Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth

by Shirley A. Leckie

Overview

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.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806125015
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	05/15/1993
Pages:	444
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.34(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

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. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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

Library Journal

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

School Library Journal

A fascinating biography about the widow of George Armstrong Custer, who during the 57 years by which she outlived the famous general, built the Custer legend, an idealized image of her husband as "a boy's hero": a brilliant military commander, a solid Christian, a patriot, and a family man without personal failings. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Leckie has fashioned an insightful portrait of the significant contributions made by Elizabeth Bacon Custer to the development, promulgation, and perpetuation of the Custer myth. The author moves beyond the realm of mere biography, offering a cultural and psychological profile of the idealized version of nineteenth-century womanhood that both constrained and motivated Libbie Custer. As the wife of General George Armstrong Custer, Libbie provided emotional support to her volatile husband and bolstered his amazingly meteoric career at every opportunity; as his widow, she believed it was her solemn duty both to protect and embellish his rather questionable reputation as a brilliant military leader and a patriotic hero. After General Custer's death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, Libbie professionalized her widowhood, devoting the remaining 43 years of her life to glorifying his achievements via her prolific writings and her popular lecture tours. In fact, her tireless and lucrative efforts propagated a legend and made honest historical evaluation of Custer's skills as a commander and a tactician virtually impossible until after her death in 1933. A fascinating chronicle of a complex and intelligent woman ironically circumscribed and liberated by her adherence to the strict social conventions of her day.

Margaret Flanagan