Chapter Five
Missing Elizabeth
“Daughter, marrying into the army, you will be poor always; but I count it infinitely preferable to riches with inferior society.”
Judge Bacon to Elizabeth Custer – 1866
George Custer raced his stallion, Jack, at full speed over the limitless Alkali grass covered plateau miles away from the main entrance of Fort Riley, Kansas. The foam-flecked animal was inches behind Elizabeth and her fast horse, Custis Lee. Both riders urged their horses on to even greater speed; the cold wind biting at their smiling faces.
George steered his ride along the foot of a high hill. Abruptly reaching a steep decline, he brought his horse to a quick halt. Elizabeth, dressed in a black riding skirt, uniform jacket, and an Excelsior hat, and riding sidesaddle pulled further ahead of her husband. Quickly looking around, George turned Jack in the direction of a narrow trail through a flinty apron of rocks. He followed the crude path as it wound around the hill then suddenly dropped back down and came out the other side of the steep decline in front of Elizabeth. She waved playfully at him. The horses found their rhythm and broke into a smooth gallop. Elizabeth glanced over at George and giggled like a little girl. The two rode on towards a distant, tumbled pile of thunderheads, sooty black at their base and pure white as whipped cream where they towered against the dome of the sky.
They slowed their horses and stopped next to a cluster of rocks. George dismounted and helped Elizabeth down from her ride. Draping their arms around one another they stood quietly staring at the land stretched out before them. “The prairie was worth looking over,” Elizabeth noted in her memoirs, “because it changed like the sea.” “People thought of the deep-grass as brown, but in the spring it could look almost anything else,” she added, “purple, or gold, or red, or any kind of blue. 1 Often when cloud shadows crossed the long swells, the whole prairie stirred, and seemed to mold and flow, as if it breathed.” In late January 1867, the terrain the Custers admired was winter-defeated, lightless and without color.
George loosened the hold he had on Elizabeth and she noticed his expression changed subtly. As post commander he needed to return to his duties. The responsibilities of coordinating and training more than 960 enlisted men was daunting, but the 27 year old was committed to the task. The occasional outing with Elizabeth gave him incentive to carry on and her a chance to explore the countryside, blissfully unaware of anything other than her husband. “It was delightful ground to ride over Fort Riley,” she remembered years later. “Ah! What happy days they were, for at that time I had not the slightest realization of what Indian warfare was, and consequently no dread.” 2
George removed a bugle from his saddlebag and gave it a long blast. Several of his greyhound dogs responded to the sound and came running. They eagerly danced around waiting for their master to lead the way. Elizabeth and George rode slowly back to the post. After an hour the sight of a United States’ flag waving over the barracks came into view. Over time the persistent wind had torn the colors into ribbons. By the time George and Elizabeth arrived at the camp a gleam of lemon-yellow light, that had stained the sky above the western horizon, was matched by the glow of the rising moon. 3
A great swarming of men and horses made their way from one end of the post to the other and back again. Some were on duty and others were in route to the trader’s store for a drink. Alcohol was never in short supply and the soldiers were prone to over indulge, particularly on payday. 4 Boredom, fear, and loneliness were the chief reasons for drunkenness and drinking wasn’t relegated to a particular rank. George struggled with alcohol until he married Elizabeth. His conversion to Christianity and his wife influenced him to stay sober. Remembering how it made him physically ill made a difference as well. He preached temperance to his troops. Elizabeth noted in her memoirs that George’s attempts to keep his men from drinking were difficult. “His own greatest battles were not fought in the tented field,” she recalled, “his most glorious combats were those waged in daily, hourly fights on a more hotly contested field than was ever known in common warfare.” 5
While in his presence, George allowed alcohol among his staff, but in moderation. He and Elizabeth would yield to those who enjoyed a glass of wine with friends to toast a promotion or birth. The Custers, however, would not partake. Elizabeth worried that the officer’s appetite for alcoholic beverages might lead to impaired judgment if they came under attack by the Indians. George assured his wife that he had the utmost confidence in his staff and their ability to sober up quickly. “It was on the battlefield, when all faced death together, where the truest affection was formed among soldiers,” he told her. 6
