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Post by Tricia on Jul 24, 2007 14:20:36 GMT -6
All--
One of the more interesting things I discussed with another member of the LBHA during this week's conference was written evidence that shows a definite "love" connection between Libbie and Captain Weir; it is in the form of a letter--which I will see soon--from GAC to Libbie severely chiding her for her behaviour with the fellow. I don't recall the year of the note, but to many, it provides compelling evidence that lack of loyalty in the Custers' marriage wasn't necessarily always due to Armstrong's dalliances.
I also seem to recall that GAC tended to post "threats" to Libbie to far off places on detached services ...
What do the other Tupperware Gossip Columnists think? --t.
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Post by Diane Merkel on Jul 24, 2007 15:50:25 GMT -6
Groan . . . .Show me the letter! I suspect it is the same story we have hashed out here before. Weir wasn't having a romance with Libbie. He almost got her shot by a sentry!
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Post by Tricia on Jul 24, 2007 16:12:56 GMT -6
Okay, I don't actually have the letter (as stated above), but there is a line in it where Custer offers a very negative opinion about your friend, Weir. I do believe that there's a certain amount of reading between the lines when it comes to GAC's writing. I'm guessing the hypothesis goes that LBC was getting back at her husband for his following that girl home in New York City--or something like that.
Allow me to state my opinion that I don't think Libbie had it in her to have an affair. A flirtation, maybe, but nothing more than that. Of course, Darkcloud actually believes she did. Many.
Trish
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 24, 2007 18:11:21 GMT -6
Never said that. I've only pointed out, when the ludicrous FanBoys become tearful about the Great Love, that there's at least some evidence to consider that suggests otherwise. We don't know, and I find it odd people want to know.
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Post by Realbird on Jul 24, 2007 19:17:37 GMT -6
We live in a society where, despite sacred vows of fidelity, the divorce rate is rampant, couples exchange sex partners with the ferocity of a child in a candy store, and teenage mothers are so common we no longer shake our heads in sadness.
In the nineteenth century, believe it or not, American morals were quite different. A man's word was his bond, women had not yet became as engrossed in infidelity as men, and couples stuck it out, for better or worse. After her husbands death, the very attractive, intelligent, and available Elizabeth Custer remained chaste, loyal, amid committed to her husband, lo, so many, many years.
Is it possible that a woman of this stature, grace, and integrity may have had an affair with Weir under the nose of her husband? Anything is possible I guess. However, I choose to believe that this scenario is not probable.
Perhaps I would change my mind if I were presented with one shred of evidence, not innuendo or maybes, but true evidence.
why is it that we seem to be fascinated with "information" designed to tarnish the reputation of true hero's? Yes, Elizabeth was a heroine. Hopelessly committed to a glory seeking gladiator whose inability to understand his fellow man resulted in his untimely death and, the death of his comrades, is remarkable..
To love such a man as this, to honor his name for decades, to forgo the solace of male companionship until her death makes her a special individual.
Women of this caliber, in the days of yore, possessed to much integrity to drop their drawers in a clandestine moment with a drunken soldier.
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Post by Tricia on Jul 24, 2007 19:20:42 GMT -6
Oh, come on, MacLeod. You live for the gossip--at least you've gone on and on about Libbie and Weir over at the AAO board. I believe you've said somethings to the effect that LBC lived for her affairs, just as GAC did his. And money. Perhpps it was but to prove a point, which I know you like to do, but you've contributed heartily to these kind of discussions in the past!
As I have stated over and over again, even indiscretions offer a fuller view of any given character in the Custer saga. You can't understand Grey without knowing the psychological make-up of the individuals in charge.
Trish
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Post by BrokenSword on Jul 24, 2007 19:31:29 GMT -6
Diane- "He almost got her shot by a sentry!"
That sounds like a better story than a common affair.
I'll admit that Libbie and Weir 'bumping uglys' is far jucier, but I'd like to know about the sentry 'affair.'
M
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Post by Tricia on Jul 24, 2007 19:33:59 GMT -6
Joe--
Goodness! You've been drinking the Custer Kool Aide! I would like to know what Libbie did that comprised "heroism," really. She was the perfect army wife, indeed, and after being notified about the loss of her Darling Autie, she did accompany the messenger of doom to those other suddenly-made widows ... but her books were her way to make money and to promote her husband's interests. She tore down both Reno and Benteen in her manipulations, becoming rich in so doing--and may have hindered the study of Custeriana with her prolonged widowhood. And like Prescilla Presley, losing that last name would have sent her into obscurity.
As a widow myself, especially of a marriage of the same length as the Custers'--twelve years and no children--I do feel a connection to Libbie--and I am doing things to promote my husband's memory--reality dictated she had to survive when Autie hadn't. Making money isn't a sin, last I checked.
But I agree. Libbie knew what side her bread was buttered upon and I see nothing in her make-up that would include adultery.
Glad to see you back on the boards! MRW ...
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 24, 2007 19:51:46 GMT -6
"We live in a society where, despite sacred vows of fidelity, the divorce rate is rampant, couples exchange sex partners with the ferocity of a child in a candy store, and teenage mothers are so common we no longer shake our heads in sadness.
In the nineteenth century, believe it or not, American morals were quite different. A man's word was his bond, women had not yet became as engrossed in infidelity as men, and couples stuck it out, for better or worse." Oh, for God's sake, what in the world are you talking about?
Couples stuck it out, for better or worse, because women rarely had recourse in divorce to husband's money or her own children. It would be more accurate to say the professed morals for public consumption were insisted upon as fact more assiduously than they are now, all evidence to the contrary. And this would only apply to those who got married, who may not have been in the majority.
