Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1877 — Custer’s Mark. [ARTICLE]

Custer’s Mark.

It was a horrible scar. Commencing at the roots of the hair, ju9t jover the left temple, it ran down across the face to the right-hand corner of the mouth. The flesh bad closed together in a great ridge, and the nose seemed to have been shortened half an inch by the process of healing. The man with the scar sang two or three songs, and then passed his cap around for pennies. “ Did a blow of an Injun’s tomahawk do that?” he repeated. “No sir; I got that cut down in Old Virginia during the war, ’bout the time it looked as if Jest Davis was the biggest patriot in the country.” “ You were in the cavalry ?” “ You bet I was! I smashed up so ‘many horses that I was owing the Confederate Government $400,000 when it collapsed. If she hadn’t collapsed I’d been forced into bankruptcy.” He chuckled, and raised his hat so as to reveal the scar in all its hideousness, and continued: “I don’t believe a tomahawk could leave a scar like this. It takes a good sharp saber to spoil a man’s face so that be daren’t look in the glass or have his photograph taken. A Yank slashed me, of course, but who do you suppose it was ? You couldn’t guess to save your neck, and so I’ll tell you—it was Custer, that long-haired, dare-devil Yankee General who used to ride around with blood in his eyes and an extra saber in hfa teeth. He thought he’d done for me when he gave me this lick, but he didn’t know our family.” “How was it?” “It was down at Travillian Station. He was raiding around witk a lot of cavalry, and our folks got him in a box. Somehow we got around him on all sides, and we had cavalry, infantry and artillery. We were two to one, had hint! fairly coopered, and by all decent rules of warfare he ought to have hung out the white flag, handed over his saber, and politely said: ‘Boys, you’ve got the grapevine twist on me and I cave.’ We expected it; but, blast him! he didn’t do any such thing. No, sir. He massed his troopers, Save ’em to understand that it was ‘do or ie,’ and the whole Caboodle of ’em came for us on the gallop, bands playing, flags flying and troopers yelling like wild Injuns. Our batteries played on ’em from a dozen hills; our infantry fusiladed ’em good and strong, and our troopers got the word to charge. “ Durn my buttons, but wasn’t it a hot fight! We were all mixed up, bullets flying, sabers hacking, men yelling, horses neighing, everybody shouting, and it was a devil's dance all around! 1 heard a Yank shouting orders, as if he was some big gun or other, and I worked up to him through the smoke. It was Custer. I had seen him before, and I knew what a fighter he was. I pushed right up to him, gave my old saber a twist and a cut, and off went hfa head!” He looked up with a wicked twinkle inhis eyes, and added: “In a horn! I rose in my stirrups and struck at him with force enough to cut clean down to the saddle, but he parried the blow, leaned over, I saw a flash, and the next thing 1 knew I- had been in the hospital for two weeks, and the surgeons were trying to look into my boots through this saber cut across my face. I was a whole year getting over it, and then I looked so handsome that I was turned over to the home guards for the rest of the war. Sometimes 1 feel like suicide, and agin I don’t care. I didn't bear no grudge agin Custer for the slash, but he might just as well have put his cheese-knife through me as to have given me this 4 X his mark’ to lug around. And that’s what ails this old reb, and that’s how I feel.”— N. Y. Bun.