The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer: Reconstructed From Her Diaries and Notes by Arlene Reynolds

By Elizabeth Bacon Custer

This collection of private writings by General Custer’s wife offers an intimate look at their lives before and during the Civil War.
 
In her first year of marriage (1864–1865) to General George Armstrong Custer, Libbie Custer witnessed the Civil War firsthand. Her experiences of danger, hardship, and excitement made ideal material for a book, one that she worked on later in life yet never published. In this volume, Arlene Reynolds presents a readable narrative of Libbie Custer's life during the war years by painstakingly reconstructing Libbie’s original, unpublished notes and diaries found in the archives of the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument.
 
In these reminiscences, Libbie Custer vividly describes her life both in camp and in Washington. She tells of incidents such as fording a swollen river sidesaddle on horseback, dancing at the Inaugural Ball near President Lincoln, and watching the massive review of the Army of the Potomac after the surrender. The resulting narrative tells the fascinating story of a sheltered girl's maturation into a courageous woman in the crucible of war. It also offers an intimate glimpse into the youth, West Point years, and early military service of General Custer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 28, 2010
• ISBN: 9780292789616

Book preview

Introduction

by Arlene Reynolds

Elizabeth Clift Bacon, Libbie to family and friends, was born April 8, 1842, in Monroe, Michigan. The only surviving child of Daniel and Eleanor Bacon, she was educated at private girls’ schools in Monroe and New York. In 1862, at a Thanksgiving party, she was introduced to a young Union Captain, George Armstrong Custer, Autie to family and friends. They were married February 9, 1864. Of her life with Autie she wrote, I lived through a blaze of sunshine for twelve years, but on June 25, 1876, that life came to an end with the death of General Custer at the battle of the Little Bighorn. She later wrote: To lose him would be to close the windows of life that let in the sunshine. Other windows there are from whence comes light, but, oh, it is sunshine and the radiant sunshine of love that we women crave. What I have is like that little patch on our carpet that came about eleven in the old cardinals palace at Rome. I can’t do much basking or growing but it serves to keep me in remembrance of rooms in my life where every corner was resplendent with sunshine.

Shortly after receiving official notification of her husband’s death, Libbie left Fort Lincoln, Dakota Territory, and returned to her family home in Monroe. After a period of mourning she realized that she would have to do what she had once written she dreaded most, Having to take care of myself. With very little money, but a wealth of friends, she headed east to New York City, one of the few places in that day where a woman could hope to make her own way. There she acquired the position of Secretary for the Decorative Arts Society.

Having been encouraged to write by friends, and by her husband before his death, she began writing articles for the newspapers as a special correspondent. In 1885 her first book, Boots and Saddles, or Life in Dakota with General Custer, was published. She wrote a friend, Oh what intense anxiety I felt for fear my crude, inexperienced pen could not so frame a little story of his home life that anyone would be willing to read, She need not have been anxious, for the book was a success and was followed in 1887 by Tenting on the Plains, about their life in Texas, and in 1890 by Following the Guidon, life in Kansas. With the success of her books she became a sought-after speaker and for many years thrilled audiences with her stories of buffalo hunts and life on the plains. But with all her successes she still felt she had no right to bear my honored name as long as I could not pay tribute to him from whom it came.

Shortly after completing her third book she began dotting down notes about her experiences as a young bride in the last year of the Civil War, a practice she continued for more than forty years. She also wrote to old friends asking them to recall their memories, and when people heard that she was planning this new book they sent her stories about the General which she kept for possible inclusion in her text. Why she did not write the book will most likely never be known. Perhaps a partial answer lies in the following quotes, the first from a letter to a friend, Mrs. Kingsley, dated January 6, 1887: "Over and over again I have had to stop writing entirely as this work [Following the Guidon] has prostrated me more than I ever dreamed it would. Our life in Texas after the war went easily enough as it had no anxieties, no partings, no separations, but Kansas was so full of anguish I cannot write it without exhaustion. The second quote is from her Journal, dated April 4, 1893: I told him [Mr. Brown] I was trying to get courage to write of the last days of the war but feared to go on ground that had been so well written up, but he thought few could give such bright pictures as I, touching upon the experiences as only a woman could perhaps."

