394 WORKMEN AND HEROES endurance, abstemious, healthy, and strong, and as much at home in the saddle and with the sabre as in his own little house in Monroe or by his blazing camp- fire. He married, in February, 1864, Elizabeth Bacon, a daughter of Judge Dan- iel S. Bacon, of Monroe. For ten years his wife was his constant companion in camp and in frontier service, and she has written many sketches of his active life in the saddle and his characteristics as soldier and as man. General Custer, at the time of his death, was engaged on a series of " War Memoirs," and his articles on frontier life and army experiences found ready ac- ceptance and wide favor. He was, undoubtedly, America's best cavalry leader, and won a place as " a perfect general of horse " beside the world's dashing war- riders from Hannibal's " Thunderbolt," Mago the Carthaginian, to Maurice of Nassau and the "Golden Eagle," Murat the Frenchman. Fourteen of the thirty-seven years he lived were spent in actual service in the camp or on the battle-field. He was a brigadier-general at twenty-three and a major-general at twenty- five. In the height of his popularity and his phenom- enal success as a cavalry leader, he was a picturesque and familiar figure to friend and foe alike, as in his broad cavalier's hat, his gold-bedizened jacket, and high cavalry boots, with his long hair streaming in the wind, he would ride like a tor- nado, to the accompaniment of " Garry Owen," his favorite battle-air, carrying all before him a subject worthy the pencil of a Vandyke, the very type of the dashing trooper of romance. But that there was a method in his dash and a practical element in his daring, even the generals he outranked and the civilians who tried to direct him would admit, and to be the choice of McClellan and the favorite of Sheridan gave the assurance of worth to his leadership and of value to his valor. In 1877 Custer's remains were removed to the graveyard at West Point from the battle-field of the Little Big Horn, where he had first been buried amid the fallen heroes of his own brave band. In 1879 the Government made the battle- ground where Custer met his death a national cemetery, and raised a monument, upon which appeared the names and rank of all those who fell in that needless and fatal, but heroic, fight.
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