February 13th

I was so thrilled to get Mrs. Custer’s letter, and shared it eagerly with Cora Sue. She had known our Pa better than we did. I would like to think it was true that he talked about us with her, but rather doubt that he thought much about us at all. He hardly ever wrote, and only visited maybe once in awhile when it suited him in the early days of our living with Aunt Lillie, And then when he went to Dakota territory, we never saw him again after that.

So I wrote back to Mrs. Custer (I certainly couldn’t call her Libby, although that is how I thought of her) and said how wonderful it was to read her words and to know that she had known our Pa, and encouraged her to write again soon with more of the information about General Custer and their life in Bismarck.

And the next letter was not long in coming.

February 11, 1880

Dear Miss Kellogg,

I am as pleased to get your letters as you seem to be to get mine, and it is good for me to have an audience for what I am writing. Writers have trouble sometimes in knowing if their thoughts are making sense - so if you don’t understand what I write, pleased tell me. That would be useful for me, as I want my book to be so readable that people won’t want to put it down.

Anyway, I will just ramble on about our early life for awhile, and you can write back to me and say if it is the sort of thing you want to know.

General Custer graduated at West Point just in time to take part in the battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. He served with his regiment--the 5th Cavalry--for a time, but eventually was appointed aide-de-camp to General McClellan. He came to his sister's home in my native town, Monroe, Michigan, during the winter of 1863, and there I first met him.

In the spring he returned to the army in Virginia, and was promoted that summer, at the age of twenty-three, from captain to brigadier-general. During the following autumn he came to Monroe to recover from a flesh-wound, which, though not serious, disabled him somewhat. At that time we became engaged. When his twenty days' leave of absence had expired he went back to duty, and did not return until a few days before our marriage, in February, 1864.

We had no sooner reached Washington on our wedding-journey than telegrams came, following one another in quick succession, asking him to give up the rest of his leave of absence, and hasten without an hour's delay to the front. I begged so hard not to be left behind that I finally prevailed. The result was that I found myself in a few hours on the extreme wing of the Army of the Potomac, in an isolated Virginia farm-house, finishing my honeymoon alone.

I had so besought him to allow me to come that I did not dare own to myself the desolation and fright I felt. In the preparation for the hurried raid which my husband had been ordered to make he had sent to cavalry head-quarters to provide for my safety, and troops were in reality near, although I could not see them.

The general's old colored servant, Eliza, comforted me, and the Southern family in the house took pity upon my anxiety. It its a sudden plunge into a life of vicissitude and danger, and I hardly remember the time during the twelve years that followed when I was not in fear of some immediate peril, or in dread of some danger that threatened.

After the raid was ended, we spent some delightful weeks together, and when the regular spring campaign began I returned to Washington, where I remained until the surrender and the close of the war.

After that we went to Texas for a year, my husband still acting as major-general in command of Volunteers. In 1866 we returned to Michigan, and the autumn of the same year found us in Kansas, where the general assumed charge of the 7th (Regular) Cavalry, to which he had been assigned, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Regular Army. We remained in Kansas five years, during which time I was the only officer's wife who always followed the regiment.

We were then ordered, with the regiment, to Kentucky. After being stationed in Elizabethtown for two years, we went to Dakota in the spring of 1873. That must have been about the time your daddy came to work with Colonel Lounsberry at the Bismarck Tribune. He was so proud of those first editions of the paper and he told me that he did some of the editorial work for the first few papers.

When orders came for the 7th Cavalry to go into the field again, General Custer was delighted. The regiment was stationed in various parts of the South, on the very disagreeable duty of breaking up illicit distilleries and suppressing the Ku-klux. Fortunately for us, being in Kentucky, we knew very little of this service. It seemed an unsoldierly life, and it was certainly uncongenial; for a true cavalryman feels that a life in the saddle on the free open plain is his legitimate existence. Not an hour elapsed after the official document announcing our change of station had arrived before our house was torn up. In the confusion I managed to retire to a corner with an atlas, and surreptitiously look up the territory to which we were going. I hardly liked to own that I had forgotten its location.

When my finger traced our route from Kentucky almost up to the border of the British Possessions, it seemed as if we were going to Lapland. From the first days of our marriage, General Custer celebrated every order to move with wild demonstrations of joy. His exuberance of spirits always found expression in some boyish pranks, before he could set to work seriously to prepare for duty.

As soon as the officer announcing the order to move had disappeared, all sorts of wild hilarity began. I had learned to take up a safe position on top of the table; that is, if I had not already been forcibly placed there as a spectator. The most disastrous result of the proceedings was possibly a broken chair, which the master of ceremonies would crash, and, perhaps, throw into the kitchen by way of informing the cook that good news had come.

We had so few household effects that it was something of a loss when we chanced to be in a country where they could not be replaced. I can see Eliza's woolly head now, as she thrust it through the door to reprimand her master, and say, "Chairs don't grow on trees in these yere parts, gen'l.”

As for me, I was tossed about the room, and all sorts of jokes were played upon me before the frolic was ended. After such participation in the celebration, I was almost too tired with the laughter and fun to begin packing. I know that it would surprise a well-regulated mover to see what short work it was for us to prepare for our journeys.
 
We began by having a supply of gunny-sacks and hay brought in from the stables. The saddler appeared, and all our old traps that had been taken around with us so many years were once more tied and sewed up. The kitchen utensils were plunged into barrels generally left uncovered in the hurry; rolls of bedding encased in waterproof cloth or canvas were strapped and roped, and the few pictures and books were crowded into chests and boxes. When these possessions were loaded upon the wagon, at the last moment there always appeared the cook's bedding to surmount the motley pile.

Her property was invariably tied up in a flaming quilt representing souvenirs of her friends' dresses. She followed that last installment with anxious eyes, and, true to her early training, grasped her red bandanna, containing a few last things, while the satchel she scorned to use hung empty on her arm.

In all this confusion no one was cross. We rushed and gasped through the one day given us for preparation, and I had only time to be glad with my husband that he was going back to the life of activity that he so loved. His enforced idleness made it seem to him that he was cumbering the earth, and he rejoiced to feel that he was again to have the chance to live up to his idea of a soldier.

Had I dared to stop in that hurried day and think of myself all the courage would have gone out of me. This removal to Dakota meant to my husband a reunion with his regiment and summer campaigns against Indians; to me it meant months of loneliness, anxiety, and terror. Fortunately there was too much to do to leave leisure for thought. Steamers were ready for us at Memphis, and we went thither by rail to embark.

I think that is enough to be going on with. I will get to the aspects of living in Dakota that will mean more to you soon, but I will close for now.

Yours sincerely,

Libbie B. Custer