winter campaign. Keim’s dispatches would be carried north to Kansas and the civilized world in the oiled leather pouches worn by the army couriers riding between Fort Dodge and this new military base, which Sheridan himself had christened “Camp Supply.” Keim even dreamed of one day writing his chronicles telling the story of riding off to war with the “Boy General” and his gallant Seventh Cavalry.
From daybreak to well past sunset, he watched herders drive horses in or out of camp, grazing the mounts on the excellent pastures surrounding the site. The animals needed every ounce of strength they could muster for the task ahead. In addition, one of the frontiersmen along for the campaign showed Keim a seed from a mesquite tree that grew in the area, claimed to be every bit as good for fattening the big army horses as the oats the soldiers relied on.
Good sweet water flowed past the camp. Ample firewood could be found in the groves along both waterways. Enough timber for a stockade. First the soldiers muscled trenches out of the frozen soil some 126 feet square in which to bury the upright timbers. At the same time water wells were dug and the nearby meadows mowed for emergency hay. From the time Keim crawled out of his blankets in the morning until well past dark, cursing civilian teamsters whipped their plodding mules up and down the course of Wolf Creek or the Beaver River hauling logs for the cantonment and hay that the soldiers piled into huge windbreaks along company rows.
Almost daily the young reporter accompanied Custer’s hunting party into the surrounding woods in search of game of all description: deer and elk, buffalo and turkey, rabbits and quail, pheasant, dove, and prairie chicken. Yet as the hour for the regiment’s departure in search of hostiles drew near, Custer realized the time had come to sift through the herds in search of a special animal.
“He’s a beautiful horse, General,” Keim said, admiring the sorrel with excellent spirit.
“Quite an animal.” Custer turned to his brother. “I believe I’ll call this one Dandy, Tom.”
“A fine configuration!”
“I’ll ride him this winter. Then give him to Libbie as a present when the campaign’s over. She will rejoin me come spring.”
Keim self-consciously cleared his throat and stepped away before Custer spoke again. “We’ve not had a good year, Tom.”
“That dalliance with Mrs. Lyon down in Texas bothering Libbie again?”
“That and the young wife of an officer on Sheridan’s staff when we passed through St. Louis two years ago. More and more it returns to haunt me.”
“You two will make up and things’ll be as they were during the war—when you were inseparable. Always remember, dear brother, there’s never a winter so long that spring doesn’t come.”
“General?”
“Come in, Lieutenant. I’ve been expecting you.”
James M. Bell, regimental quartermaster, ducked through the flaps of Custer’s wall tent, kicking the ice from his boots. It had begun snowing just before supper, right after Bell had finished issuing each soldier his weapons for the coming fight: a magazine-loaded Spencer carbine and a Colt revolver using paper cartridges and caps.
“Every man has his buffalo greatcoat and hip leggings General Sheridan had made for the campaign.”
“A capital idea, wasn’t it, Bell? Nasty as it’s beginning to look out there. Were there enough to go around?”
“Yessir. Along with a fur cap and fur-lined mittens for every soldier who’ll saddle up in the morning.”
“By a stroke of divine providence itself, Lieutenant. My troopers will have their furry protection … like veritable beasts plunging into this wilderness. Thank you for reporting, Mr. Bell. We’ll talk again before departure in the morning. Get some rest now. Lord knows you can use it.”
“Thank you, General. Just wanted to do my part … see we really hurt the savages this time out.”
Late that night Custer finished supper and set his plate aside. Tonight’s would be the last hot meal he or his men would remember for some time to come.
The snow continued to pile up outside as the camp settled into that restless peace of soldiers on their last night before departing into the unknown. A solitary tent glowed with lamplight. Well past midnight Custer continued to push his numb fingers across the sheet of paper, scribbling a final letter to his wife.
MY DARLING ROSEBUD,
Your handsome beau is thinking only of you at this hour. We stand on the precipice of something great. Perhaps all we have dreamed of, my sweet. With one stroke I can right the wrong done me. Continue my career climb. And put our lives back together. I so need you. All others are as toys compared to you. That you must believe.
The snow grows deeper outside. Already I find more than six inches on the ground, and it’s falling rapidly. Problem is, in this corner of the world, the wind blows every bit of it into icy drifts. Do not worry for me, my love. Destiny awaits me down this wilderness road.
It snowed all night.
When reveille sounded at four A.M., yanking soldiers from their warm blankets, the Seventh Cavalry found better than fifteen inches on the ground; and the storm wasn’t letting up. Still more snow pushed angrily through the bone-bare trees.
Despite his wool blankets and buffalo robes, Sheridan had found it hard to sleep through the icy night. Now he lay alone in his tent, listening to the familiar, reassuring sounds of men and animals preparing for departure. Surprised at himself, the general suffered a momentary pang of doubt in sending good men out in such bitter weather. His melancholia was just as quickly interrupted by a sturdy rap at the front pole of his huge wall tent.
“Yes?” Sheridan demanded.
The buglers were blowing “The General,” that familiar call ordering troopers to strike their tents and pack the wagons for the march.
“It’s Custer, sir. May I have the honor of saying farewell to an old friend in person?”
“Of course, Custer. Come in.”
Clutching a blanket around his trembling shoulders, Sheridan stood to turn up the wick on his lamp, its feeble, flickering saffron light wind-dancing on bitter gusts that sneaked in on Custer’s heels.
“Damn this infernal thing!” His numb fingers were unable at first to adjust the wick roller.
“May I be of some help?”
“There.” Sheridan got the lamp to respond. “That’s better, now.” He pointed to the corner by his trunk. “Grab one of those stools, Custer.”
The young cavalry officer settled on his perch, clumsy in his bulky buffalo coat, looking like a portly blackbird balanced precariously atop a delicate branch. His thick mustache dripped melting hoarfrost into the beard framing his face.
“Warm enough, Custer?”
“Yes, sir. What’s more, I’m happy to report the Seventh is prepared for what may come in this campaign.”
“I see.” Sheridan rose from his cot and paced to the front flap, where he allowed the cold to slice in at him as he peered out at the men and animals, dark smudges across the new snow. “Seems the storm has moved east at last.”
Custer stood, stepped to the flap beside Sheridan. “It’s a good sign for us, pulling out just as we are.”
Sheridan trudged back to his cot, where he sank heavily. “I had forgotten how you look at things sometimes. Searching for a good omen in every turn you make in life.”
“But, of course. I’ve been blessed with what many of my men have come to call Custer’s Luck.”
“You’re the first to believe in it, too, eh?”
“If I didn’t, how could I ask my men to believe in me?”
Sheridan studied the bushy eyebrows of the taller man. “You damn well go out there and make your own luck, don’t you? You did it with General McClellan when you recklessly waded the Chickahominy. Then you impressed General Pleasanton with your daring charges, and by jingo you were on your way to capturing the cream of the Confederate cavalry at Appomattox—right when Lee himself saw fit to hand his flag of surrender to no one else but you.”
“I was the only one there to take his flag, sir.”
