None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead: The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer by Howard Kazanjian & Chris Enss

None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead: The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer by Howard Kazanjian & Chris Enss

Author:Howard Kazanjian & Chris Enss [Kazanjian, Howard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2013-09-30T16:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER EIGHT

Plains Living

My husband used to tell me that he believed he was the happiest man on earth, and I cannot help but thinking he was.

—ELIZABETH CUSTER, 1882

A group of some forty officers and their wives congregated in the parlor of George and Elizabeth Custer's home at Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory. A fiddler entertained several men and women at one end of the tastefully decorated room. More guests paraded past a table filled with a

variety of food and drinks at the other. Elizabeth remained by the door, kindly welcoming latecomers to the party, already in progress. She touched a finger to her lips, indicating that the attendees should enter quietly.

The music stopped, and a hush fell over the guests. Elizabeth's sister-in-law Margaret Calhoun and her husband, Tom, and family friend Agnes marched into the parlor and crossed to the musicians. All three wore costumes: Maggie was dressed as a Sioux Indian maiden. Agnes and Tom were dressed as Quakers. George and the others in attendance stifled a chuckle as the trio struck a dignified pose for the captive audience. They were acting out a scene from a current event in the region. The object of the entertaining charade, or tableau, was to guess the event and whom the players represented.1

Partygoers enthusiastically shouted out their best guesses. Others issued comical remarks that made everyone erupt into laughter. When guests announced that the performers were portraying Quaker missionaries evangelizing Native Americans, the actors broke character and took a bow. The happy audience applauded their efforts, and the music started up again.

Outside it was snowing. A few enlisted men were on guard duty. Wearing layers of scarves and bundled in heavy coats, they romped through the snow past the Custers' house. Horses and wagons filled the yard and were tied to hitching posts below the massive porch in front of the house. Looking in through the windows, the troops could see cheerful, fashionably dressed people enjoying a lively square dance, and they could hear the fiddler playing. The soldiers lingered for a moment, enjoying the view, then continued on their way.

Thirty miles away, on the west bank of the Missouri River at Fort Rice, Frederick Benteen stood outside his barracks staring over the vast plains toward Fort Lincoln. He could almost see his nemesis, George Custer, surrounded by the usual group of followers and celebrating the long winter days with wine and song. He disapproved of George, his wife, and the "clique" that aligned themselves with the couple. Benteen complained that their "conduct [was] unbecoming an officer, the wife of an officer, and his staff."2

Benteen might have felt differently had he been in command of loyal soldiers at a popular camp. Some visitors to the military camp referred to Fort Rice as "one of the most godforsaken spots on the Earth."3 In comparison to the lonely, near-desolate Fort Rice, Fort Lincoln was Shangrila.

Five months prior to the Custers being transferred to Fort Lincoln, Benteen, George, and Elizabeth had lived at Fort Rice with the other soldiers, wives, and dependents of the 7th Cavalry.



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