While George Custer was wooing Mary Holland he got the idea of enrolling at West Point. He wanted Mary to marry him before he became a cadet but she did not want to be a soldier’s wife. Evidently Mary’s father, also, did not want her to become a soldier’s wife. Mr. Holland well knew that cadets could not be married and played a major, though discreet, role in getting George an appointment to West Point. For George, at nearly seventeen years of age, it was another romance detoured by social standing—or lack there of.
In July of 1857, George Armstrong Custer, who had no sympathy for the underdog but possessed a great interest in and an admiration for the rich and powerful, was on his way to West Point. This school of all schools, for the times, was the outstanding engineering school in the country. And an officer’s commission would automatically make George Custer a gentleman. He would we a welcome guest at higher social functions. But for the next four years, while attending West Point, Custer’s love life took a downshift as far as associating with proper young ladies. After graduation, and joining the Army of the Potomac, he only had the rare opportunity for intimate encounters and these were with prostitutes.
By the fall of 1861 George Armstrong Custer was a handsome and dashing young military officer of bachelor standing when he returned to Michigan on sick leave. His illness was of short duration and soon he was expounding at parties and church function on how the war was fought. And he found himself the center of attention of the eligible young ladies of Monroe. That his heart was still of the wooing nature is certain as he proposed marriage to at least one young lady and possibly more that remains unrecorded.
But the young ladies were not his only companions at this time. After escorting this beauty or that lovely lady home George reveled in drinking sprees with his boyhood cronies until his vacation came to an end. But he would soon return to Monroe with more war stories to relate of his adventures as General McClellan’s aide.
In February of 1862, while in Monroe for a Thanksgiving furlough, attending a party held at the local girls’ finishing school, the dashing and talkative Custer, now a Captain, was introduced to Miss Elizabeth Bacon, daughter of Judge Daniel Bacon. Libbie Bacon was the prettiest girl at the party and George, for once, was speechless. Libbie, normally as outgoing as Custer could only utter “I believe your promotion has been very rapid?” Custer answered with, “I have been very fortunate,” and that was about all either could manage—at least for the moment.
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