Major Burbank was there also, with his well-drilled Light Battery
of the 3rd Artillery.
My husband, being a Captain and Quartermaster, served directly
under General George H. Weeks, who was Chief Quartermaster of the
Department, and I can never forget his kindness to us both. He
was one of the best men I ever knew, in the army or out of it,
and came to be one of my dearest friends. He possessed the sturdy
qualities of his Puritan ancestry, united with the charming
manners of an aristocrat.
We belonged, of course, now, with the Staff, and something, an
intangible something, seemed to have gone out of the life. The
officers were all older, and the Staff uniforms were more sombre.
I missed the white stripe of the infantry, and the yellow of the
cavalry. The shoulder-straps all had gold eagles or leaves on
them, instead of the Captains' or Lieutenants' bars. Many of the
Staff officers wore civilians' clothes, which distressed me much,
and I used to tell them that if I were Secretary of War they
would not be permitted to go about in black alpaca coats and
cinnamon-brown trousers.
"What would you have us do?" said General Weeks.
"Wear white duck and brass buttons," I replied.
"Fol-de-rol!" said the fine-looking and erect Chief
Quartermaster; "you would have us be as vain as we were when we
were Lieutenants?"
"You can afford to be," I answered; for, even with his threescore
years, he had retained the lines of youth, and was, in my
opinion, the finest looking man in the Staff of the Army.
But all my reproaches and all my diplomacy were of no avail in
reforming the Staff. Evidently comfort and not looks was their
motto.
One day, I accidentally caught a side view of myself in a long
mirror (long mirrors had not been very plentiful on the
frontier), and was appalled by the fact that my own lines
corresponded but too well, alas! with those of the Staff. Ah, me!
were the days, then, of Lieutenants forever past and gone? The
days of suppleness and youth, the careless gay days, when there
was no thought for the future, no anxiety about education, when
the day began with a wild dash across country and ended with a
dinner and dance - -were they over, then, for us all?
Major Burbank's battery of light artillery came over and
enlivened the quiet of our post occasionally with their brilliant
red color.
