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George Armstrong Custer Envelope to His Wife Shortly before Battle of Washita
George Armstrong Custer Envelope to His Wife Shortly before Battle of Washita
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Description:

Custer George



George Armstrong Custer Envelope to His Wife Shortly before Battle of Washita 

Much of the popular legend surrounding the dashing figure of George Armstrong Custer came from the pen of his devoted wife, Elizabeth. Married to the young army officer for only a dozen years, Elizabeth Bacon Custer traveled with her husband to his frontier army assignments and later wrote three books on her experiences.

 

GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER, Autograph Document, Envelope addressed to “Mrs Genl G A Custer / Monroe / Mich.” and postmarked in [Hays City, Kansas in October [1868. Includes two 3-cent Washington postage stamps. Docketed with date of “Oct 26 / 68.” 1 p., 5.125" x 3" Envelope cut on left end to open. Otherwise fine.

 

Historical Background


In 1867, Civil War General George A. Custer was court-martialed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for being absent without leave. He was suspended from the army for one year, during which he and his wife lived at Fort Leavenworth. He returned to the army in August 1868 and joined his regiment, based at Fort Leavenworth, to October 7, 1868. He then went on frontier duty in Kansas and Indian Territory (Oklahoma) until October 1869.  In the winters of 1869-1870 and 1870-1871, George A. Custer left his wife at Fort Leavenworth and traveled to the East. He often stopped in Detroit and his nearby hometown of Monroe to visit family, friends, and Civil War comrades.

 

This envelope originally contained a letter from Custer in Kansas to his wife in Michigan. Custer mailed it from Hays City, Kansas, the site from 1866 to 1889 of Fort Hays. Major General Philip Sheridan, supported by Lieutenant Colonel Custer, used Fort Hays as his headquarters during the 1868-1869 campaign against the Cheyenne and Kiowa. A month after sending this letter, Custer led his 7th U.S. Cavalry in an attack on Black Kettle’s Southern Cheyenne camp on the Washita River (in western Oklahoma). In the ensuing attack, U.S. soldiers killed dozens of Cheyenne men, women, and children, though precise numbers have been disputed since the time, as has the designation of the conflict as a battle or a massacre. Native Americans killed included Chief Black Kettle and his wife. Among Americans killed was Captain Louis McLane Hamilton, grandson of founding father Alexander Hamilton.

 

George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) was born in Ohio but spent much of his childhood in Monroe, Michigan. He entered the United States Military Academy in 1857 and graduated early in June 1861, last in his class. Commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the cavalry, he participated in the defense of Washington and the Peninsula campaign of 1862. He received promotions and by the summer of 1863 was one of the youngest generals in the Union Army at age 23. He served as brigadier general of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade. For action at the Battle of Gettysburg, he was promoted to major in the regular army. He married Elizabeth Clift Bacon in February 1864, and led his brigade in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Custer’s division blocked Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s retreat, forcing his surrender at Appomattox Court House. General Philip Sheridan gave the table on which the surrender was signed to Elizabeth Custer. After he mustered out of volunteer service, Custer returned to the regular army and received a commission as lieutenant colonel of the 7th Cavalry regiment, headquartered in Kansas. He participated in various actions against Native Americans over the next decade until killed by the Sioux at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876.

 

Elizabeth Clift Bacon Custer (1842-1933) was born in Michigan as the daughter of an influential and wealthy judge. She graduated from a girls’ seminary at the head of her class in June 1862. She first met George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) in the autumn of 1862, but her father thought Custer was beneath her, and he wanted her to have a better life than that of an army wife. After Custer received promotion to brevet brigadier general in 1863, Judge Bacon was more approving and allowed Elizabeth to marry Custer on February 9, 1864, in Michigan. Both George and Elizabeth Custer were ambitious and stubborn, and their dozen years of marriage were tumultuous. She followed her husband to every assignment, refusing to be left behind in comfort. After the war, Brevet Major General Custer reverted to his Regular Army rank of lieutenant colonel and held a series of frontier assignments in Texas, Kansas, and the Dakota Territory. In 1876, he left his wife at Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory to pursue Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and other Sioux and Cheyenne. After Custer’s death at the Battle of Little Big Horn, President Ulysses S. Grant publicly blamed him for blundering into a massacre. Elizabeth Custer quickly defended her husband’s image, aiding his first biographer and writing articles and books of her own praising Custer. Her version prevailed in popular culture for decades. She never remarried and was a widow for more than a half-century before her death in New York City. She was buried next to her husband in the United States Military Academy Post Cemetery at West Point.

 

 


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