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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.

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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.

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None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead:

The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

Elizabeth Custer’s father, Judge Bacon was apprehensive about his daughter’s plans to accompany her new husband to the still-war-torn Red River region in Louisiana. The cities and towns that lined the Red River in the northern portion of the state were leveled during the Union Army’s efforts to capture Shreveport, the headquarters for the Confederate Army in the trans-Mississippi area during the Civil War.

Judge Bacon was worried that it wasn’t a safe place for wives of Union officers. As one of the last Confederate strongholds, the shipping port community was overrun with carpetbaggers, lawbreakers, and hostile Rebel soldiers who were angry about the outcome of the war and steadfast in holding their ground. The judge hoped Elizabeth would return to Monroe and live with him and her stepmother until George settled at a more congenial post.

“I’m going with Autie,” Elizabeth told her father. “I’m always going to follow him wherever he’s ordered, if I can. I’ve made up my mind to do that.”

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

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None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead:

The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

Elizabeth paraded proudly around a small table set with a pristinely polished silver tea service and silver dinnerware. The elegant tea service came from the men in George’s command, the 7^th Michigan Cavalry. The dinnerware was a gift from the 1^st Vermont Cavalry. Both were not only generous wedding presents, but also a show of support for the Boy General and his leadership skills.

Elizabeth adjusted a large, ceramic vase in the center of the table and stood back to admire the scene. Hanging over the table was a large photograph of George, resplendent in his crisp uniform. Elizabeth smiled at the image staring back at her. Eliza Brown, the Custer’s capable cook and maid, watched the delighted bride through a crack in the kitchen door as she continued to fuss with the items on the table in an effort to make everything as perfect as possible.

A myriad of troops was hustling around outside the sturdy, two-story farmhouse in Culpeper County, Virginia, near the small town of Stevensburg where Elizabeth and her new husband made their home. George rode into the winter encampment of the Union Army, barking orders at his regiment to get to their bunks and prepare for the evening meal. Hundreds of soldiers rushed about, doing their duties as ordered.

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