Boots and Saddles
Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer
With Portrait and Map
By Elizabeth B. Custer, 1885
312pages, illustrated, indexed, searchable
- Bonus Book -
Tenting on the Plains
Or, Gen’l Custer in Kansas and Texas
By Elizabeth B. Custer, 1895
403 pages, illustrated, indexed, searchable
- Bonus Book -
Following the Guidon
By Elizabeth B. Custer, 1900
341 pages, illustrated, indexed, searchable
- Bonus Book -
The Boy General
By Elizabeth B. Custer, 1901
228 pages, searchable
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Elizabeth Bacon Custer (April 8, 1842
– April 4, 1933) was the wife of General George Armstrong Custer. She spent
most of their marriage in relatively close proximity to him despite his numerous
military campaigns as a commanding officer in the United States Cavalry.
After his death, she became an
outspoken advocate for her husband's legacy through her popular books and
lectures. Largely as a result of her endless campaigning on his behalf,
Custer's iconic portrayal as the gallant fallen hero amid the glory of
'Custer's Last Stand' was a canon of American history for almost a century
after his death.
After her husband's column was wiped
out at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in June 1876, many in the press, Army,
and government criticized Custer for blundering into a massacre. President
Ulysses S. Grant publicly blamed Custer for the disaster.
Fearing that her husband was to be
made a scapegoat by history, Libbie launched a one-woman campaign to
rehabilitate her husband's image. She 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, they were clearly slanted in Custer's favor.