Journal Notes

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The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

The town of Monroe, Michigan, was blanketed in snow on the morning of December 25, 1876.  The yard in front of the Custers’ home and the street beyond resembled an unfinished painting.  Much of the canvas was perfectly white, waiting for an artist’s hand to bring color into the scene.  Elizabeth sat by the window in her room watching the morning light struggle through the fog and cold.  At some point, she would need to get dressed and join her in-laws for breakfast, but she lacked the will to move.  It was her first Christmas without her husband, and the near paralyzing grief she thought she had learned to control found her.  Elizabeth turned away from the window, and her eyes settled on a framed photograph of Custer sitting on her bureau.  She remembered the awful moment when she had first heard the news of his death.  She would never forget the devastated look on the faces of the wives who had also lost their husbands that day.  “From that time the life went out of the hearts of the women who wept,” Elizabeth wrote in her memoirs, “and God asked them to walk alone in the shadows.”

To learn more about Elizabeth Custer and the other officer’s wives who lost their husbands at the

Battle of the Little Bighorn read The Widowed Ones.

Here’s what a few people have to say about

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

“Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian’s inspiring history title, The Widowed Ones, is about seven women who banded together to overcome their grief.  It is a compelling history text focused on women’s experiences following the Battle of the Little Bighorn.”

Foreword Clarion Review

“Readers interested in 19th-century, women’s and military history will be drawn into this thoroughly humane and sympathetic treatment of U.S. army widows.”

Library Journal

“The rigor of the scholarly research on display here is quite simply astonishing, as the authors seem to leave no stone unturned.”

Kirkus Review

“An extraordinary and inherently fascinating read from cover to cover, “The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn” is an amazing and original work historical scholarship that lifts these women from an undeserved obscurity and effectively introduce them to an appreciative new generation of historians and non-specialist general readers. The true life experiences of women widowed in the aftermath of one of most famous 19th Century encounters between Native Americans and the United States military known as the Battle of Little Bighorn, “The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn” is an impressively original contribution that will be enduringly valued by both academia and the general reader alike.

Enhanced with black-and-white historic photograph images, an informative Introduction, an eight page Bibliography, twelve pages of Notes, and an eight page Index, no community, college, or university library 19th Century American History can be considered comprehensive within the inclusion of “The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn” into their collection.

Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, “The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn” is an ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to 19th Century American Biography supplemental studies curriculums.”

Midwest Book Review

“This reviewer owns countless books on Custer and the battle at the Little Big Horn. Some are well researched. Some are well written. Few enjoy both qualities. “The Widowed Ones” scores ten in both respects.

It also presents an entirely new angle to the oft done subject matter. In other words, this is the best Custer book ever for the casual reader and the jaded western researcher.  Bravo! Chris Enss. She, in collaboration with Howard Kazanjian and Chris Kortlander, gives a stunning and emotionally charged view of the women that were left behind after the historic loss of George Custer’s command in 1876.

The book weaves its way through the devastation wrought upon Libby Custer and the widowed wives of the men that wore the blue of the 7th Cavalry.  Enss and Kazanjian do a terrific job detailing the women’s handling of loss; not only their husband’s demise, but also the pain of official criticism aimed to besmirch their loved ones, and their grappling with getting on with their lives without any apparent means.  The path Libby et. al. took is detailed in “The Widowed Ones”, an insightful glimpse of how the survivors cope, or don’t.  Each reader can measure their grit and resolute devotion to their fallen husbands.  It is a marvelous story.  Enss and company have filled in a neglected hole in one of the West’s greatest historical events.  If you are restricted to one last book purchase, this is the one.”

Green Valley News  Green Valley, Arizona

Arizona Daily Star  Tucson, Arizona

Creative works by authors from two countries and 24 states have been named finalists for the 2022 Will Rogers Medallion Awards (WRMA) celebrating excellence in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photography of the American West.  I’m honored to learn three of the books I’ve written are listed among the finalists.

Finalist in the category of Biography/Memoirs

The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship

Finalist in the category of Western Nonfiction

Iron Women: The Ladies Who Helped Build the Railroad

Finalist in the category of Western Photographic Essays

Happy Trails:

A Pictorial Celebration of the Life and Times of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

Enter now to win a copy of

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?”

Some of the other officers’ widows weren’t faring any better.  In early October, Elizabeth had received a letter from Eliza Porter.  Mrs. Porter had returned to Maine where she and her husband James had met and married.  She wanted her two sons to be near her family in Franklin County.  The Porter’s first child, David, had been born in 1871 in Massachusetts, and their second boy, James, had been born in March 1876 at Fort Abraham Lincoln.  Elizabeth had been with her at the birth.

To learn more about the Elizabeth Custer and the other widows read

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Enter now to win a copy of

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.

