Enter to win. Final week to enter to win a copy of

None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead: The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

A group of some forty officers and their wives congregated in the parlor of George and Elizabeth Custer’s home at Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory. A fiddler entertained several men and women at one end of the tastefully decorated room. More guests paraded past a table filled with a variety of food and drinks at the other. Elizabeth remained by the door, kindly welcoming latecomers to the party, already in progress. She touched a finger to her lips, indicating that the attendees should enter quietly.

The music stopped, and a hush fell over the guests. Elizabeth’s sister-in-law Margaret Calhoun and her husband, Tom, and family friend Agnes marched into the parlor and crossed to the musicians. All three wore costumes: Maggie dressed as a Sioux Indian maiden. Agnes and Tom were dressed as Quakers. George and the others in attendance stifled a chuckle as the trio struck a dignified pose for the captive audience. They were acting out a scene from a current event in the region. The object of the entertaining charade, or tableau, was to guess the event and whom the players represented.

Partygoers enthusiastically shouted out their best guesses. Others issued comical remarks that made everyone erupt into laughter. When guests announced that the performers were portraying Quaker missionaries evangelizing to Native American, the actors broke character and took a bow. The happy audience applauded their efforts, and the music started up again.

To learn more about Elizabeth Bacon Custer and how she lived to glorify her husband’s memory read None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead.

Enter to win. Final week to enter to win a copy of

None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead: The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

Spirited music and laughter burst through the doors of Chicago’s Opera House. The velveteen drapes subdued the whir of roulette wheels that lined the theatre lobby and muffled the voices of the faro dealers. Patrons poured into the establishment, seeking entertainment and shelter from the freezing cold. Chicago was a city of handsome dwellings whose elegance and refinements were reflected in the brilliant social life. A throb beat through its every artery. One of the many acts that attracted the attention of the bustling crowds was Lydia Thompson’s British Blondes. This troupe of celebrated actresses, boasting overwhelming proportions and specializing in dancing and pantomime, performed nightly for packed houses. They had many devoted famous fans, including the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, Wild Bill Hickok, and George Custer.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday in 1869, when George had left for his travels east without Elizabeth, he had attended the show a couple times, enjoying not only the burlesque styling of the irresistible sirens, but also partaking in the popular games of chance that greeted people when they entered the building. George had been in in Michigan taking care of family business and then he had traveled to Illinois to visit Philip Sheridan, his former army commander and respected mentor, who was ill. News that he was in the Windy City spread quickly, and George was soon inundated with invitations to attend dinners and theatrical openings. His reputation as a soldier and military leader, combat experience, preceded him. Everyone wanted to be in George’s company, as he delighted in the attention.

To learn more about Elizabeth Bacon Custer and how she lived to glorify her husband’s memory read None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead.

Time is running out. Enter to win a copy of

None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead: The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

The day was gray, and a raw, cold wind swirled outside the windows of the late judge Daniel Bacon’s home in Monroe, Michigan. It was early fall, 1868. The judge’s daughter, Elizabeth, and son-in-law, George, sat inside the parlor of the stately home, each quietly involved in his or her own task. George was hunched over a writing table, working on a book about his days at West Point. Elizabeth set aside some sewing she was doing and drifted over to a piano in the corner of the room. Her husband glanced up from his writing long enough to see Elizabeth wasn’t going far. After weeks of being apart, he wanted her near him at all times.

The genteel army wife made herself comfortable at the polished keyboard and then reached for a stack of music bound in a faded leather pouch. She untied the ribbon holding the music together and sifted through the pages. Inside one of the pieces of sheet music was a daguerreotype of George. It had been taken in April 1865, and he was dressed in the uniform of a major general, the two stars on his collar clearly displayed. Some of the music had left its imprint on the picture, the notes like a melody over his face.

Elizabeth sat her husband’s picture on the stand next to the song she selected and began to play. The ebullient sound filled the air. Although he was tapping his foot in time with the beat, George’s attention was trained on the assignment before him.

To learn more about Elizabeth Bacon Custer and how she lived to glorify her husband’s memory read None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead.

Enter to win a copy of

None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead:

The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

George Custer raced his stallion, Jack, at full speed over the seemingly limitless 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. Reaching a steep decline, he abruptly brought his horse to a halt. Elizabeth, riding sidesaddle and dressed in a black riding skirt, uniform jacket, and a light-blue felt hat with a leather visor in front known as an excelsior hat, pulled farther 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 and then suddenly dropped back down, coming 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 toward a distant, tumbled pile of thunderheads, sooty black at their base and 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 mount. Draping their arms around each other 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.”

To learn more about Elizabeth Bacon Custer and how she lived to glorify her husband’s memory read None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead.