Elizabeth B. Custer - Böcker

The honeymoon of Elizabeth Bacon and George Armstrong Custer was interrupted in 1864 by his call to duty with the Army of the Potomac. Her entreaties to be allowed to travel along set the pattern of her future life. From that time onward, she did indeed accompany General Custer on all his major assignments except the summer Indian campaigns, "the only woman," she said, "who always rode with the regiment." This is the story of Elizabeth B. Custer (1842–1933), told in her own words. She was not only a housewife on the Plains; she was whatever the occasion demanded: nurse to a group of frostbitten soldiers; any-hour-of-the-day hostess to the regiment, since her husband was not fond of entertaining; the garrison's favorite confidante (and many an interesting story she has to tell); and would-be Indian fighter whenever the women of the regiment had to be left alone. Boots and Saddles also offers a gentle, loving portrait of George Armstrong Custer, husband and man, by the person who knew him best. Elizabeth Custer's absolute devotion to him is revealed in every line of her story, which ends, appropriately enough, with the day on which she received the news of the disaster at Little Big Horn.

The honeymoon of Elizabeth Bacon and George Armstrong Custer was interrupted in 1864 by his call to duty with the Army of the Potomac. She begged to be allowed to go along, thus setting the pattern of her future life. From that time on, she accompanied General Custer on all of his major assignments, aside from the summer Indian campaigns - ""the only woman,"" she said, ""who always rode with the regiment.""Her story, told by herself, is an absorbing adventure. Moreover, there is a added bonus - a gentle, loving portrait of George Armstrong Custer, husband and man, by the person who knew him best, his wife. Her absolute devotion to him is revealed in every line of her account, which ends, appropriately enough, with the day on which she received the news of the disaster at the Little Big Horn.

From the time of her husband's death at the Battle of the Little Big Horn until her own death fifty-seven years later, at the age of ninety, Mrs. George Armstrong Custer devoted herself to defending or embellishing her husband's reputation.This account, the second in Elizabeth's trilogy of her life with the General, focuses on the period immediately following the Civil War, when the Custers were stationed in Louisiana, Texas, and Kansas. She portrays the aftermath of the Civil War in Texas and life in Kansas while her husband took part in General Winfield Hancock's 1867 expedition against the Indians between the Arkansas and Platte rivers. Throughout, she provides detailed descriptions of an army officer's home life on the frontier during this major period of Indian unrest.This edition, an abridgment of the original 1887 edition, with an Introduction by Jane R. Stewart and a Foreword by Shirley A. Leckie, brings together in a single volume one of the most significant documents of the Old West, here made accessible to a new generation of readers.