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,
1st Michigan Volunteer Cavalry Regiment 1st Michigan Volunteer Cavalry Regiment The 1st Regiment Michigan Volunteer Cavalry was a cavalry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was a part of the famed Michigan Brigade, commanded for a time by Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer. The 1st Michigan Cavalry was organized at Detroit, Michigan, between August 21 and September 6, 1861. Among the initial officers was William d'Alton Mann, a future prominent Michigan newspaper and magazine publisher. The regiment was mustered out of service on September 12, 1865. Over the span of its existence, the regiment carried a total of