With few books or musical instruments the garrison personnel had to resort to charades and recitations to entertain themselves.Īfter George’s death, Libby devoted her life to defending his reputation, writing two other books and giving lectures and interviews until her death in 1933, two days short of her 91st birthday. Their tents and structures were so flimsy that frostbite was a danger. In winter the river froze and the troopers had to chop through the ice to get water for the animals. I was interested in the logistics involved in moving a command of 900 troopers and their horses, tack, fodder, and weapons as well as building materials up the Missouri to establish a fort near Bismarck.
(Libby was not supposed to know that the troops had agreed that they would shoot her if her capture was inevitable.) Riding sidesaddle at his side, she confessed she was always afraid and “sometimes terrified” but wrote, “.it is infinitely worse to be left behind, a prey to all the horrors of imagining what may be happening to the one we love,” a sentiment that the spouses of all first responders and combat personnel can understand. Uniquely among officers’ wives, Libby Custer followed George on all his assignments and, except for actual military campaigns (such as the Little Big Horn), accompanied him and the troops on their movements and expeditions. Duting this period, Custer and the 7th Cavalry he commanded were dispatched to Dakota Territory to protect the westward expansion of the railroad and keep the Indians on their reservations. This memoir is the story of their marriage and their life in the military, specifically the period from 1873 until Custer’s death at the Little Big Horn in June 1876. She was loyal to her husband in life and death-unflinchingly, unshakably.īright, petite, and determined, Elizabeth Bacon was only 21 when she married 25 year old “Boy General” George Armstrong Custer in 1864. Rather than a flaw, I see that as the book's central virtue. I've seen some criticism levelled at this book as being her attempt to convince the world that her husband was faultless. He didn't do it out of duty but because he couldn't resist. When he was off on a campaign, he would stay up late writing her letters, often til midnight when next morning's wakeup was then only three hours away. She was tough, courageous, resolved, and ever-devoted to her husband. She has a wry humor and a knack for storytelling. The value in reading something like this is that it gives you a much broader picture of Custer beyond the tactics and movements and battles described in other books about him. She describes the mundane happenings of daily life at an isolated Army post using a series of anecdotes which are skillfully strung together. This is his wife's answer to that question. What was Custer doing when he wasn't battling Indians?
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