The Custers and Eliza Custer’s Last Fight Buckskin coat Laundry hamper CLASS OF 1861 Although Custer graduated at the bottom of his class of 1861, he immediately distinguished himself in the Civil War as a flamboyant, heedlessly brave cavalry officer. At age twenty-three he held the temporary rank of major general, the youngest in the Union Army. In 1864 he married Elizabeth (“Libbie”) Bacon, A Michigan judge’s daughter, bright and well educated. After the war, Libbie accompanied her husband to his assignment as commander of the 7th Cavalry. For the next decade, the Custers led exciting lives, establishing homes at several frontier army posts. Ever the aggressive soldier, Custer blundered into more than he could handle at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where he and much of the 7th Cavalry met their deaths. As his widow, Libbie Custer devoted herself tirelessly in print and lectures to embellishing the legend of her husband as a great military hero. NEXT Fayette Washington Roe George Armstrong Custer 1839–1876 Class of 1861 Fayette Washington Roe 1850–1916 Class of 1871 Ranald Slidell Mackenzie 1840–1889 Class of 1862 Henry Ossian Flipper 1856–1940 Class of 1877 George Crook 1829–1890 Class of 1852
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