Little Pills, an Army Story. R. H. McKay
away and had built an adobe wall around his camp. He had also put some adobe rooms and had them furnished, his wife being an important assistant in the undertaking, and he was still sinking his well deeper and expressing an abiding faith in the result. It must be a glorious feeling to be vindicated in such an undertaking. It was rumored along the overland route that Jack Martin had found water but not enough, and upon our arrival we found that he not only had water but had an abundance of it and our stage was the first to arrive after he struck it. After eating a late breakfast, which was a very good one, we started for Fort Selden still some fifty miles away. This part of the trip was uneventful as we only stopped once to feed and water the team, having carried the necessary supplies with us. We arrived at Fort Selden in the evening. All the way from Santa Fe down I frequently noticed little piles of stone by the wayside, sometimes with little hand-made wooden crosses standing up in the center marking the place where someone had met a violent death, maybe by Indians or maybe at the hands of some renegade Mexicans. It is the custom among the Mexican people in passing to toss another stone on the pile and in this way some of them became of considerable size, the size of the pile indicating in a way the time that had elapsed since the murder had been committed.
I reported to the commanding officer at the post and the following day was assigned to duty. By invitation I took dinner with one of the officers the evening of my arrival. Among other good things we had a choice roast of beef which they informed me was from their very choice and only milk cow. It seems the herders were not sufficiently on guard and this animal had become separated from the herd but in rounding up the herd in the evening it was discovered that this particular cow had an Indian arrow in her side and on examination it was thought best to kill her. The good woman did not have much appetite for beef but grieved over the loss of her favorite cow. There was some small timber and underbrush along the streams affording a good hiding place for sneaking Apaches who might be disposed to commit depredations. It was the rule at this post that when the officers' wives wanted to take an airing to send an escort along with the ambulance as a protection against the Indians.
It was a two company post and the duties of the medical officer were light; so much so as to become a little monotonous, but was sometimes varied by a trip to Las Cruces or Messilla, some fifteen or eighteen miles distant. These towns were at one time separated by the river but some years before an unusual flood had swept down the valley and the river had made a new channel leaving the towns close neighbors. Even in those days they were places of some importance.
While stationed at this post I made my first acquaintance with gambling. It did not take me long to learn that it was the universal custom in the country. The Sutler's or Post Trader's store was a favorite resort for those who indulged in the various games. I remember an old man camping not far from the post who made it his business. He remained there for some time and in conversation one day I expressed my surprise at the universal custom and he informed me that he had rather bet his money on Monte than loan it out at ten per cent interest, and yet his dress and camping outfit did not indicate a man of fortune.
One of the most interesting incidents of my experience here was one Sunday morning after inspection when a group of officers were standing out on the parade grounds talking on various subjects when one of them was attracted by something at our feet and called attention to it. Upon closer investigation we discovered it to be the outlines of a human skull, the top of which had been worn away by the trampling of many feet over the parade ground. The post commander ordered the dirt removed from around it and thus unearthed a complete human skeleton except where the top of the head had been worn away. It was in a sitting position with the knees flexed up close to the chin but the bones crumbled upon being exposed to the air. There was no evidence of shroud or other covering to the body. What race of people buried their dead that way? How long had it been in its resting place?
This post at that time was about seven hundred miles from the railroad. I doubt if there is a place in the United States today outside of Alaska or our insular possession where one could go and be seven hundred miles from a railroad.
Along in the first part of May of that year I received orders from the chief medical officer of the district to exchange places with Dr. Seguin, post surgeon at Fort Craig. General Grover was the commanding officer at Fort Craig and was considered a good deal of a Martinet. As explained to me by Doctor Seguin, it seems that Mrs. Grover wanted something from the hospital which the doctor declined to send her and General Grover thereupon ordered it sent. The doctor disobeyed the order and the matter was carried to district headquarters and probably higher up for it involved the question of military discipline and also the rights of medical officers under army regulations. It is well enough here to say that the medical corps is a corps to itself, distinct from any other branch of the service, and orders come through the medical officers from the surgeon general down to the divisions; departments and districts, and yet at the military post the commanding officer is supposed to be "monarch of all he surveys" as you see there was a chance for controversy. Any way it was settled by Doctor Seguin being ordered to Fort Selden to take my place and I to his place at Fort Craig.
General Grover was a severe looking man past middle age, and had seen service on the frontier before the Civil War. He was a strict disciplinarian and held himself aloof from everything around. I have seen him walking down the line of officers' quarters straight as an arrow, maybe with hands clasped behind his back and an orderly walking the proper distance behind. He never entered an officer's quarters but if he wanted anything he would send his orderly to the officer with "the General's compliments and would like to see you." The officer then walked out to where the general was standing and at the proper distance stopped, stood at attention and saluted and waited for such communications as the general would make. He then saluted again and returned to his quarters and the general went on his way.
Mrs. Grover was confined soon after my arrival at the post and gave birth to a daughter. When the general was called in to see the new arrival he merely looked at it, gave a grunt, or "huh," and then turned and walked out. Mrs. Grover was the most queenly looking woman I ever saw; a magnificent physique; a commanding presence and a dignified and gracious manner. She seemed to possess all the qualities my imagination had conjured up as befitting a queen. She was the daughter of Dr. Austin Flint, Sr., whom I mentioned in an earlier chapter, and a sister of Dr. Austin Flint, Jr., the eminent physiologist. I was frequently called to their quarters to see the baby, not I thought, that it needed anything, but that the mother wanted someone to talk with. The general was civil enough to me but never cordial. I think it was not his nature to be so. He invited me occasionally to go with him in his carriage to places away from the post, say to Paraja some twelve miles away, or perhaps just for a ride, a courtesy he never extended to other officers of the post. On these little excursions I found that the general was an interesting talker, mostly with reference to his experiences on the frontier before the war. The war itself and the army since the war was never mentioned that I remember. He had been a major general during the war and was now a colonel and it was thought by most of the officers that he felt humiliated by being assigned to a negro regiment, the twenty-fourth infantry. I was invited to their quarters one morning for breakfast and maybe one or two other meals during the summer but as I remember them now they were rather formal and uninteresting.
Fort Craig was a walled fort, made so in early days as a protection against Indians. It was typical of most of the posts at which I served in being built in the form of a square. The parade ground being a square plot varying in size at different posts, around which are located the buildings. The officers occupying one side of the square; the barracks being directly opposite and the commissary and quarter master department generally occupying one side and the commanding officer's quarters and post headquarters and adjutant's office occupying the other side. At Fort Craig just outside of these buildings was an adobe wall about ten feet high. Next to the guardhouse was an opening large enough for wagons to enter the parade ground with heavy gates to close at night, and there were some small openings in the wall for other purposes, one being near the hospital. The walls of the buildings were of adobe with heavy timbers across to support the roof of dirt. The floors were what the Mexicans called "Jaspa" (pronounced Haspa), a kind of cement made of gypsum or lime sulphate which is found in great beds through a great portion of New Mexico. It is quarried or blasted out, heated to drive out the water or crystalization, then ground into a powder and when mixed with sand and