Libby Custer was best known as wife to the Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, widowed when her husband was killed during the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1976.
Elizabeth "Libby was born in Monroe, Michigan in 1842, the daughter of a wealthy and influencial judge Daniel S. Bacon. As the only one of the judge's children that would live to adulthood, her father doted on her.
Elizabeth was talented, beautiful and intelligent, and her father hoped she would make a good marriage with a man from her own elevated social class. Elizabeth graduated as valedictorian from the Young Ladies' Seminary and Collegiate Institute in her hometown. Not long after, she met Captain George Custer.
Elizabeth was both beautiful and intelligent, and her father hoped she would make a good marriage with a man from her own elevated social class. Talented, intelligent, and beautiful, Elizabeth Custer graduated as valedictorian from the Young Ladies' Seminary and Collegiate Institute in her hometown. Not long after, she met Captain George Custer.
She met her future husband in 1862 in the midst of the American Civil War. She fell deeply in love with him but her father refused to allow them to get married. Custer was from a poor undistinguished family and the Judge hoped Libby would have better than the life of an army wife. After Custer was promoted to Brevet Brigadier General, Judge Bacon finally relented and they were married on February 9, 1864.
Libby Custer accompanied her husband riding in the ranks everywhere he was stationed: from the front lines in Virginia - where he became a Major General - to postwar assignments in Texas, Kansas and the Dakota Territory.
But as "first lady" of the army's Fort Lincoln, she set the social tone for the post. She hosted multiple events for the officers and area dignitaries.
1873 O. S. Goff Photo of Ft. Lincoln Officers
Although Elizabeth lived fifty-seven years after her husband's death, she kept her marriage vows, fulfilling what she believed were her responsibilities as "the widow of a national hero" by lecturing around the world. Known throughout her life for her undying devotion to her husband, she was the only officer's wife to live in a tent on the edges of the Civil War battlefield, ride in the ranks with the soldiers, and accompany the 7th Cavalry on many of its expeditions. During those adventures, she wore her own uniformed dresses to show her dedication to her husband and the US Army. Forever a heated topic for debate, the controversy of George Armstrong Custer and his influence on the West fueled Libby Custer's efforts to author three books on her husband's military career and her lifelong mission to counter the claim by then US President Ulysses S. Grant the defeat at Little Big Horn was solely due to Custer's leadership. Her three books, Boots and Saddles, (1885), Following the Guidon (1890); and Tenting on the Plains, (1893) were brilliant pieces of propaganda aimed at glorifying her dead husbands memory. However she did not limit her publications to her husband and his military career. In 1900, she authored the children's story "The Kid" which was published in the St Nicholas Magazine, complete with illustrations.
She died just days short of her 91st birthday on April 6, 1933 in her home in New York City. She is buried next to her husband at West Point Military Academy in New York.