To learn more about the Elizabeth Custer and the other widows read

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 

As Variety film critic Cecelia Ager once wrote: “There ought to be a statue erected, or a Congressional Medal awarded, or a national holiday proclaimed, to honor that great woman, Margaret Dumont, the dame who takes the raps from the Marx Brothers. For she is of the stuff of which our pioneer women were made, combining in her highly indignant Duse, stalwart oak, and Chief Fall Guy—a lady of epic ability to take it, a lady whose mighty love for Groucho is a saga of devotion, a lady who asks but little gets it.” Thankfully, there is now STRAIGHT LADY by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian to properly celebrate the underrated Margaret Dumont. Chris has such a gift for telling fascinating tales about fascinating women, but this is my favorite. Delightful surprises in store for the fortunate reader. Marx Brothers’ and MGM fans are going to love this book!

Michael Troyan, MGM; HOLLYWOOD’S GREATEST BACKLOT

This reviewer owns countless books on Custer and the battle at the Little Big Horn. Some are well researched. Some are well written. Few enjoy both qualities. “The Widowed Ones” scores ten in both respects.

It also presents an entirely new angle to the oft done subject matter. In other words, this is the best Custer book ever for the casual reader and the jaded western researcher.  Bravo! Chris Enss. She, in collaboration with Howard Kazanjian and Chris Kortlander, gives a stunning and emotionally charged view of the women that were left behind after the historic loss of George Custer’s command in 1876.

The book weaves its way through the devastation wrought upon Libby Custer and the widowed wives of the men that wore the blue of the 7th Cavalry.  Enss and Kazanjian do a terrific job detailing the women’s handling of loss; not only their husband’s demise, but also the pain of official criticism aimed to besmirch their loved ones, and their grappling with getting on with their lives without any apparent means.  The path Libby et. al. took is detailed in “The Widowed Ones”, an insightful glimpse of how the survivors cope, or don’t.  Each reader can measure their grit and resolute devotion to their fallen husbands.  It is a marvelous story.  Enss and company have filled in a neglected hole in one of the West’s greatest historical events.  If you are restricted to one last book purchase, this is the one.

Columnist, Scott Dyke  Green Valley News  Green Valley, Arizona

The Battle of Little Bighorn or the Battle of Greasy Grass, the climax of the Great Sioux War of 1876, is remembered for the resounding, bloody defeat of U.S. forces (led by Lt. General George Armstrong Custer) by Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. Enss and co-author Howard Kazanjian (who together wrote None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead: The Story Of Elizabeth Bacon Custer), and their collaborator Chris Kortlander (founder of Montana’s Custer Battlefield Museum) examine this well-studied battle (part of the U.S. theft of Plains Indian lands in the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota) through the lens of Gen. Custer’s widow Elizabeth Custer and six other widows of Custer’s U.S. 7th Cavalry officers, focusing on how the widows processed their grief and attempted to rebuild their lives.

Drawing on never-before-seen archival material from the Elizabeth Custer Library and Museum in Garryowen, MT, (particularly correspondence among the seven widows, and between the widows and U.S. politicians, military leaders, and soldiers), Enss and Kazanjian recount how it fell to Elizabeth Custer to break the news of the massacre to the officers’ wives. In the years following, she kept in contact with many of them while answering reams of correspondence and defending her husband’s honor and conduct during the battle. Enss and Kazanjian write that some of the widows struggled with debilitating grief and were unable to process their husband’s fates, while others set out to secure government jobs to supplement meager U.S. army pensions.

VERDICT: Readers interested in 19th-century, women’s and military history will be drawn into this thoroughly humane and sympathetic treatment of U.S. army widows.

“Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian’s inspiring book, The Widowed Ones is a compelling history text focused on women’s experiences following the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  Clarion Rating: 5 out of 5”

Foreword Clarion Review

Enter now to win a copy of

The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Seventh Cavalry officers’ wives who lost their spouses at the Battle of the Little Bighorn survived the ordeal because of the friendship they had with one another.  No one else could understand their grief or help them get past the tremendous hurt.  The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian tells the stories of these women and the unique bond they shared.

Using never-before-seen materials from the Elizabeth Custer Library and Museum in Garryowen, Montana, including letters to and from politicians and military leaders to the widows, fellow soldiers, and critics of General George Armstrong Custer to the widows, and letters between the widows themselves about when the women first met, the men they married, and their attempts to preserver after the tragedy, Enss and Kazanjian share the tale of these stalwart women.

During the first year after the tragic event, the press sought the widows out to learn how they were coping, what plans they had for future, and what, if anything, they knew about the battle itself.  The widows were able to soldier through the scrutiny because they had one another.  They confided in each other, cried without apologizing, and discussed their desperate financial situations.

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian will be released in June 2022.  The title will be available wherever books are sold and through the National Book Network.

Early Reviews

“Once or twice in a lifetime comes a meticulously researched book that so radically changes your understanding of a historical event it is as though the scales fall from your eyes and you actually see what happened for the first time.  The Widowed Ones. Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn is that book.    Listen to the women’s side of the story.  We promise you will never be the same.”

Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear  New York Timesbestselling authors ofDissolution and The Ice Orphan  

 “The rigor of the scholarly research on display here is quite simply astonishing, as the authors seem to leave no stone unturned.  This is a perspicacious study that not only captures these particular women’s plights, but also an age in which independence for women came with extensive difficulties.”

Kirkus Review