Elizabeth Bacon Custer: Difference between revisions

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'''Elizabeth CliftBacon Custer''' (née '''Bacon'''; April 8, 1842 – April 4, 1933) was an American author and public speaker, andwho was the wife of Brevet Major General [[George Armstrong Custer]], [[United States Army]]. She spent most of their twelve-year marriage in relatively closerelative proximity to him despite his numerous military campaigns in the [[American Civil War]] and subsequent postings on the [[Great Plains]] as a commanding officer in the [[United States Cavalry]].

Left nearly destitute in the aftermath of her husband's death, she became an outspoken advocate for his legacy through her popular books and lectures. Largely as a result of her decades of campaigning on his behalf, General Custer's iconic image as the gallant fallen hero amid the glory of [[Battle of the Little Bighorn|Custer's Last Stand]] was a canon of American history for almost a century after his death.

Elizabeth Custer never remarried and reached age 90 when she died in 1933, only four days short of her 91st birthday. She has been portrayed by a number of actresses, starting in the 1940s in films and later on television.

Elizabeth "Libbie" Bacon was born in 1842 in [[Monroe, Michigan]],. inShe 1842,was the daughter of [[Daniel S. Bacon|Daniel Bacon]] (b. 1798), a wealthy and influential judge and state senator,representative.<ref Danielname="legis">{{cite Baconweb (b|url=https://mdoe.state.mi.us/legislators/Legislator/LegislatorDetail/4531|title=Legislator 1798)Details - Daniel S. Bacon|publisher=[[Library of Michigan]] |access-date=June 3, 2020}}</ref> Her father had profitable investments in real estate and other business ventures.<ref name="Stiles 2015 110–111">{{Cite book |last=Stiles|first=T.J.|year=2015|title=Custer's Trials|publisher=Vintage Books/Penguin Random House|location=New York |isbn=978-0-307-47594-7|pages=110–111}}</ref>

Tragedy marked much of her childhood, with her three siblings and mother all dying before Custer'sher thirteenth year. As she was the only one of the judge's children who would live to adulthood, her father doted on her, beinghaving been charged by his dying wife to "...{{nbsp}}be both a mother and father{{nbsp}}..." to the young girl. Judge Bacon, nearly ten years later, stated "I have ever felt the force of these words... I feel the responsibility beyond anything in my life before or since."<ref name="Stiles 2015 110–111"/>

CusterElizabeth Bacon was both beautiful and intelligent,: she graduatinggraduated from a girls' seminary in June 1862 at the head of her class. Her father hoped she would make a good marriage with a man from her own elevated social status, and she rejected several suitors.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wert |first=Jeffry D. |year=1996 |title=Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=0-684-81043-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/custercontrovers0000wert/page/62 62–65] |url=https://archive.org/details/custercontrovers0000wert/page/62 }}</ref>

She had briefly encountered her future husband George Armstrong Custer as a child, and socially met him again in the autumn of 1862, when he had returned to Monroe on leave from the first year of the American Civil War. GeorgeHe later wrote that he fell deeply in love with her as of their first formal meeting. She eventually returned these feelings, but her father refused to allow then-Captain Custer into the Bacon home or to permit her to meet him outside it, much less get married, as George proposed in the final week of 1862. He was from a poor, undistinguished family, and the judge hoped his daughter would have better than the life of an army wife.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wert |first=Jeffry D. |year=1996 |title=Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=0-684-81043-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/custercontrovers0000wert/page/65 65–68] |url=https://archive.org/details/custercontrovers0000wert/page/65 }}</ref> After Custer, just prior to the [[Battle of Gettysburg]] (where he played a significant role), was promoted to [[Brevet (military)|Brevet]] [[Brigadier general (United States)|brigadier general]], Judge Bacon finally relented and they were married in Monroe at the First Presbyterian Church on February 9, 1864.<ref name="historynet.com">{{Cite web |url=https://www.historynet.com/libbie-custer-wounded-thing-must-hide.htm |title=Libbie Custer: ‘A'A Wounded Thing Must Hide’Hide' |last=Hutton |first=Paul Andrew |date=August 16, 2017 |website=HistoryNet |access-date=April 5, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://monroefirst.org |title=First Presbyterian Church of Monroe |access-date=April 5, 2020 }}</ref>

Elizabeth Custer and her husband George had a loving but tumultuous relationship. Both were stubborn, opinionated, and ambitious. Their private correspondence was filled with sexually charged [[double entendre]]s.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://frontierpartisans.com/5212/those-lusty-custers/ |title=Those Lusty Custers — Victorian 'Sexters' |last=Cornelius |first=Jim |date=November 29, 2015 |website=Frontier Partisans |access-date=April 5, 2020}}</ref> Despite hardships, they were utterly devoted to each other. She followed him to every assignment, even during the latter days of the Civil War. The depth of their relationship has been the subject of considerable interest in books and film.

