How the West Was Worn: Bustles and Buckskins on the Wild Frontier

Currently #45 on Amazon’s best seller ranking in the category of Antique & Collectible Textiles & Costumes

Fashion that was in vogue in the East was highly desirable to pioneers during the frontier period of the American West. It was also extraordinarily difficult to obtain, often impractical, and sometimes the clothing was just not durable enough for the men and women who were forging new homes for themselves in the West. Full hoopskirts were of little use in a soddy on the prairie, and chaps and spurs were a vital part of the cowboy’s equipment.

In this book, author Chris Enss examines the fashion that shaped the frontier through short essays; brief clips from letters, magazines, and other period sources; and period illustrations demonstrating the sometimes bizarre, often beautiful, and frequently highly inventive ways of dressing oneself in the Old West.

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The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Elizabeth Custer and Annie Yates sat on the front porch of the Yates home watching Annie’s children playing in the yard.  A stack of papers rested in the laps of both women, and, when they weren’t distracted by the unremarkable daily tasks of their new lives without their husbands, they sifted through the letters and government paperwork that had steadily arrived since late July 1876.

The summer of 1876 had passed slowly. The men who died at the Little Bighorn were sorely missed. Elizabeth had taken to sleeping with one of Custer’s shirts.  It smelled like him, and, at night when she longed to have him near, it helped ease her pain. Annie spent evenings after the children were in bed writing letters to her deceased husband. She knew he was gone, but she had an overwhelming need to communicate with him about their little ones and the difficulty she was having moving on.  Elizabeth and Annie had found unique ways to deal with their grief and by mid-fall were venturing out into public, if only to visit one another.  Maggie Calhoun, on the other hand, still struggled, refusing to leave her parents’ home to even attend church. “Now that Bubbie is gone,” Maggie shared with Elizabeth about James Calhoun’s death, “…I do not feel that mentally I am fitted to fill any position of usefulness to others.”

Nettie Smith’s correspondence to Elizabeth revealed her struggle to move forward from the tragedy as well. “Last night I found a diary kept by Smithie on the Yellowstone Expedition [1873] in which so often he writes of his ‘little wife’. In one place he says, ‘These are hard marches, but it is consoling to know that we are marching toward my little wife Dudds.  God bless her!  Only about a month separates us.’  Oh, if that last part could only be true now.  I realize the terrible truth more and more every day.  Where shall we find the strength to endure?”

To learn more about Elizabeth Custer and her friends read

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

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The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Thirty-four-year-old Elizabeth Bacon Custer filed into the Methodist church in Monroe, Michigan, on August 13, 1876, with hundreds of others attending the memorial service of her husband of twelve years, General George A. Custer, and five of his officers killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  She was adorned in a black bombazine (silk) dress with black fringe and a black bonnet with a black crepe veil.  The mourning outfit would be her standard wardrobe for years to come.  She walked mechanically, but purposefully, down the center aisle, her eyes focused on a reserved seat in the front pew.  Friends and acquaintances smiled piteously at her as she passed; some refrained from looking at her at all.  Those who knew of her and her well-known husband by reputation only stood on tiptoe and craned their necks to watch her every move.

The heat that afternoon was sweltering.  Members of the Baptist and Presbyterian churches had joined the Methodists to pay tribute to the slain soldiers who were raised in the town located on the western shores of Lake Erie.  The combination of congregants along with the other funeral goers made the atmosphere in the house of worship oppressive.  Halftones from the bright sun diffused through the stained-glass windows cast a colorful light on the portrait of General Custer sitting on the organ next to a magnificent podium in the very front where the pastor delivered his weekly sermons.  Custer’s picture was surrounded with an evergreen wreath, and two sabers crossed underneath the picture.  The names of Captain Yates and Henry Armstrong Reed were scrawled across ribbons encompassing another display in evergreen.

Elizabeth’s attention was fixed on the national flag close to the lectern.  She was quiet and composed.  Her sister-in-law, Margaret (Maggie) Calhoun, was anything but that.  She struggled to control her crying.  She was grieving over the losses of her husband, Lieutenant James Calhoun; her three brothers, General George Custer, Captain Thomas Ward Custer, and Boston Custer; and her nephew Henry Armstrong Reed.  Anxiety was written in Annie Yates’ every feature.  Her husband, Captain George W. Yates, had also lost his life.  More than a month had passed since Custer’s Seventh Cavalry met their end at the hand of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians in Montana Territory.  The bodies of the widows’ loved ones still remained behind at the battle site.

To learn more about Elizabeth Custer and her friends read

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

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The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

On Saturday, May 27, 1876, Henrietta “Nettie” Smith, her good friend Elizabeth Custer, and several other soldier’s wives made their way to the steamship Far West, docked in the waters near Fort Lincoln.  They were excited and filled with purpose.  They planned to persuade the ship’s captain, Grant Marsh, to transport them up the Missouri, to the Yellowstone River near where their husbands were camped.  The wives of the Seventh Cavalry officers had met with their spouse in the field before, some living in tents with them while they performed their duties, so the request wasn’t out of the ordinary.  When the troops had marched away from the fort a mere nine days prior, the goodbyes had been emotional and touching Nettie Smith, who had been married to Lieutenant Algernon Smith for more than nine years, was desperate to see him again.  A sense of fear and foreboding over his safety had overtaken her and letters he had written assuring her he was fine could not convince her he was well.

Far West crew members welcomed the women aboard the vessel and as per the custom, Captain Marsh ordered a meal prepared for them.  Nettie, Elizabeth, and the other wives were escorted the ship’s dining room where they were served “as dainty a luncheon as the larder of the board could afford.”  Elizabeth requested the captain join them and he reluctantly did so.  He was busy preparing the steamship to rendezvous with the Seventh Cavalry.  He and his thirty-man crew were loading the vessel with food, ammunition, and other supplies the troops would need.  There wasn’t a moment to spare.

After listening patiently to the officer’s wives request, Captain Marsh explained that in the best of circumstances “he did not wish to be burdened with many passengers for whose safety and comfort he would be responsible.”  He went on to inform the women that the anticipated voyage to the Yellowstone River to be “both dangerous and uncomfortable.”  This revelation did not cause the women to change their minds about their objective.  They believed their place was with their husbands wherever they were and whatever peril might lie ahead.

To learn more about the friendship between the grieving soldier’s wives read

The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Join the Prescott Western Heritage Museum on June 8 for the 2nd annual Gala featuring

Chris Enss as our keynote speaker. She is a very funny speaker & expert on women of the Wild West!

Call 928-910-2307 for tickets.