It was during a social occasion where alcohol was being served at the Custer’s quarters on January 30, 1867, that Frederick Benteen first reported to George. Benteen noted in his memories that the tension between the two men was “quite palpable.” George was surrounded by his loyal staff, among them was his brother Tom, Myles Moylan, George Yates, both of whom served with George during the Civil War, Algernon E. Smith, an old sailor, and Thomas Weir, a veteran of George’s staff in Texas. Benteen was reserved, but respectful. He saluted George and the commanding officer returned the address. The men reminisced briefly about their days with the Union Army. 7
One of George’s men mentioned that Benteen was not a West Point graduate, nor was he an educated man, and outside of the military, he had no profession. Benteen was annoyed by the remarks, but maintained his composure. George then asked Elizabeth to bring him the scrapbook he had kept from his time in the Civil War and she complied. The veterans poured over the tome recalling various victories. George’s pride disgusted Benteen and he scowled at the young leader’s tales. The conversation grew heated when George produced a copy of the farewell address he gave his troops when the war ended. Benteen snapped back at George insisting that there were numerous generals much more skilled who offered better speeches; one such man was Brigadier General James Wilson. Benteen had fought beside Wilson during the Civil War. 8
Elizabeth was a bit taken aback by the gruff, near hostile turn of the discussion. Lieutenant Thomas Weir reached out to steady her. Ever so perceptively she gently leaned into his supportive arms. Years after Benteen first saw Elizabeth and Thomas at the Custer’s home, he claimed the pair was more than just friends. The subtle exchange between Thomas and Elizabeth did not miss Benteen’s attention – it was the gesture that sparked his suspicions.
Through gritted teeth Benteen began reciting a portion of Wilson’s farewell address. Elizabeth interrupted the officer, and in an effort to defuse the tension, offered to give him a tour of their quarters. Benteen declined and asked to be dismissed to continue on with his duties. George granted his request and the men parted company with a salute. 9
George was well aware everyone didn’t like him, but it had no bearing on the job he was assigned to do. The average recruit earned $13 a month and it was George’s job to make sure they were trained for combat. He expected a lot from his regiment and regularly drove the soldiers to their endurance and beyond. The soldiers participated in daily target practice with their Spencer repeat rifles and Colt Army revolvers, horseback riding drills, lessons in tactics and regimental discipline, and basic first aide. The work was tedious and exhausting. Disillusioned by the grueling pace of military life on the frontier, more than 80 enlisted men deserted before they served a full year at Fort Riley. 10
Those men who chose not to desert, but refused to obey orders were sent to the guardhouse. The facility was located outside the garrison and could hold a number of inmates. Disobedient soldiers interned there were nervous that the stockade would be overtaken by hostile Native Americans and they would have no way to defend themselves. Some tried to escape before their fears could be realized. 11 Elizabeth described a unique escape in her journal in the winter of 1867. “For several nights, at one time, strange sounds for such a place issued from the walls,” she wrote. “Religion in the noisiest form seemed to have taken up its permanent abode there, and for three hours at a time singing, shouting and loud praying went on. There was every appearance of a revival among those trespassers. The officer of the day, in making his rounds, had no comment to pass upon this remarkable transition from card playing and wrangling. He was doubtless relieved to hear the voice of the exhorters as he visited the guard, and indulged in the belief they were out of mischief.
On the contrary, this vehement attack of religion covered up the worst sort of roguery. Night after night they had been digging tunnels under the stone foundation – walls, removing boards and cutting beams in the floor, and to deaden the sound of the pounding and digging some of their numbers were told to sing, pray, and shout.
