Frontier Cavalry Trooper: The Letters of Private Eddie Matthews, 1869–1874

Epilogue

393 ✯ ePIlogue If I was only out of this miserable mob and home they would never catch me in it again,” Eddie Matthews once swore. For a man who found army life so distasteful and had so eagerly anticipated the day of his discharge, he would seem the most unlikely of candidates to ever again don army blue. Yet, as implausible as it may seem, Eddie did just that. At the age of twenty-seven, after being out of the service for more than three years, he again sought out a recruiting office, this time in nearby Baltimore, where he signed up for another five-year hitch on January 18, 1878.1 His motives for reenlisting are unknown, but he obviously considered soldier life preferable to whatever he had encountered as a civilian. Stranger still, when the recruiter asked his previous occupation, he responded, “soldier,” providing no clue as to what he may have done after returning to Westminster. He may have been employed by a railroad, an option he had once considered, or he may 1 See entry 4, p. 1, roll 42, ROE, RG 94. That he enlisted at Baltimore suggests that Eddie found employment and remained in Westminster during the intervening three years. Had he gone directly to Sellersville, Pennsylvania, following his first enlistment, he undoubtedly would have reenlisted at Philadelphia. “ 394 epilogue have found work in the budding regional cigar industry, or he may have done something entirely different. Whatever it was, the recruiting officer chose not to question him too closely. Any honorably discharged veteran presenting himself for reenlistment was indeed a prize catch.2 During the interim since Matthews had passed through the old cavalry depot at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, the army had closed that facility and established a new one at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri, to be in closer proximity to operations on the western frontier. Eddie soon accompanied a draft of recruits to the depot, where he spent only a short time because, as a veteran, he needed no introduction to army drill, comportment, and discipline . Despite his criticism of his former comrades, he nevertheless must have found them tolerable, as evidenced by his request to return to his former company of the Eighth Cavalry. That its Captain, Louis T. Morris, his old company commander, was willing to accept him back in the unit spoke well of Eddie’s conduct and performance during his previous enlistment. During Eddie’s time as a civilian, the Eighth Cavalry had been transferred from New Mexico Territory to the Department of Texas, where it took its turn occupying a line of forts and picket camps along the lower Rio Grande from Brownsville northwestward to Fort Clark. Smuggling, cattle rustling, and banditry by Mexican revolutionists and common outlaws were rampant along the international border, a situation with which the army had contended for years. At the time Matthews returned, Company L was stationed at Camp Santa Maria, 236 miles from its home post at Fort Brown. Even though he was added to the company rolls effective February 16, he probably was assigned to temporary duty at the post until his troop returned from its up-stream patrolling at the end of the month.3 With the exception of an overnight pursuit of some Mexicans early in April, the company settled into the usual humdrum of garrison life at Fort Brown for the next several months, a routine Matthews found all too familiar . As an old soldier, and an experienced company clerk, he must have maneuvered his way into that job soon after his arrival. If Eddie Matthews had learned anything during his previous five years’ service, it was how to avoid the tedium of troop duty. As a clerk, he worked regular hours in the relative comfort of the orderly room, answered to no one except the first 2 The recruiting officer was none other than First Lieutenant Emmet Crawford, Third Cavalry, who was instrumental in coaxing the famed Geronimo into surrendering. His untimely death at the hands of Mexican troops during the 1886 campaign attracted national attention. 3 See Eighth Cavalry Returns, February 1878. epilogue 395 sergeant and his company commander, and was exempt from guard duty, fatigue, and drill. Eddie readily readjusted to army life until the summer of 1879, when he committed an act that should have been contrary to his better judgment. On June 11, he abused his position...