The last letter Elizabeth sent George was written on June 22, 1876 from Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory. “My own darling,” she began, “I dreamed of you as I knew I should. Col. P. has sent word by scouts that the Post is to be attacked. I don’t feel alarmed, because we have so cool and cautious a commanding officer. He is vigilance itself. I am getting this off by tomorrow’s mail to Buford, Ohio. Oh, Autie how I feel about your going away so long without our hearing. …Your safety is ever in my mind. My thoughts, my dreams, my prayers, are all for you. God bless and keep my darling. Ever your own, Libbie.” According to her journal, Elizabeth was extremely bitter about the way Custer died. She blamed his fellow officers for leaving him and his men alone with no support. She ached for revenge. She was smart enough to temper if with common sense. If I had to be honest, the fact that she’d had a loved one taken from her by people who seemed not to care about the pain they inflicted and was vocal about their lack of compassion, was one of the things that attracted me to her story the most. Somehow she knew the parties she believed were responsible for letting her husband die would be punished. There were days when she was preoccupied with how to make them pay quickly. In the end she subscribed to a few principles I’d like to employ. They are as follows: “Delay in vengeance gives a heavier blow”, and “Revenge is a confession of pain.” I’ve just returned from the prison where my brother is located. He shakes so badly because of the Parkinsons it’s hard to talk to him about anything without crying. I left there overwhelmed with animosity and a strong desire to enact my own brand of justice on the truly unfeeling and sanctimonious four who brought all this pain into being. Once again I was reminded that’s not my place. Reading through Elizabeth’s journal reminded me of that fact. She was a strong believer in God. God asked us to forgive others who have so cruelly hurt us. When you forgive someone, you are not saying that what they did was right or even okay. You are saying that you want to be free from the memory and the bondage associated with the past. Unforgiveness has affected my prayer life. It affected Elizabeth’s prayer life. In His way and in His timing God will deal with those who have hurt us. Our responsibility is to forgive and let go of anything and everything that would prevent us from knowing God and walking in fellowship with Him each day. I don’t know that I would have been reminded of that over the last few days had I not been reading Elizabeth’s journal. It was a lesson I didn’t expect to find there.
