Elizabeth Bacon Custer led the Seventh Cavalry in pursuit of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne who refused to be confined to the reservation system. After her husband's column was wiped out at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in June 1876, many in the press, Army, and government criticized Custer for blundering into a massacre. President Ulysses S. Grant publicly blamed Custer for the disaster. Fearing that her husband was to be made a scapegoat by history, Libbie launched a one-woman campaign to rehabilitate her husband's image. Her assistance to the author of the first Custer biography,
Dorothy Custer "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to Jay on Valentine's Day 2012. In May 2012, Custer celebrated her 101st birthday by ziplining in the Snake River Canyon. Author and physician Jacob M. Appel honored Custer by modeling a minor character after her in his novel "The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up" (2012); in a 2013 interview, Custer said she was flattered by the honor but acknowledged not having read the book. In June 2013, Custer celebrated her 102nd birthday by BASE jumping off the Perrine Bridge into the Snake River Canyon. She became the oldest BASE jumper with the help of