Who's Who in Naval History: From 1550 to the Present(Routledge Who's Who Series) Book

I read this book after finding out that Libbie Custer wrote it while staying with a friend on East Street just a very short walk from where I live.

Quite an eye-opener for me since all I knew about Gen. Custer was that he graduated at the bottom of his class at West Point and was on the wrong side in the 1958 Disney movie, Tonka. But I soon realized that this book is almost more interesting for what is glossed over than what it tells. Libby spends a lot of the book talking about clothes and parties but, if you read carefully, people are dropping like flies. They are in a lot more danger from accidents, disease and the environment than from the natives.

The terrain, weather, and shortages of medicine, food, and water almost kill them off several times but, to hear Libbie tell it, the big problem is hiring the right servants. The regiment has no doctor, their veterinarian gets shot by the Indians but they protect the regimental tailor with their very lives because there is nothing worse than having a uniform that doesn't flatter your manly figure.

It is also very interesting to get an inside look at 19th century womanhood from Libbie's point of view. I absolutely couldn't believe it when Libbie says women are born with a fear of mice! Libbie thought nothing of her husband shooting all kinds of animals from eagles to grizzly bears, doing the taxidermy himself, and displaying the corpses all over their house but on page 203 she squeals at the mere thought of his pet mouse.

A previous reader left a medical advertising sticky note in the book that I got out of the library. The person noted on it:
p. 108 Killickinnic tobacco.
!See muscles p. 109.
Warrier p. 109