... we gave ourselves the privilege of a swift gallop... ...I never noticed the surroundings until I found we were almost in the midst of an Indian village, quite hidden under the bluff. My heart literally stood still. I watched the general furtively. He was as usual perfectly unmoved, and yet he well knew that this was the country where it was hardly considered that the Indian was overburdened with hospitality. ...

The next day the general thought I might rather not go with him than run the risk of such frights; but I well knew there was something far worse than fears for my own personal safety. It is infinitely worse to be left behind, a prey to all the horrors of imagining what may be happening to one we love. You eat your heart slowly out with such anxiety, and to endure such suspense is simply the hardest of all trials that come to the soldier's wife.<ref name="Elizabeth Custer">{{Cite book |last=Custer |first=Elizabeth |year=1913 |title=Boots and Saddles |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.153908 |publisher=Harper and Brothers |location=New York and London |pages=76–78 }}</ref>

After the war, George reverted from his wartime rank of major general to his [[Regular Army (United States)|Regular Army]] rank of [[Lieutenant colonel (United States)|lieutenant colonel]], although he did receive a brevet (honorary) promotion to major general which allowed him to wear the uniform and insignia of that rank. He was assigned to a series of dreary and unsatisfying assignments in [[Texas]], [[Kansas]], and the [[Dakota Territory]]. Life on the frontier outposts was difficult, and his career was plagued by problems including a [[court martial]] (brought about by his leavinghaving left the field to be with his wife).

After her husband's columnand 5 of the 12 companies of the 7th Cavalry waswere wiped out at the [[Battle of the Little Big HornBighorn]] in June 1876, many in the press, Army, and government criticized him for blunderinghaving blundered into a massacre. President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] publicly blamed him for the disaster.<ref>{{Cite webbook | url=http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/201467.html | title=Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer by |last=Elliott|first=Michael A.|year=2007|publisher=University Elliott,of anChicago excerptPress|location=Chicago}}</ref> Fearing that her husband was towould be made a [[Scapegoat#Scapegoating|scapegoat]] by history, Elizabeth Custer launched a one-woman campaign to rehabilitate her husband's image. Her assistance to Frederick Whittaker, the author of the first biography of George, helped enable the rapid production of the popular book, which praised George's career and set the tone for future biographers in the decades aheadthat followed.<ref name="historynet.com" />

CusterElizabeth began writing articles and making speaking engagements praising the glory of what she presented as her "martyred" husband. Her three books—''Boots and Saddles'' (1885), ''Tenting on the Plains''—(1887), and ''Following the Guidon'' (1890) aimed at glorifying her dead husband's memory. Though generally considered to be largely factually accurate, theyand were clearlyultimately slanted in George's favor.<ref name="historynet.com" />

After an initial period of distress dealing with her late husband's debts,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barnett |first=Louise |year=1996 |title=Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer |publisher=Henry Holt and Company, Inc. |location=New York |isbn=0-8050-3720-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/touchedbyfirelif00barn/page/355 355] |url=https://archive.org/details/touchedbyfirelif00barn/page/355 }}</ref> CusterElizabeth spent her over a half-century of widowhood in financial comfort attained as the result of her literary career and lecture tours, leaving an estate of over $100,000 {{USDCY|100000|1933}}.<ref name="Wert, Jeffry D. 1996 357"/> She died in New York City, four days before her 91st birthday, on April 4, 1933, and was buried next to her husband at [[United States Military Academy|West Point]]. A few years before her death she told a writer that her greatest disappointment was that she never had a son to bear her husband's honored name.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Donovan |first=James M.; Donovan, Jim |year=2008 |title=A terrible glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn-- the– The last great battle of the American West |publisher=Little, Brown and Co. |location=New York |isbn=978-0-316-15578-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780316155786 }}</ref>

Elizabeth Custer was portrayed by actress [[Olivia de Havilland]] in the 1941 film ''[[They Died with their Boots On]]'', by [[Mary Ure]] in the 1967 film ''[[Custer of the West]]'', by [[Blythe Danner]] in the 1977 television movie ''The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer'', and by [[Rosanna Arquette]] in the 1991 television mini-series ''[[Son of the Morning Star (film)|Son of the Morning Star]]''.

* {{Gutenberg author |id=Custer,+Elizabeth+B.40799 | name=Elizabeth B. Custer}}