Mrs. Custer's income was totally dependent upon her image, itself a template with several recent success stories, whether true or not. Robert Falcon Scott's wife became a Dame as she exploited her 'grief' before it was revealed she'd had an affair - while her husband was dying - with a Norwegian explorer and rival. It was hardly the only one, and the public was never told in her lifetime. She was far above the social level of Mrs. Custer. She, too, was "special."
You have no clue or evidence that Mrs. Custer was chaste after Custer's death, nor could anyone. Nothing contrary exists, but she had opportunity and could count on social silence should she have been tempted as, we should admit, all adults are. I neither know nor care, but this grandiose declaration of supposed eternal devotion isn't real life or likely and is as bizarre as FanBoy adulation of George.
Whether chaste or not, she did her bit for her husband's rep, and this despite the fact he'd left her broke. I wouldn't think worse of her if she subsequently engaged in feats to blush Mae West, or Margaret Custer either, given what they'd been through. Sixty years of widowhood? A break. If Queen Victoria may have poked the embers, and the heavens remain vaulted, the thought of a pedestrian soldier's widow doing so shouldn't empty the churches.
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 25, 2007 5:34:24 GMT -6
There's a very splendid book by Thomas P. Lowry, The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War, which proves pretty conclusively -- had we doubted it -- that 19th-century Americans were just as raunchy as those of the 20th or 21st century. As DC says, a different set of surface proprieties had to be observed; that's all.
When you come to think of it, the decade or so following the Civil War in America must have been a lot like the Roaring Twenties, and the Restoration period in Britain. In all three cases, the society had been shaken to its roots by a traumatic war, and "normal" conventions no longer applied. People had experienced horrors, yet had also had their horizons widened. And women, having (or choosing) to take on a man's role in the absence of their breadwinner, had become empowered in a way that, for some, could well translate into greater sexual freedom. The mask of Victorian-ness conceals some of this in the case of the post-Civil War era ... but there's plenty of evidence that it was a pretty rackety sort of society, deep down. And not least in the frontier army.
Obviously many, such as the Barnitzes for instance, were models of prissy propriety and virtue. Others, not. There's the notorious Mrs. Bell, for instance. And in those "Custer Letters at Auction" letters, Custer tells Libbie -- with only mild shock -- about one army wife who'd turned up at Fort Dodge and slept with a total stranger on her very first night there. He also talks about others who got up to no good in the backs of army ambulances, and about the infallible signals given out by "available" women to indicate their readiness for an affair. Then there are his later letters from New York with his story of the married woman who'd had an abortion procured by her equally married lover (and his strong hints of a Love Triangle #2, but I won't anticipate Tricia on this one!). Libbie herself is clearly aware that some suspicion of the racketiness of their lives may have seeped through into her books, carefully though she's sanitised them; in one, I forget which, she's at pains to explain that while for a lady to ride unchaperoned with a gentleman would be a lethal reputation-killer Back East, there was absolutely no harm in it on the frontier ... (Because, naturally, officers were all so utterly chivalrous that never a carnal thought entered their heads. She claimed.)
Longing to hear more about the letter, Tricia. There's another where Custer questions Libbie's partiality for Weir, quoted in Leckie, p. 116: "The more I see of him Little one, the more I am surprised that a woman of your perceptive faculties and moral training could have entertained the opinion of him you have, but enough upon this subject." This is from January 1869, so whatever went on in '67 she was still fonder of Weir than Custer entirely liked a year and a half later ...
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Post by harpskiddie on Jul 25, 2007 8:35:12 GMT -6
Weir had, for his time and place, a reasonable level of education, and apart from this was apparently well-read in the classics - being able to discuss loftier topics than many, and to recite poetry at the drop of a hat [or the nudge of a knee]. I'd wager a few sous that, when not in his cups, he was the type of companion that women found engaging and attractive.
And when he was "slightly indisposed...hic...burp" probably the type that women seem to want to save from [and maybe for] themselves.
Gordie, she tells you that it's love - but it's the heartbreak kind....................................
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Post by Tricia on Jul 25, 2007 9:10:58 GMT -6
Elisabeth--
Hmm ... does the name Clara Kellogg come to mind? To quote Bugs Bunny: Aren't I the little stinker ...?
--t.
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 25, 2007 9:19:56 GMT -6
Well, yes, that's another possible ...
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Post by Tricia on Jul 25, 2007 9:26:40 GMT -6
As I recall, she was married at the time as well. I seem to recall reading the article about her prestigeous wedding--wasn't it in Boston?--whilst researching her for the book. Of course, still playing the ingenue when she was like 40 is kind of hilarious ... sort of like those horrid cotton hoopskirts I was forced to look at during the LBHA banquet.
Consider this a warning from Trini and Susanna: if you're over 200 lbs, ladies, DON'T BOTHER!
That said, I don't know how much of a part Miss Kellogg will play in my second book ...
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 25, 2007 10:43:04 GMT -6
Mrs. Hough can't have been any spring chicken, either; I think she started her career well before the war, and from that photo of her in the University of Washington archive she looks distinctly, er, mature in 1864. Yet she clearly retained enough glamour for both Keogh and Custer to be paying court in 1871. From a few things I've read, I get the faint impression that playing around with married women was considered rather less heinous than, for instance, seducing innocent young girls: that, as with the upper classes in England at the time (all those bed-hopping house-parties), a little discreet adultery here and there was more or less winked at in certain circles. So La Kellogg's marriage may have been no bar. Vinnie Ream married, too, didn't she, yet you get the sense that Libbie was never quite convinced that GAC's relations with her were wholly innocent ... especially as she's rather attractive: vinnieream.com/The Bean girls, on the other hand, were reassuringly plain, so I don't suppose she had any fears about them.
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