NOV 28: George and Libbie Meet

Capt. George A. Custer, home on leave in Monroe, Mich., is introduced to 20-year-old Elizabeth Clift Bacon at a dinner party this week in 1862. It is the start of a passionate love affair that ends with Custer’s death at the Battle  of Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.

Immediately taken with her, Capt. Custer began to pursue young Elizabeth, known as “Libbie,” whose father, Judge Daniel Bacon, wasn’t crazy about his only living child becoming an Army wife. Judge Bacon forbade communication between them. Giving up was not in Capt. Custer’s nature, so he continued to call on Libbie and eventually they cemented their love.

“Yes, I love him devotedly,” Libbie wrote in her journal. “Every other man seems so ordinary beside my own bright particular star.”

NOTE: Some sources claim Libbie and Custer met at a Thanksgiving Day dinner in 1862, but President Abraham Lincoln did not declare the last Thursday in November as a national Thanksgiving Day until 1863.

Libbie Custer. (Credit; LIbrary of Congress)