One morning the guard opened the doors of the rooms in which the prisoners had been confined, and they were empty! Even two that wore ball and chains for serious offenses had in some manner managed to knock them off, as all had swum the Smoky Hill River, and they were never again heard from.” 12
George needed desertions minimized, the prisoners in the stockade back in line, and the 7th Cavalry fully trained by spring 1867. General W.S. Hancock, commander of all the troops in the region had planned a full military campaign against the Cheyenne who were making trouble. “We’ll take a strong force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery out after them,” Hancock informed George. “We’ll try to scare them so they’ll make peace and settle down on the reservation which has been assigned to them. If they won’t, we’ll destroy them.” 13 George had mixed feelings about the Indians. Their ruthless attacks on Army troopers traveling the plains prompted him to refer to the Native Americans as “blood-thirsty savages.” But he was also torn between a soldier’s hatred of an ‘enemy’ and an admiration for why that enemy was fighting him. “If I were an Indian, I often think that I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people who adhere to the free open plains, rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation, there to be the recipient of the blessed benefits of civilization, with its vices thrown in without stint or measure.” 14
While George worked steadily to train the soldiers at Fort Riley to be the best on the plains, Elizabeth lamented the fact that he would be leaving for potentially hazardous duty. She was frightened for him and sad that she couldn’t go with him. “My husband tried to keep my spirits up,” Elizabeth wrote in her memoirs, “by reminding me that the council to be held with the chiefs of the war-like tribes, when they reached that part of the country infested with the marauding Indians, was something he hoped might result in our speedy reunion.” 15
The Custers sought relief from the stress of their pending separation by hosting social events for George’s staff and their families. Elizabeth held dinner parties and George invited his officers over to play poker. Benteen attended the soirees, but was highly critical of the couple’s behavior. He claimed that Elizabeth “presided with correctness over the army wives and had no scruples about favoring the wives of her husband’s allies and snubbing those of his enemies.” 16 He also maintained that George was an “inveterate and inferior gambler” and that his habit was obvious. 17
In Benteen’s letter to his friend, Theodore Goldin, written in late February 1867, he sited an example of George losing big at cards. Benteen joined George, Tom Custer, Lieutenant Myles Moylan, and Thomas Weir for an evening of five-hand poker with dime ante and table stakes. At one point in the game only three players remained, George, Thomas Weir, and Benteen. Believing he had a hand that would make up for the money he had lost early in the night, George suggested the stakes be raised to $2.50. Everyone agreed. George’s bad luck didn’t change. By the first morning light, Benteen had won a considerable amount. Thomas Weir lost more than a month’s salary ($150.00), and George’s debt was near double that amount. Neither had the money to cover their bets, but promised to pay Benteen as soon as they could. Benteen claimed he was never received what he was owed from either men. 18
As the time neared for George and his troops to leave the past on their expedition with General Hancock, Elizabeth became more anxious. The Fetterman massacre of December 1866 was fresh on her mind. Eighty soldiers led by Captain William J. Fetterman, were ambushed and killed near Fort Phil Kerney when they left the post to go to the aid of a woodcutting party. More than 1900 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Apache warriors took part in the slaughter. 19
Eight companies, consisting of infantry and artillery soldiers numbering more than 1400 men, would be accompanying George on the expedition, but Elizabeth believed it was too few. Other wives at the camp felt the same way. “No one can enumerate the terrors, imaginary and real, that filled the hearts of women on the border in those desperate days,” Elizabeth wrote in her memoir. “The buoyancy of my husband had only momentary effect in the last hours of his stay…such partings are a torture that is difficult even to refer to. My husband added another struggle to my lot by imploring me not to let him see the tears that he knew, for his sake, I could keep back until he was out of sight.” 20
In late March 1867, General Hancock, George and eight companies of troops marched out of Fort Riley towards Fort Larned. A meeting between the Army officers and the Cheyenne Chiefs to negotiate the transfer of the Indians to the reservation was scheduled for April 10th. The members of the 7th Cavalry arrived at the post on April 7th and helped get the camp ready to receive the Native American council. 21 The day before the meeting was to take place a violent snowstorm blanketed the fort and plains around it. The Cheyenne leaders not only refused to meet at the designated date because of the frigid weather, but also sited their irritation in the army for sending such a large expedition in the first place. General Hancock explained that he and his troops had come only to promote peace, but the Indians didn’t believe him. 22
George was not surprised that the Indians postponed the council. During his time on the frontier he had come to realize no Indian was in a hurry to adopt the white man’s manner of life. “In making this change,” George wrote in his journal, “the Indian has to sacrifice all that is dear to his heart; he abandons the only mode of life in which he can be a warrior and win triumphs and honors worthy to be sought after….” 23
General Hancock twice rescheduled the meeting between the military leaders and Plains Indian Chiefs – each time the date was ignored. Henry Morton Stanley and Theodore R. Davis, two journalists traveling with the cavalry, reported on how frustrated the General was that the Indians repeatedly failed to show. Readers of Harper’s Weekly, the Missouri Democrat, and the New York Herald publications where Stanley and Davis were employed, were informed by George that the Indians were more frightened than belligerent. 24 General Hancock didn’t agree. He viewed their behavior as a “commencement of war.” He ordered George to take his troops and track the fugitives down. 25
Back at Fort Riley, Elizabeth attended church to pray for the safe return of her husband and the other members of the 7th Cavalry. A small regiment of men had been left behind to guard the nearly deserted post. There were only two women at the camp besides Elizabeth. Each longed for God to protect their loved ones and lived in fear that petitions would not be answered. They ached for word from their husbands that all was well with them, but none came. 26
In addition to her concern for George, a distant grass fire, sparked by lighting was spreading across the prairie, inching its way toward the fort. There was no time for the soldiers to fight the blaze by burning a section of ground between the camp and the approaching fire. “In an incredibly short time we were overshadowed with a dark cloud of smoke,” Elizabeth wrote in her memoirs. “There were no screams, nor cries, simply silent terror and shivering of horror, as we women huddled together to watch the remorseless friend advancing with what appeared to be inevitable annihilation of the only shelter we had. Every woman’s thoughts turned to her natural protector, now far away….”27 Using blankets, gunnysacks and sheets, columns of stalwart soldiers beat the flames back. The fire danced around the post and continued on over the flat plains.
