Journal Notes

Advance praise for Mochi’s War:

“The authors have again collaborated to write Western history in an accurate yet accessible manner for mainstream readers…this biographical account provides a counterpoint to the many works that have mythologized such women as Pocahontas and Sacajawea.” – Library Journal ***starred review***

Select praise for other books by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian:

“Unbelievable…” – The New York Post (Death Row All-Stars)

“Bittersweet and engrossing…” – True West Magazine (The Cowboy and the Señorita)

MOCHI’S WAR: The Tragedy of Sand Creek

TwoDot, an imprint of Globe Pequot, is proud to announce the June 16, 2015 release of Mochi’s War: The Tragedy of Sand Creek, by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian (978-0-7627-6077-0, $16.95 trade paperback).

After the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, one woman survived physically unharmed, but emotionally devastated by the destruction of her tribe and determined to avenge her dead relatives. Her story has rarely been told, and Mochi’s War is the first book to tell it in full.

On November 28, 1864, Colonel John Chivington and his militia attacked a Cheyenne Indian village in southeastern Colorado. Between 150 and 200 Cheyenne Indians were estimated killed, nearly all elderly men, women, and children. The events at Sand Creek motivated Mochi to embark a decade long reign of terror. With each raid she remembered the horror of the massacre, and it goaded her on to terrible violence against those encroaching on Indian soil. The war between the Indians and the government lasted ten years after the Sand Creek Massacre occurred. Mochi’s war ended with her arrest and imprisonment in 1874 – the only woman ever to be incarcerated by the United States as a prisoner of War.

Mochi’s War: The Tragedy of Sand Creek explores the story and its repercussions into the last part of the nineteenth century from the perspective of a Cheyenne woman whose determination swept her into some of the most dramatic and heartbreaking moments in the conflicts that grew through the west in the aftermath of Sand Creek.

A portion of the book’s proceeds will go to the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.

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.

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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.

Don’t Miss Out!  Enter now to win a copy of

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.

Don’t miss out. Enter to win a copy of

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

A full moon hovered over South Monroe Street, and beams of light from the gigantic orb filtered through a cluster of clouds. Twenty-one-year-old George Armstrong Custer stumbled through the scene, helped along by a friend who steadied his walk and kept him from falling. Both men were dressed in the uniform of the 5^th Cavalry, and both had been drinking. In fact, George was drunk. It was late, and apart from the two inebriated soldiers, the street was deserted.

It was the fall of 1861, and numerous leaves had dropped off the massive trees lining the thoroughfare, drifting across the path the men followed. George was making his way to his sister Ann Reed’s home, where he had been staying while recovering from a slight illness contracted after the Battle of Bull Run. George had carried dispatches to the Union troops holding their position against the Confederate Army lined along Bull Run Creek near a railroad center called Manassas Junction in Virginia. The battle had ended when the Union Army was ordered to fall back toward Washington, and the accompanying downpour of rain had left George suffering with chills and fever. He was sent back to Monroe to recuperate, and as George’s condition improved, he started venturing out to local taverns where his friends gathered.

Arm in arm with his school chum, an intoxicated George and his buddy staggered down the roadway, singing at the top of their lungs. The commotion woke his sister, who raced to the front window of her house, followed closely by her husband and children, to see who was disturbing the quiet, respectable neighborhood.

George was unaware that Judge Bacon, Elizabeth Bacon’s father had witnessed the scene. He also had no idea that Elizabeth herself had been gazing out of her upstairs bedroom window at the same moment. She wasn’t surprised at the sight, having seen other young men who’d had too much to drink. She considered his actions standard fare, and the following morning, barely remembered the spectacle George had made of himself the night before.

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

Coming in October!

Entertaining Women:  Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

This collection of short stories of the women who entertained the West in makeshift theaters and palaces built to showcase the divas who were beloved by emigrants to the “uncivilized” West will feature well-known and lesser known dancers, singers, and actresses and their exploits. Author Chris Enss will bring her comedic timing and long experience writing about the time and culture of the West to this collection.