Calhoun Margaret Custer - The other Custers: Tom, Boston, Nevin, and Maggie in the shadow of George Armstrong Custer

Copyright 2018 by Bill Yenne

Foreword 2018 by George Armstrong Custer IV

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Cover photo credit: Top, left, and center photos courtesy of Little Bighorn Notional Monument.

Right photo courtesy of Monroe News

ISBN: 978-1-510-73034-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-510-73035-9

Printed in the United States of America

THE CUSTER SIBLINGS WERE:

George Armstrong Custer (18391876)

Nevin Johnson Custer (18421915)

Thomas Ward Custer (18451876)

Boston Custer (18481876)

Margaret Emma Custer Calhoun (18521910)

Three of the four Custer boys died violently on the same day in the most celebrated battle within the United States since the Civil War.
Margarets husband died there as well.

The younger Custer boys were known among the immediate family by the single-syllable nicknames Nev, Tom, and Bos. Margaret was known universally as Maggie, and is known as such herein. Likewise we use the nickname Tom for Thomas.

George Armstrong Custer was rarely referred to as George. Within the family, he was formally known as Armstrong, though when he was a young child he pronounced his name as Autie, and by this name he was most commonly referred by the family and by his wife and friends. Taking the liberty of familiarity, we follow suit herein. His single-syllable nickname, occasionally seen in family correspondence, was Aut. During his life, and in the years after his death, his wife and family routinely referred to him in the third person as the General, a reference to the brevet rank of major general that he held for three years during the Civil War.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the preparation of this book, I am indebted to many people who helped supply information, who answered questions, and who aided me in sorting out details. Special thanks are due to George Armstrong Custer IV, who helped with much information about his family; to Cindy Hagen at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, who gave me access to many historical photographs; to my wife, Carol, who is a brilliant genealogist; and to Charmaine Wawrzyniec at the Monroe County Library in Michigan, who generously shared countless items from their immense collection of Custer family material, and who devoted a great deal of time to answering so many of my questions.

The vital statistics herein are from state and county records, the US Census, military records, and the indispensable early twentieth-century work of family genealogist Milo Custer (18791952). Other sources, including books and periodicals, are cited in the text and detailed in the bibliography.

FOREWORD

The Custer Family

My grandfather, Brice Calhoun William Custer, was the first family member to enlist in the service since the Little Big Horn. My dad would occasionally tell me stories about his fathers career. Amongst Dads papers one day, I found a short biography he documented about his father, Brice. Describing his military service, a few paragraphs caught my eye. He would write:

Shortly after World War I started, farm boys were given their high school diplomas and told to go help their fathers get the crops in. Instead, Brice went to Detroit to enlist in the Navy at age 16. He advised them he was 18. However the physical showed he had an enlarged thyroid, common in Michigan prior to iodized salt. Disappointed, he went home, pondering his fate, and went to Toledo to try again. He artfully explained that they must have made a mistake in Detroit. His feet didnt look flat to him. Toledo agreed and he was in.

His service was not uneventful. He survived the great flu epidemic during boot camp. Assigned to the black gang (coal fired boilers) of a ship going up and down Chesapeake Bay, he was caught up in a riot following the killing of a Marine guard in Newport News. Shot in the leg, he survived a bedside court of inquiry. In the meantime he was quartered next to the detention barracks for underage sailors and Elizabeth Custer (the Generals widow), incensed that he was in the Navy, paid the Secretary of the Navy a personal visit demanding that he at least transfer Brice to the Marine Corps. All this illustrious service came to a merciful ending by release from active duty in 1919 and honorable discharge from the Navy Reserve in 1921.

I was always amazed that it appears she was less concerned about the wound and more concerned that my grandfather had entered the Navy! But worry not. He would enlist again (the Army of course) in 1922, and served a long and distinguished career.

Almost a hundred years ago, in February of 1924, a letter arrived at the door of my grandparents, Brice and Lenore Custer of Monroe, Michigan. It was addressed to them from Elizabeth Custer. She related:

My dear Brice and Lenore;

I am so pleased that you have named your little son for your Uncle Autie. That there should be two named for him in Monroe (the town I love best in the world) makes me happy. And the beautiful statue will make your little son so much better acquainted with his uncle than any picture.

Affectionately,
Aunt Elizabeth

The first namesake she refers to would have been Nevin Custers first son, who would pass away five years later at the age of sixty-five. The second was my father, Colonel George Armstrong Custer III. This letter would become his prized possession and his bridge to the past, a bridge he happily crossed over many times in his life. As his father before him, he became a career military man; both men reached the rank of colonel and both became decorated combat vets, culminated by their both receiving the Silver Star. And both, as well as my uncles Colonel Charles Custer and Major Brice Custer, all Monroe boys, were staunch defenders of the Custer name.

I fondly remember a day in Monroe, over thirty-five years ago, when my father was talking to my wife and I about deceased family members while visiting the Custer burial plot. In my amazement, he could methodically identify our family members buried there and tell a story about each one, some of whom he never met, and most of whom I still have a difficult time keeping straight.

He would like to tell the story of Boston Custer and Autie Reed, both of whom perished at the Little Big Horn. In 1877 the Army would not pay for the removal and shipment of their remains to Monroe, as they were civilians. In fact the Army would not even pay for the removal and reburial of the officers initially. The Custer family received gracious help from the Calhoun family, who retrieved the bodies in the middle of hostile territory and then shipped them to Monroe on their own dime. The Reeds and Custers then started the Custer/Reed plot at Woodland cemetery in Monroe, where today over twenty-seven family members rest in peace. My father and mother were the last Custers to have been buried there.