I came to visit an
army post, but not an old women's home or an orphan asylum: that
is about all this place is now. I simply cannot stay!"
Whereupon, she proceeded immediately to carry out her resolution,
and I was left behind with my young daughter, to finish and close
up our life at Fort Myer.
To describe the year which followed, that strenuous year in New
York, is beyond my power.
That summer gave Jack his promotion to a Major, but the anxiety
and the terrible strain of official work broke down his health
entirely, and in the following winter the doctors sent him to
Florida, to recuperate.
After six weeks in St. Augustine, we returned to New York. The
stress of the war was over; the Major was ordered to Governor's
Island as Chief Quartermaster, Department of the East, and in the
following year he was retired, by operation of the law, at the
age limit.
I was glad to rest from the incessant changing of stations; the
life had become irksome to me, in its perpetual unrest. I was
glad to find a place to lay my head, and to feel that we were not
under orders; to find and to keep a roof-tree, under which we
could abide forever.
In 1903, by an act of Congress, the veterans of the Civil War,
who had served continuously for thirty years or more were given
an extra grade, so now my hero wears with complacency the silver
leaf of the Lieutenant-Colonel, and is enjoying the quiet life of
a civilian.