It would be weeks before news of the life threatening fire would reach George. Although Elizabeth wrote her husband daily the letters could not catch up with him as he pursued bands of Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Comanche Indians north. In mid-April 1867, George and his troops arrived at a stage stop called Lookout Station. The trail of Indians they had been following led them to the location 15 miles west of Fort Hays. At first the stop seemed to be deserted, but upon further inspection George discovered the
people who lived and worked at the depot had been brutally murdered. After they were slain their bodies were set on fire. The 7th Cavalry searched for weeks for the Indian offenders and found only more burned down state stations and slaughtered homesteaders. General Hancock was furious. He ordered George to continue to track the Indians, to kill them when he found them, and in between incinerate any abandoned Indian village they came on. 28
Before George and his men could go any further they needed to stock up on supplies. They held their position at Fort Hays awaiting fresh horses and feed for the animals and food for the field. George quickly sent for Elizabeth to join him at the post. On May 4, 1867, he wrote to tell her, “You will be delighted with the country.” “Bring a good supply of butter,” he added, “one hundred pounds or more; three or four cans of lard, vegetables – potatoes, onions, and carrots. You will need calico dresses, and a few white ones. Oh, we will be so, so happy.” 29
Elizabeth and George were reunited only for a brief time before the cavalry was directed to make their way to Fort McPherson, Nebraska. George was to help lead the expedition, which involved a more extensive search for wanted Indians along the Platte River. 30 The move infuriated Benteen who was already annoyed that Elizabeth was able to join George at the new command post. Not only did he feel he was infinitely more qualified to command the scouting party, but he longed to see his own wife, Kate, who was expecting their second child. The situation was made worse for Benteen when George didn’t consider him for the command position. He chose Thomas Weir instead, promoting him from 1st Lieutenant to Captain in the process. 31
George overlooked the grumbling and complaining from the soldier for the moment in order to focus on preparations for the long journey ahead. He kissed his wife goodbye on June 1, 1867, and with 350 men and 20 wagons in tow, headed south. While on the trail dissatisfaction among the ranks raised its ugly head. The troops were tired, sick of being on the move, and drinking was again on the rise. George was unable to persuade the men to abandon the habit. It wasn’t until a popular, well-liked officer with the 7th Cavalry got drunk and then shot and killed himself, that the troops changed their ways. George wrote about the incident in his memoirs on June 8, 1867, “…But for intemperance Colonel Cooper would have been a useful and accomplished officer, a brilliant and most comparable gentlemen. He leaves a young wife, shortly to become a mother. I thank God my darling wife will never know anxiety through intemperance on my part. Would I could fly to her now…but wise providence decrees all.” 32
The problem with drinking had subsided in the unit, but desertion was on the rise. Apprehensive about marching further into hostile territory, 35 soldiers decided to leave their post in a single day. George wrote Elizabeth and told her “severe and summary measures must be taken.” He directed his officers to shoot down the deserters as they fled the camp. A few men were killed and many other were wounded. George felt the extreme measures were necessary to show other troops such treasonous acts would result in harsh punishment. “The effect was all that could be desired,” he shared with Elizabeth. “There was not another desertion as long as I remained in command.” 33
Elizabeth’s letters, sent along with every passing stage finally reached George on the outskirts of Fort McPherson. He barely had time to read them before being summoned to a rendezvous with Sioux Indian leaders on the Southern Plains. George’s meeting with the Indians at their request resulted in their agreeing to relocate to a reservation in the coming days. When William Tecumseh Sherman, Commander of the Division of Missouri from 1866 to 1868, arrived on the scene in Nebraska he was not convinced the Indians would follow through. Frustrated by the unsuccessful attempts to move various Plains Indian tribes onto reservations and under pressure from Washington to stop
the killing of pioneers, Sherman ordered George to “clean out the renegades.” 34
Several weeks had past since George and Elizabeth had been together. Elizabeth kept herself busy with the demands of being an officer’s wife and maintaining the social obligations that would keep morale hopeful. During the tea parties and dinners she would host, she shared stories with the camp inhabitants about the emigrants she and George met en route to the fort. Heavy spirits were lighted by Elizabeth’s recollection of she George contemplating life on the frontier. “How well I remember the long wait we made on one of the staircases of the capitol at Washington, above which hung then the great picture by Leutze,” ‘Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way,’ she noted. “We little thought then, hardly more than girl and boy as we were, that our lives would drift over the country which the admirable picture represents…. The picture made a great impression on us. How much deeper the impression, though, had we known that we were to live out the very scene depicted.” 35
