Two handwritten letters from Elizabeth "Libby" Custer will soon go on display at the Big Horn County Historical Museum in Hardin as visitors from across the country gather for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn.
To see more on these letters, watch below:
The letters were written on Aug. 7, 1927, to Ruth Gregory, a Big Horn County schoolteacher who had invited Libby to the 50th anniversary commemoration. In them, Libby repeatedly praises her husband, George Custer.
"Libby was kind of his biggest support person, cheerleader, that was kind of promoting him as a famous figure," Kyron Jeno, the museum's director, said.
Even decades after George Custer's death, his wife's devotion to preserving his legacy remained clear.
"1927, that was 50 years after the battle, and she was still out there trying to make her husband famous," Jeno said.
"She wrote books and went on speaking tours, all kinds of different things," the museum representative said.
The anniversary has drawn visitors from hundreds of miles away. Mike Badley traveled 1,500 miles from the Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, area with a band dedicated to recreating the music Custer's band would have performed.
"Our group is basically based out of Columbus and Dayton, Ohio. So we had to travel quite a ways to come out this far," Badley said.
"We're here to do the music that they would have been playing. So our group portrays Civil War cavalry units," Badley said.
For Badley, the Custer letters represent exactly the kind of connection to history that makes the journey worthwhile.
"I think that any time you can have the preservation of the past through the eyes of the people that lived it, it's a phenomenal thing," Badley said.
