Famous Women: Elizabeth Custer
- Episode aired Sep 30, 1993
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Shirley Leckie Reed
- Self
- (as Shirley Leckie)
Robert Utley
- Self
- (as Robert M. Utley)
Storyline
Featured review
Keeper of the Flame
Hard to think what today's Rad-Fems would make of Libbie Custer, widow of a famous soldier whose fame had been largely fabricated by her, through fifty years of energetic lobbying that revealed prodigious talents as a writer and publicist. A typical army wife she was not. Certainly her father, a circuit court judge, felt that his lovely, sophisticated daughter could have found someone better than this casual scruff who had just passed-out bottom of his class at West Point. Among other reservations, he mentioned that a soldier's life was liable to be short. He would be proved right on that.
But into that short life, George Custer packed a lot. Only a year or so into his commission, he was brevetted Brigadier General, and headed-off Pickett's historic charge at Gettysburg. Marriage to Libbie was then promptly sanctioned. From their many surviving letters, there can be no doubt of the depth and intensity of the romance, and Libbie made clear her intention of travelling alongside the army (even causing Phil Sheridan to break his rule about no wives in the front line).
When she was forced to stay apart from him during one desert campaign, he actually abandoned his post to be with her, and was promptly relieved of his command for a year. Her biographer, the astute Shirley Leckie, comments that this may not have been pure uxorious devotion. For ironically, he had also instructed her to use her famous charms on men of influence, to further his career. And word had reached him that she might have taken this injunction too literally. (The consensus is not.)
But in fact, they were seldom apart for long. And the day came when she would join him in North Dakota, where gold had been discovered, and the Sioux Indians would have to be removed willy-nilly, in breach of solemn treaties. Was it just hindsight when she claimed she'd had a premonition that this would be the end, the 7th Cavalry riding off to their death, eager and glorious?
For fifty years, this would be the theme. As long as this indomitable widow still lived, nobody dared question the legend she had so carefully built up. Custer, saviour of Gettysburg and the Union. Custer flaunting those outlandish costumes in battle, with his long flaxen hair flung over his shoulder. Custer who had brought back the full-blooded cavalry charge with its blood-curdling yells, so terrifying, so inspiring.
Yet by the end of her long life, Libbie had actually started to question the legend herself, finally admitting "The American Indians were deeply wronged." That theme has certainly seen wide exposure since then. And other claims too have started to peel away the propaganda. The debts he left, after gambling on the stock market with 'money that was not his own'. A secret marriage to a Cheyenne woman, probably leaving two children. Even the accusation by President U.S. Grant that Custer's Last Stand itself had been a tactical blunder of the first magnitude. (But note how Grant's talent for deflecting blame has only come to light in recent years.)
Only a few quibbles. The programme was meant to be part of a series called 'The Real West', introduced by Kenny Rogers, but a voiceover keeps announcing "We now return to 'Famous Women'." One of the commentators, Arlene Killian, is described as an author, but we're not told her connection with the Custers. And the big veterans' reunion hosted by President Taft was not the 25th but (for some reason) the 35th anniversary.
But into that short life, George Custer packed a lot. Only a year or so into his commission, he was brevetted Brigadier General, and headed-off Pickett's historic charge at Gettysburg. Marriage to Libbie was then promptly sanctioned. From their many surviving letters, there can be no doubt of the depth and intensity of the romance, and Libbie made clear her intention of travelling alongside the army (even causing Phil Sheridan to break his rule about no wives in the front line).
When she was forced to stay apart from him during one desert campaign, he actually abandoned his post to be with her, and was promptly relieved of his command for a year. Her biographer, the astute Shirley Leckie, comments that this may not have been pure uxorious devotion. For ironically, he had also instructed her to use her famous charms on men of influence, to further his career. And word had reached him that she might have taken this injunction too literally. (The consensus is not.)
But in fact, they were seldom apart for long. And the day came when she would join him in North Dakota, where gold had been discovered, and the Sioux Indians would have to be removed willy-nilly, in breach of solemn treaties. Was it just hindsight when she claimed she'd had a premonition that this would be the end, the 7th Cavalry riding off to their death, eager and glorious?
For fifty years, this would be the theme. As long as this indomitable widow still lived, nobody dared question the legend she had so carefully built up. Custer, saviour of Gettysburg and the Union. Custer flaunting those outlandish costumes in battle, with his long flaxen hair flung over his shoulder. Custer who had brought back the full-blooded cavalry charge with its blood-curdling yells, so terrifying, so inspiring.
Yet by the end of her long life, Libbie had actually started to question the legend herself, finally admitting "The American Indians were deeply wronged." That theme has certainly seen wide exposure since then. And other claims too have started to peel away the propaganda. The debts he left, after gambling on the stock market with 'money that was not his own'. A secret marriage to a Cheyenne woman, probably leaving two children. Even the accusation by President U.S. Grant that Custer's Last Stand itself had been a tactical blunder of the first magnitude. (But note how Grant's talent for deflecting blame has only come to light in recent years.)
Only a few quibbles. The programme was meant to be part of a series called 'The Real West', introduced by Kenny Rogers, but a voiceover keeps announcing "We now return to 'Famous Women'." One of the commentators, Arlene Killian, is described as an author, but we're not told her connection with the Custers. And the big veterans' reunion hosted by President Taft was not the 25th but (for some reason) the 35th anniversary.
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