Elizabeth B. Custer - Boots and Saddles Or, Life in Dakota With General Custer

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"Boots and Saddles" Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer by Elizabeth B. Custer With an introduction by JANE R. STEWART Norman University of Oklahoma Press

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title	:	Boots and Saddles : Or, Life in Dakota With General Custer Western Frontier Library ; V. 17
author	:	Custer, Elizabeth Bacon.
publisher	:	University of Oklahoma Press
isbn10 | asin	:	0806111925
print isbn13	:	9780806111926
ebook isbn13	:	9780806171012
language	:	English
subject	Custer, George Armstrong,--1839-1876, United States.--Army--Military life, Frontier and pioneer life--Dakota.
publication date	:	1961
lcc	:	F655.C93 1961eb
ddc	:	923.573
subject	:	Custer, George Armstrong,--1839-1876, United States.--Army--Military life, Frontier and pioneer life--Dakota.

Page vi Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-8999 ISBN: 0-8061-1192-5 "Boots and Saddles" is Volume 17 in The Western Frontier Library. New edition copyright 1961 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the U.S.A. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Page vii Dedicated to My Husband The Echo of Whose Voice Has Been My Inspiration

Page ix Introduction By Jane R. Stewart Much has been written about the dangers and privations experienced by soldiers and army officers on the western frontier, but little attention has been given to those faced by the women who followed their officer-husbands from one remote army post to another. And in many ways these wives are the true unsung heroines of the history of the Indian wars, for they waited patiently at home while their husbands were campaigning in the field. They were never sure when news would come or what that news would be. They could only wait. No battle in American history has resulted in more controversy than the Battle of the Little Big Horn River, where, on June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and five troops of the Seventh United States Cavalry were killed to the last man. Although the battle lasted but a few hours, or less, the controversy over it has continued for many years, principally because George Armstrong Custer was a very controversial figure in almost everything he undertook. Graduated from West Point at the outbreak of the Civil War under a disciplinary cloud, his rise to fame had been almost meteoric, and at twenty-three he had been promoted to brigadier generalthe youngest man to hold that rank prior to World War II. Physically strong, impulsive, and absolutely fearless, he was so uniformly successful that his exploits soon became

Page x almost legendary. And his name was constantly in the news. The story is told that at a White House reception, President Lincoln seemed very pleased to meet Mrs. Custer and greeted her with the words, "So this is the young woman whose husband goes into a charge with a whoop and a shout." Custer had campaigned with General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, and there were some who considered him to be Sheridan's "pet." Nevertheless, Custer was usually found in the forefront of any battle in which he participated, and there were many in which it seemed that he was the difference between victory and defeat. It is beyond doubt that his participation in the series of events which preceded the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox was a significant factor in bringing about that surrender, and for this Sheridan gave him full and ungrudging credit. And it was Custer with his genius for being in the right place at the right time who was on hand to receive the flag of truce from one of Lee's staff officers at Appomattox. With the end of the war and the shake-up of the army that followed, Custer reverted to the rank of captain in the Fifth Cavalry. But with the formation of a new regimentthe Seventh Cavalryorganized especially for service against the Indians of the Plains, he was appointed its lieutenant colonel. Its Colonel, Andrew J. Smith, spent little time with the regiment, and it was Custer who molded it into the efficient fighting organization that it became. And it was Custer who led it on the campaigns that made it one of the most famous regiments in the history of the army. Custer's success as an Indian fighter was such as to enhance an already brilliant reputation. But his career was tempestous as well as brilliant; in 1867 he had been court-martialed and sentenced to suspension from rank and pay for one year. But his successors in command had bungled their assignments badly, and before the expiration of his sentence, Custer at the specific request

Page xi of General Sheridan was recalled to duty. Then followed the campaign against the southern Indians which culminated in the Battle of the Washita, in what is now Oklahoma, which gave the regiment its reputation. But it also sowed the seeds of disaster, in that Custer was accused of abandoning a small detachment under the command of Major Elliott. This only intensified a factionalism which already existed in the regiment, for Custer had been too controversial a figure not to have bitter enemies as well as loyal friends. In the years immediately following the Battle of the Washita the regiment did little that was spectacular. Instead, it was on duty for several years in the states of the former Confederacy, where life was almost idyllic. But the Sioux and the Northern Cheyennes continued to be a menace on the Northern Plains, and in 1873 the regiment was ordered transferred to Dakota Territory with headquarters at Fort Abraham Lincoln, a few miles south of the then western terminal point of the Northern Pacific at Bismarck, North Dakota. It is with this transfer that Mrs. Custer begins her story in Boots and Saddles, the title of which is the cavalry call to action, although the subtitle Life in Dakota with General Custer is a more accurate one. In 1873 the regiment was a part of the Stanley Expedition which surveyed a railroad route along the Yellowstone River and in which they went as far west as Pompey's Pillar and had several brushes with the Sioux. In 1874 the regiment under Custer's command had explored the Black Hills, and his reports of "gold at the roots of the grass" had been a significant factor in causing the stampede of miners into the region which served to bring about the Sioux War of 1876.

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