WHEN THEY MET

First, you have to know that the Bacons and Custers were from opposite sides of the tracks, both economically and politically. When the Custers moved to Monroe from Ohio, they came as farmers; Father Custer was a blacksmith. Libbie's dad was a Judge, a businessman and even at one point a member of the state legislature.

If he hadn't been in uniform, it might have been quite impossible for Custer to cross the divide between him and Libbie. Her father defined an eligible suitor as being well-off financially, from a good family and to have a college education. (Characteristics that Thomas Weir shared; he became a good friend and confident of Libbie's which maybe her husband more than a little jealous.)

Libbie and Autie met, formally, at a Thanksgiving party in 1862 at a friends. But he claimed that he first encountered her when they were children and this story has become part of the Custers legend.

Here's how it goes: she was a seven-year old swinging on the gate of the picket fence in front of her house. Along came ten-year old Armstrong and Libbie calls out, "Hello, you Custer boy!" which was a pretty audacious thing for a proper young lade to do.

As Lawrence Frost wrote in "General Custer's Libbie", "Surprised at her own impertinence, she blushed and ran into her house.

Darling story, but Libbie claimed she didn't remember it. I'll bet she didn't want to own up to what she would have seen as too impetuous. Her parents would not have been pleased. But you have to wonder if that little moment planted the seed in Autie that led to his concerted pursuit of Libbie almost twenty years later.