Customer Reviews

The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer: Reconstructed from Her Diaries and Notes

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This is a book I had a hard time putting down. It is an eyewitness account of civilian Civil War times, and is a "must" for Civil War period buffs. It tends to deromanticize the era, as Libbie Custer tells the day-by-day details of marching with the Union Army, living in then near-desolate Washington D.C., and taking over rooms in Confederate farmhouses to set up camp. But those details are nevertheless fascinating, because they are so different from life today. Her memoirs unfortunately give too little information about Custer's personality and her relationship with him, which I was eager to learn. This is probably due to the writing style of the era, however, as Victorians tended to be "closed" about their personal feelings.