Elizabeth B. Custer
Monroe, MI, June 24, 1862
George Armstrong Custer?s Future Wife Writes on Back of Banknote Shortly Before Meeting Custer
AES

ELIZABETH B. CUSTER, Endorsement on verso of $10 Banknote from The Bank of River Raisin, June 24, 1862, Monroe, Michigan. 2 pp., 7.125" x 3.125". With an envelope addressed to ?Mrs. Custer?. Staining across top; some paper loss at upper right affecting the word ?Michigan?

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.

According to her annotation on the verso, Elizabeth Bacon received this unsigned banknote from Jimmie Fifield on June 24, 1862. She lists ten people as present, including herself, her two first cousins, Rebecca Richmond (1840-1925) and Mary Richmond (1843-1918); her maternal uncle Abel Page (1785-1854); her friend Nettie Humphrey; another friend Laura Noble (1841-1918), the daughter of the former mayor of Monroe; Grace Shaw; John R. Rouch, a local attorney; German Music Professor Carl C. Zeus (1830-1915); and Jimmie Fifield (1845-1911), who gave her the note and was the brother of Elizabeth Bacon?s friend Fanny Fifield (1843-1899).

Because the banknote is not dated or signed by the cashier and president of the bank, it was probably unredeemable.

Excerpt
[Verso, in hand of Elizabeth Bacon:]
?Given to me by Jimmie Fifield June 24, 1862. At the Prime
PresentLaura Noble
Grace Shaw
Nettie Humphrey
Libbie Bacon
Rebecca Richmond
Mary
Uncle Able Page
Prof. Zeus
John Rouch
Jimmie Fifield?

Historical Background
When Elizabeth ?Libbie? Bacon?s mother and three siblings all died before she was thirteen years old, her father Daniel Bacon, a wealthy and influential judge and state representative in Monroe, Michigan, doted on his only surviving child. He enrolled her in the Young Ladies? Seminary and Collegiate Institute, a boarding school in Monroe. She spent four years there under the tutelage of the Reverend Erasmus Boyd, the principal, and his wife Sarah. Intelligent, serious, and competitive, Libbie Bacon excelled as a student and she graduated at the head of her class in June 1862.

She met Captain George Armstrong Custer in November 1862 at Boyd?s seminary, and initially both she and her father were unimpressed. He had a reputation as a womanizer, gambler, and drinker, and her father wanted his only daughter to marry someone of the same social status.

At age 23, in June 1863, Custer was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers and took charge of the 1st, 5th, 6th, and 7th regiments of the Michigan Volunteer Cavalry Brigade. The following month, he led his cavalry brigade against Confederate Major General J. E. B. Stuart?s cavalry during the Battle of Gettysburg, handing the famed Stuart his first taste of defeat. With his new accomplishments and status, Custer received Judge Bacon?s permission to write to his daughter. They were engaged in December 1863, and married on February 9, 1864, in Monroe.

Elizabeth ?Libbie? Clift Bacon Custer (1842-1933) was born in Michigan as the daughter of influential and wealthy Judge Daniel S. Bacon (1798-1866) and Eleanor Page Bacon (1814-1854). 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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7.125" x 3.125"