Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth - Hardcover

Leckie, Shirley A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806125012 ISBN 13: 9780806125015

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993

Synopsis

Georger Armstrong Custer’s death in 1876 at the Battle of the Little Big Horn left Elizabeth Bacon Custer a thirty-four-year-old widow who was deeply in debt. By the time she died fifty-seven years later she had achieved economic security, recognition as an author and lecturer, and the respect of numerous public figures. She had built the Custer legend, an idealized image of her husband as a brilliant military commander and a family man without personal failings. In Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth, Shirley A. Leckie explores the life of "Libbie," a frontier army wife who willingly adhered to the social and religious restrictions of her day, yet used her authority as model wife and widow to influence events and ideology far beyond the private sphere.

 

About this title

About the Author

Shirley A. Leckie, Professor of History at the University of Central Florida, is the author of Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth and Angie Debo: Pioneering Historian.

Reviews

Leckie (History/University of Central Florida) deftly discerns Elizabeth Custer's central role in the making of the Custer legend, thus simultaneously celebrating a strong woman and deflating a frontier hero. When George Armstrong Custer was killed in 1876 during the battle of Little Bighorn, his wife, Elizabeth, was only in her mid- 30s. Childless, she inherited a mass of debts--Custer was a notorious gambler--and the charge of securing her husband's reputation. Custer, the Union's daring boy general, had throughout his short life inspired either great affection or visceral dislike among his fellow soldiers. His death on the battlefield provided an opportunity for both his admirers and his detractors to define his place in history. To his critics, the battle, in which 210 of Custer's men lost their lives, was typical of the man's ambition and vanity--he would do anything to advance himself. In letters to the secretary of war, Custer's detractors accused the general of disobeying orders and indulging in reckless behavior--but they soon came up against Elizabeth, who, devotedly enduring all the privations of army life on the frontier, had accompanied her husband to Texas and out to the West. Widely respected and admired, she would soon silence the critics as she devoted the rest of her long life--she died in 1933--to creating and maintaining the legend of her beloved ``Autie,'' whom she eloquently extolled in well- received memoirs and lectures. Leckie records all the relevant biographical and historical events: the couple's courtship in Michigan; Custer's Civil War exploits; his postwar campaigns; the pair's married life, not always idyllic (Custer was a flirt as well as a gambler); and changing contemporary attitudes to the general's once heroic status. An admirably researched, well-wrought portrait of a talented woman who attained literary fame, financial independence, and--by shaping her husband's image and keeping his name alive--her ``heart's desire.'' -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

YA-An engrossing presentation of the life of George Armstrong Custer's wife and a valuable look at America's 19th century from an "average" woman's perspective. Elizabeth (Libby) Custer spent 57 years after the Battle of Little Bighorn glorifying the memory of her husband. This obsession led to many arenas, both political and social. Through friends such as Andrew and Louise Carnegie, Buffalo Bill, and William Sherman, she met many notables hoping they would exonerate her husband's name from any wrongdoing. Her own writings-Boots and Saddles and Following the Guidon lauded praises on him and made her a well-known writer of her day. Her influence and persona held back the critical analysis of her husband's military role until after her death. The few witnesses who chose to remain silent rather than upset Mrs. Custer did not outlive her. Therefore, many primary sources of the battle never reported the true conditions of the day. YAs might be turned off by the length and scholarly nature of the writing, but the table of contents allows students to peruse chapters that would be useful for research.
Linda Vretos, West Springfield High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In 1864 the charming Elizabeth "Libbie" Bacon (1842-1933) married the flamboyant George Armstrong Custer, a 23-year-old Civil War brigadier general. Adapting enthusiastically to military life, she traveled with her husband to frontier posts and actively promoted his career as he achieved fame driving the Sioux and the Cheyenne Indian tribes onto reservations. In this insightful and extensively researched biography, Leckie ( Unlikely Warriors ) provides a look into the Custers' political and cultural worlds and documents their conflicts as well as their strong erotic bonds. After her husband's death at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, Libbie supported herself by lecturing and writing about her life with him. She devoted her energies to idealizing Custer as a hero, attacking critics who asserted that he had disobeyed orders and led his men into certain death at Bighorn. Illustrations. History Book Club selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Using letters, diaries, and other contemporary accounts, Leckie (history, Univ. of Central Florida) has fashioned a biography of "Libbie," wife of the controversial George Armstrong Custer ("Autie"). This is as much a tale of the marriage and the general (who remains alive for two-thirds of the book) as of Libbie alone. Leckie portrays a union that, though passionate and companionable, was marred by jealousies resulting from frequent flirtations by both parties and by Autie's gambling. Nonetheless, Libbie's total acceptance of the 19th-century womanly ideal enabled her to work unstintingly for Custer's advancement while he lived and to perpetuate a heroic image of him after his death--effectively prohibiting any realistic assessment of the general until decades later. A brief epilog mentions some of the revisionist works that were subsequently published, now thought to be closer to the truth. This first biography of Elizabeth Custer should be appreciated by students of history and biography.
- Deborah Hammer, Queens Borough P.L., New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0806125012
• ISBN 13: 9780806125015
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 444