Even in the midst of organizing and implementing a search of the country around the fork of the Republican River, then pressing onward to Fort Sedgwick, Nebraska to receive additional orders, George had one thing on his mind, completing his assignment so he could get home to Elizabeth. His preoccupation with seeing her ultimately clouded his judgment. When the 7th Cavalry was within 75 miles of Fort Sedgwick, George decided to change course and make for Fort Wallace in western Kansas. Fort Wallace wasn’t that far from Fort Hayes where Elizabeth was staying. Just before the troops arrived at the post George sent couriers out with messages. One was for the commander at Fort Sedgwick asking for further orders and the second was for his wife, George wanted her to join him. “If you get a chance to come to Wallace, I will send a squadron there to meet you,” George urged Elizabeth. “I am on a roving commission, going nowhere in particular.” 36
The courier delivered the message to Elizabeth, but there was no time to respond. Heavy rains in he area and sudden flooding forced her and the civilians with her to higher ground at Fort Riley. 37
Two weeks passed with no word from Elizabeth. An anonymous letter about Elizabeth did reach George, however. The correspondence warned George that he should “look after his wife more closely.” 38 The letter suggested that she was emotionally attached to another man. Immediately following the shocking accusation came news that cholera had broken out at Fort Leavenworth and spread west to Fort Riley. Many people had died from the disease. George was frantic to know if his wife was among them. Rather than carry on with his superior’s orders, which were to “continue after the Cheyenne using Fort Wallace for a base,” George decided to deviate from them. 39
On July 19, 1867, Elizabeth sat alone in her quarters at Fort Riley. Her eyes were bleary from crying over the letters she hadn’t received from George. None of the usual activities in which she regularly amused herself, sewing, reading, painting, etc., held little interest. Elizabeth’s despair ended when George arrived. “The door behind which I paced uneasily, opened, and with a flood of sunshine that poured in, came a vision far brighter than even the brilliant Kansas sun,” Elizabeth recalled in her memoirs. “There before me, blithe and buoyant, stood my husband! In an instant, every moment of the preceding moment was obliterated.” 40
George would pay for his mad dash to see his wife. A discontented captain in his charge and the Colonel who granted him leave from duty, leveled charges against him. The Colonel told authorities that he was not fully awake when George asked him if he could travel to Fort Riley and denied giving him permission. The captain told military officials that he was excessively cruel to the men in his command and sited George’s order to shoot deserters as an example. “I knew my orders,” George admitted to the army’s disciplinary board. “But I made my own decision and acted on it. I think I was right and I’d do the same thing again if I had to. I’ll answer for what I did before the court and take the consequences, whatever they are.” 41
Elizabeth, along with a number of George’s friends and comrades in arms, considered the court martial proceedings, which began in August 1867, to be “nothing but an outbreak of the smoldering enmity and envy” towards him. Among the men who testified on George’s behalf and praised him for his courage and leadership ability were Tom Custer and Thomas Weir. Thomas was close beside Elizabeth during the trail. She sat at rigid attention throughout most of the unpleasant event. There were times while listening to the harsh criticism of her husband she seemed to weaken. Thomas would gently drape his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder and comfort her. George’s eye seldom left the review board; his posture was straight as a steel ramrod. 42
Benteen watched the scene unfold from the back row of the courtroom. He believed George to be an “over confident braggart” and had failed to make a “meaningful effort” to handle the recent events according to military regulations. Benteen and several other members of the cavalry anticipated that the judge in the trial would find George guilty and that his career in the army would be over. From Benteen’s perspective more than George’s career was in jeopardy. He observed the interaction between Elizabeth and Thomas. It appeared Thomas couldn’t keep his eyes off her and Elizabeth seemed to relish the attention. George seemed wholly unaware, his face set determinedly on the courtroom proceedings. 43
Chapter 5
1. Custer, Elizabeth Tenting on the Plains pg. 213, 380-385
2. Ibid., pg. 241, Frost, Lawrence General Custer’s Libbie pg. 158, Monaghan, Jay Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer pg. 281-283
