freezing night, I was awakened by a roaring sound in a chimney that had been defective from the first. Women have such a...

The climate of Dakota was so fine that those who had been poisoned by malaria in the South became perfectly well after a short residence there. Sickness was of rare occurrence,...

The Indian scouts employed by our government and living at our post belonged to a tribe called the Arickarees. This tribe was small, and though not strong enough in numbers to a...

There were about forty in our garrison circle, and as we were very harmonious we spent nearly every evening together. I think it is the general belief that the peace of an army...

When my husband began to write for publication, it opened to him a world of interest, and afterwards proved an unfailing source of occupation in the long Dakota winters. I think...

Long after the flowers were blooming in the States, the tardy spring began to appear in the far North. The snow slowly melted, and the ice commenced to thaw on the river. For a...

When the air became milder it was a delight, after our long housing, to be able to dawdle on the piazza. The valley below us was beginning to show a tinge of verdure. Several hu...

The general began, as soon as the snow was off the ground, to improve the post. Young cotton-wood trees--the only variety that would grow in that soil--were transplanted from th...

The order came early in the season to rebuild our burned quarters, and the suggestion was made that the general should plan the interior. He was wholly taken up with the arrange...

I used to be thankful that ours was a mounted regiment on one account: if we had belonged to the infantry, the regiment would have been sent out much sooner. The horses were too...

From the clouds and gloom of those summer days, I walked again into the broad blaze of sunshine which my husband’s blithe spirit made. I did everything I could to put out of my...

I must preface my account of the occurrence by going back to the summer of the Yellowstone campaign. Two of the citizens attached to the expedition, one as the sutler, the other...

The second winter at Fort Lincoln was very much the same as the first. We had rented a piano at St. Paul in the autumn. It hardly had a respite from morning until late at night....

The Indians came several times from the reservations for counsel, but the occasion that made the greatest impression upon me was towards the spring. They came to implore the gen...

The day of the final breaking up of the ice in the Missouri was one of great excitement to us. The roar and crash of the ice-fields could be heard a great distance. The sound of...

I wish that I could recall more about the curious characters among us. Most of them had some strange history in the States that had been the cause of their seeking the wild life...

We had clergymen and missionaries of different denominations as our guests during the summer months. Among them was a man from the East, who was full of zeal and indifferent to...

When we reached St. Paul the prospect before us was dismal, as the trains were not to begin running until April, at the soonest. The railroad officials, mindful of what the gene...

Sitting Bull refused to make a treaty with the Government, and would not come in to live on a reservation. Besides his constant attacks on the white settlers, driving back even...