George Armstrong Custer?s Wife Takes Round the World Tour and Receives Pension Payment

Elizabeth B. Custer
Indianapolis, IN; New York, NY, ca. 1903-1931
George Armstrong Custer?s Wife Takes Round the World Tour and Receives Pension Payment
Archive

ELIZABETH B. CUSTER, Small Archive of three items, 1903-1931:
-M. A. Crosley, Partially Printed Document Signed, Receipt to Elizabeth B. Custer for $1,800 in payment for ?Round the World Tour Leaving New York City October 14th 1903,? October 5, 1903, Indianapolis, Indiana. 1 pp., 8.375" x 3.75".
-Printed Document Signed, Check of Treasurer of the United States for $100 to Elizabeth C. Custer, June 4, 1931, Washington, D.C. 2 pp., 8.375" x 3.25".
-Charles F. Wheaton, Typed Letter Signed, to Elizabeth B. Custer, June 5, 1931, New York, New York. 1 p., 8.375" x 11".
General toning; very good.

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. She lived as his widow for more than fifty years.

The first of these documents is a receipt for Custer?s payment of $1,800 for a tour around the world in a steamship. The voyage left New York City in October 1903, and visited San Francisco, Japan, the Philippines, China, and the United Kingdom, among many other ports. The final leg from Europe in the autumn of 1904 included passengers Mary Dimmick Harrison, the widow of President Benjamin Harrison, and their young child, and naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan and his family, all returning from Europe to the United States.

The other documents involve a 1931 pension payment and confusion over her middle initial. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Clift Bacon, and the check was erroneously made out to ?Elizabeth C. Custer.? She evidently never cashed the check, as it remains unendorsed and with the original letter that enclosed it to her.

Excerpt
?We enclose check to your order from the Treasurer of the United States for $100, being bonus payment. Will you please endorse it and return it to us. You will note that the check is drawn to Elizabeth C. Custer. You will, therefore, sign twice, once ?Elizabeth C. Custer?, and underneath ?Elizabeth B. Custer.??

Historical Background
After General George A. Custer?s death at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, his widow Elizabeth Bacon Custer began writing articles and made speeches to protect her husband and his legacy and to rehabilitate her husband?s image. She wrote three books between 1885 and 1890 that recounted her experiences with her husband and glorified his memory.

Initially, she was in financial distress because of her husband?s debts, but her writing and speaking career allowed her to live as a widow in financial comfort and travel widely, leaving an estate of more than $100,000 at her death.

Elizabeth ?Libbie? 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 a 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 she died in New York City. She was buried next to her husband in the United States Military Academy Post Cemetery at West Point.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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