3. Custer, Elizabeth Mrs. Custer at Fort Riley pg. 4, Fickert, Steve Mrs. Custer on the Plains pg. 2-4
4. Leckie, Shirley Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth pg. 90-92
5. Custer, Elizabeth Tenting on the Plains pg. 397, Frost, Lawrence General Custer’s Libbie pg. 159-160
6. Ibid.
7. Utley, Robert M. Cavalier in Buckskins: George Armstrong Custer & the Western Military Frontier pg. 47, Ladenheim, J.C. Custer’s Thorn: The Life of Frederick Benteen pg. 68-71
8. Ibid.
9. Carroll, John M. A Graphologist Looks at Custer and Some of His Friends pg. 7
10. Frost, Lawrence General Custer’s Libbie pg. 158
11. Custer, Elizabeth Tenting on the Plains pg. 453-455
12. Ibid.
13. Leighton, Margaret The Story of General Custer
pg. 122
14. Custer, George My Life on the Plains pg. 39-47
15. Custer, Elizabeth Tenting on the Plains pg. 484
16. Ladenheim, J.C. Custer’s Thorn: The Life of Frederick Benteen pg. 71
17. Barnett, Louise Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, & Mythic After Life of George Custer pg. 197, Benteen, Frederick Benteen and Goldin Letters pg. 247
18. Ibid., Ladenheim, J.C. Custer’s Thorn: The Life of Frederick Benteen pg. 71
19. Bowman, John S. The American West Year by Year pg. 94
20. Custer, Elizabeth Tenting on the Plains pg. 485
21. Leighton, Margaret The Story of General Custer
pg. 124
22. Ibid.
23. Custer, George My Life on the Plains pg. 17
24. Monaghan, Jay Custer: The Life of General Armstrong Custer pg. 284
25. Utley, Robert M. Cavalier in Buckskins: George Armstrong Custer & the Western Military Frontier pg. 49
26. Custer, Elizabeth Tenting on the Plains pg. 490
27. Ibid., pg 491
28. Custer, George My Life on the Plains pg. 270, Katz, Mark D. Custer in Photographs pg. 149
29. Merington, Marguerite The Custer Story pg. 201
30. Monaghan, Jay Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer pg. 291
31. Ladenheim, J.C. Custer’s Thorn pg. 73
32. Merington, Marguerite The Custer Story pg. 205, Katz, Mark D. Custer in Photographs pg. 149
33. Ibid., pg. 206
34. Monaghan, Jay Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer pg. 292
35. Custer, Elizabeth Tenting on the Plains pg. 596
36. Merington, Marguerite The Custer Story pg. 166
37. Frost, Lawrence General Custer’s Libbie pg. 166-168
38. Ladenheim, J.C. Custer’s Thorn: The Life of Frederick Benteen pg. 70-74, Carroll, John Custer from the Civil War pg. 7, Leckie, Shirley Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth pg. 102
?
39. Utley, Robert M. Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer & the Western Military Frontier pg. 41
40. Custer, Elizabeth Tenting on the Plains pg. 699, Custer, George My Life on the Plains pg. 77-79
41. Frost, Lawrence The Court Martial of General George Custer pg. 41-42, Daubenmier, Judy Empty Saddles: Desertion from the Dashing U.S. Cavalry Montana: The Magazine of the Western History October 1, 2004 pg. 2-4
42. Frost, Lawrence General Custer’s Libbie pg. 171
43. Leighton, Margaret The Story of General Custer pg. 134, Ladenheim, J.C. Custer’s Thorn: The Life of Frederick Benteen pg. 103
