Page:Boots and Saddles.djvu/104

Rh of citizens joined the command a few days out from Fort Rice. The general wrote me that he was lying on the buffalo-robe in his tent, resting after the march, when he heard a voice outside asking the sentinel which was General Custer's tent. The general called out, "Halloo, old fellow! I haven't heard that voice in thirteen years, but I know it. Come in and welcome!"

General Rosser walked in, and such a reunion as they had! These two had been classmates and warm friends at West Point, and parted with sorrow when General Rosser went into the Southern army. Afterwards they had fought each other in the Shenandoah Valley time and time again. Both of them lay on the robe for hours talking over the campaigns in Virginia. In the varying fortunes of war, sometimes one had got possession of the wagon-train belonging to the other. I knew of several occasions when they had captured each other's head-quarters wagons with the private luggage. If one drove the other back in retreat, before he went into camp he wrote a note addressing the other as "dear friend," and saying, "you may have made me take a few steps this way to-day, but I'll be even with you to-morrow. Please accept my good-wishes and this little gift." These notes and presents were left at the house of some Southern woman, as they retreated out of the village.

Once General Custer took all of his friend's luggage, and found in it a new uniform coat of Confederate gray. He wrote a humorous letter that night thanking General Rosser for setting him up in so many new things, but audaciously asking if he "would direct his