That she never gave up the idea of her War Book can be seen in various interviews and letters over the years. In 1926 she told a reporter, Now I am at work on some reminiscences of the Civil War. I hope to have them in book form this summer, there are so many interesting things about the General’s life at that period. Shortly after that interview she wrote a relative, I regret to tell you that the book I intended to do is at a standstill, but I mean to fix my mind on everything I can recall of the Civil War hoping I can make a little book. On March 6, 1930, three years before her death, in a letter to D. F. Barry she said, I hope soon to try and dot down incidents as they come to me of the Civil War. There would never be enough for a book but possibly a magazine article.

Libbie Custer died on April 4, 1933, just four days short of her ninety-first birthday. Though she left behind a rich literary legacy of life on the frontier she never completed her War Book.

In 1989, while doing research for my play, We Rode with Custer, and a one-woman play, Then You’ll Remember Me, based on Libbie Custer’s life and writings, I learned of the existence of these Civil War notes in the Foreword to The Custer Story. Marguerite Merington, who had edited the letters of the Custers, said that though Mrs. Custer’s mind had been clear her hand was failing and the notes could not be put in publishable form. I found this intriguing, though at the time I was just learning about General Custer and Libbie and had no idea where to begin to look for the notes—or even if they still existed—but with all the bravado of one who does not quite realize what she is getting into I said, I’ll find them and write the book. Over the next four years I frequented libraries and dusty vaults, wrote countless letters, and made more telephone calls than I care to remember. I learned about their early lives, their life together, and her life after his death, and every now and again I would come upon a note, or an entry in a journal about the Civil War, or a reference to the book in a letter, but never her notes themselves, just enough to keep me searching.

While researching in Monroe, Michigan, I found several references to her War Book, but no notes. I returned to the archives at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, which houses the Elizabeth B. Custer Collection that Libbie bequeathed in her will to the Public Museum or Memorial which may be erected on the battlefield of the Little Big Horn in Montana. Kitty Belle Deernose, the museum curator, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for her help and patience, and I went through the original accession files and found that there was a great deal more material there than the card catalogue indicated, though much of Libbie’s private correspondence, etc., had been returned to the Custer family as it did not relate directly to the battle. I turned to the microfilm index of Libbie’s collection, a copy of which had arrived unexpectedly in my mail; it was a gift from a friend, Steve Alexander (General Custer), who, knowing I was working on the book, thought it might be of use. Within the pages were listed many of Libbie’s notes, some notated only as manuscript, and with them the catalogue numbers; though the entire collection had been catalogued, some of the material was never given catalogue cards.

You can imagine my excitement when I had at my fingertips Libbie’s original notes, and more than enough for a book. But that excitement was tempered by the realities of transcribing hundreds of pages of notes, mostly in pencil on paper crumbling around the edges. But as I read through her notes I began to see a picture forming of what it was like for a Northern woman living alone in Washington during those dark days of our history, and I knew that her story was an important one and needed to be told.

As to the accuracy of the book, it is historically accurate from Libbie’s perspective. In some cases there may be inaccuracies, but they are hers; I have made no attempt to correct or second-guess what she wrote. General Custer wrote in his War Memoirs, published shortly before his death: The value and importance, to a correct history of the war of the rebellion, of placing on record the matured opinions and statements of men who were either prominent actors in or close observers of the great struggle will be illustrated by the publication of General Sherman’s ‘Memoirs’. Whether the memoirs contain errors or not, it is impossible to deny their value, as the deliberate and carefully considered contribution of one of the foremost leaders of the Union armies…. Such memoirs of actors in the war, prepared in the present or future, will have the advantage over the official reports drawn up at the time by the direction of a superior authority, in the complete freedom and independence which permits each person so disposed to write and place upon record his free and unembarrassed expressions, whether of fact or opinion. And that is what this book contains, Libbie’s free and unembarrassed expressions of the events as she saw, experienced, and remembered them.

