Before the Battle of Little Big Horn, Libbie Custer lived at Fort Lincoln in the Dakota Territory, near the town of Edwinton (Bismarck, North Dakota). Here she lived in a white clapboard house filled with the finest of china, linens and paintings. She wrote about her observations of life at the Fort and the Arikara Scouts who served the cavalry. In particular she wrote of Bloody Knife, her husband's most trusted Scout.

The following seven sections have been excerpted from Elizabeth Bacon Custer’s Boots and Saddles.