Some of her observations were quite candid and some of her stories show them as, perhaps, less than perfect, but she once said that she wanted to do a more intimate book, a human document of the General’s life and mine. I feel that, perhaps more than anything else, if only I can present it in the right way it will throw the true light on his lovable, noble character. You see I shall not let it be published until after my death and as we have no children, I need feel no hesitation on that score (Monroe Evening News, no date).

It is my hope that this work in a small way fulfills Libbie’s hopes for her War Book and, to borrow a quote from Libbie, that I have been able to frame a little story of their home life.

A.R.

Preface

I am writing these reminiscences because there are so few who remember, or if they do are not quite willing to acknowledge such a distant date. I recall an officer in reply to his sister’s questions about something they had experienced during the war saying, Sarah, for pity’s sake do stop talking about the war. As far as I can find out you are the only woman in America old enough, or the only woman who acknowledges that she was born at the time of the war.

My patriotic Father begged me to keep a diary, reminding me I was passing through marvelous scenes. But all my strength and every nerve in me was taxed to the utmost while I was camping and marching with those vigorous men, and when the army broke camp and I returned alone to Washington I was in too great suspense to do anything with purpose. Had I been tranquil enough when I was alone in Washington to write and outline some of the rare exchanges I could have accomplished something, but I realized never an undisturbed hour; even in sleep I heard the boom of cannon and the hooves of horses on the march.

In these reminisces [sic] there are no dates, no statistics and, alas I fear, no information that would be valuable to a historian. I was obliged to write without a thought of space, or number of my words, or all spontaneity went out of me. Much of this material has not been published. I may have repeated myself but I never look in books about my husband and have forgotten what I’ve written.

Elizabeth B. Custer

[From notes dated 1890, 1910, and 1917]

Chapter One

May I Begin

May I begin about a very merry, happy girl, in an old Michigan town near Detroit, not much impressed by the officers who came and went from the Civil War in the ’60s, but who after had her breath taken away by a proposal of marriage, much like a cavalry charge, from the young General whom I had just met. I think that when I caught my breath I mentioned the much-used word* and was told not on his part for he had carried this determination in his mind when as a little girl I had swung on the gate and called out as he passed to and from school, Hello you Custer boy!

Since these are very personal reminiscences of the war I venture to outline a little of the life at that time in Michigan and to bear testimony to the loyalty of my hometown, Monroe, so far removed from the conflict and with the very inadequate communications of those days; for though there were railroads and telegraphs, of course, they were slow and uncertain.

When war was declared between the North and the South I believe that the patriotism of those cultivated Eastern people, many of whom had emigrated to the territory early in eighteen hundred, was greatly due to the fact that they had helped in the final making of the state. Some had come before the railroad, by canal, lake, stage, and private conveyances and on horseback. Village government was established in a clearing in the forest and, characteristic of those people, the church and schoolhouse were built at the same time with their homes.

Proof of the refinement and taste of these people was evinced [in] the primitive dwellings of logs and rough timber, by the mahogany, inherited books, family portraits, silver, linen, and even china. I remember as a tiny child pirouetting before a mirror set low in a dressing table that would be the envy of the collector of today.

Monroe sent comparatively few to the war, for many of our ambitious young men had gone from college and school to the neighboring cities of Detroit and Toledo where opportunities were greater. But the company that was recruited had every proof of the devotion of the town. There were faithful workers among the women and girls from the Societies for Knitting, and innumerable socks and hand-made underclothing went much to the front, and many useful, and alas absurd articles, went into the haversacks of the departing company. For instance, the youngest girls were set to making linen have-locks as protection from the sun, and great was our indignation when we learned, by chance, that they were used to clean guns.

In retrospection I think that I was too immature to realize, the first three years, the awfulness of the fratricidal conflict. In my joyous life it was only when sorrow came to the town that I realized something of what war really was. The tenderness and sympathy of the village, the silence as one passed the houses of suffering, and the constant gifts of flowers stripped from the lovely gardens and left at the house of sorrow or covering the graves all summer. The tears of the people, the tolling of the courthouse bells, [and] the long line of vehicles and flower-laden pedestrians following a hero to his last resting place sobered me. The funeral dirges of those who were brought home for burial haunt me now.

I could hardly take in my Father’s personal grief over his country. He had married late in life (I was nearly a half a century younger) and the war aged him greatly and his love of country was so deep he never recovered from his grief. Day by day, in sunshine or storm, he walked to the distant railway station for the Detroit papers, unable in his anxiety to wait for their delivery in the town. As he returned through the village square the people watching him said with depression, It’s bad news, no use to wait for the papers to tell us. Look at the old judge, speaking to no one, walking with bowed head.

As a girl I began to feel the love of country, the sorrow of what war was, the partings with brothers and lovers that meant, possibly, final farewell. Under the tutelage of older women I scraped lint, knitted shapeless socks for the troops, rode and danced with the officers who were on temporary duty before going to the front.

Among those who came to our town was one who had been in Monroe before, working his way in order to attend our excellent academy. He had applied for West Point, passed his examinations, and graduated just in time, as he expressed it, To run with the rest at the first battle of Bull Run. There was a great flutter of excitement among the many pretty girls over the Youngster, as General McClellan called him.

With the critical and exacting eye of a girl I decided I would never like him no matter how attentive he was because his hair was light, and because I despised his military overcoat as it was lined with yellow, for I thought it his taste and did not know that it was regulation color for the cavalry. But he determined to tone down his hair, and his overcoat lining, and finally I consented to know him. I must confess to you that the little God of Love, which blinds our eyes once in life, worked such charms in my heart that I forgot the gold in his hair and yellow became my favorite color from that time til now.

And when separation came I found myself suddenly matured from girlhood to womanhood, anxiously reading the paper, and no longer laughing and teasing those girls among us who had been watching the mail so intently for letters. Finally news came in the papers that President Lincoln had insisted upon having some young cavalry commanders who would have more daring and ambition than older ones, and the yellow-haired captain was one of three who were made Generals. The papers rang with the news that at twenty-three Captain Custer had been made a Boy General, but his first fight with his Brigade assured President Lincoln that he had been right and he was not too young.

I’d never known, nor particularly cared for officers or army life. If I thought at all of marriage it was with a shudder over what it involved in practical details: the number and variety of fruits that must be put up, the spring housekeeping, cleaning, the planning of food three times a day for the head of the house.

I had seriously contemplated the then-despised life of an old maid and was hoping that I would have talent if not been taught well enough to enter the New York School of Design. Possibly I might have mentioned that matrimony, as I saw it in Monroe so constantly about me, meant domestic thralldom, for the question of efficient servants was even then a problem. However it was, I found my lover had his mind made up to a wife who would be his helpmate in entertaining for him, in homemaking for his young officers.

We had from the first an efficient woman who catered, cooked, and directed any who assisted her. I don’t remember ever being in the kitchen but three days when Eliza was ill, and then my husband’s younger brother, Lieutenant Tom, and a striker, who did know how to cook, never left my side. Of course my stepmother, who believed so in matrimony that she could hardly wait til I left school to plan, may have talked me over with a perfectly dear third or fourth cousin who was pioneering in Northern Michigan and often stayed with us. I can only recall his laughingly declining me, since a girl who could only make pepper tea for a cold, and was determined that should be the limit of her domestic education, would hardly fill the bill and would justify him in turning me down with thanks.

After I knew my husband a little better, and was less critical, he brought his West Point cadet jacket and tried it on, perhaps hoping to make it a slight argument in inducing a favorable answer to an important question he had asked the second time after I came to know him. A question he seemed to think the all important of his life.

The General’s proposal was as much a cavalry charge as any he ever took in the field. First on the astonished me who knew that in books lovers led up to proposals by slow careful approaches and chosen language, and so had some of the General’s predecessors, quite living up to the poetical or romantic. But this vehement, stammery disclosure of years of purpose I had no breath to protest. (Sometimes when greatly excited he had a slight hesitation in speech, then out poured a torrent of words.) Proposing the second time I saw him as a violent contrast to the ambling ponies of my tranquil girlhood.

The General’s staff had, some little time after the General returned, noticed that his sash had initials, [a] very significant circumstance, and when off duty they admired the embroidery and intimated that they would be interested in knowing what LCB* stood for. Whether the General was prepared, or whether it was inspiration, one of the staff told me that they had to be content with the enigmatical