Boots and Saddles: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Boots and Saddles, credited to Elizabeth Bacon Custer, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Boots and Saddles by Elizabeth Bacon Custer. Read in English by Sue Anderson Elizabeth Custer has penned an engaging portrait of 1870’s life on a U.S. cavalry post in the Dakotas, just before her husband and his troops met their tragic deaths in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. “Our life,” she writes, “was often as separate from the rest of the world as if we had been living on an island in the ocean.” Her portrait of her husband, General George Armstrong Custer is laudatory—his intellect, his love of dogs (he kept a hunting pack of 40 at the post); but, Boots and Saddles is more than just a memorial. She observes with keen insight, the varied persons, from Indian scouts, to enlisted men, to officer’s wives, who make up the army “family,” on the post. Her sympathetic story about the regimental laundress and midwife, with its sad ending, should take a place in the army’s history of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” (Summary by Sue Anderson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Boots and Saddles
• Author credits: Elizabeth Bacon Custer
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 29
• Listed recording duration: 8:41:01

Catalogue topics

• george armstrong custer
• elizabeth bacon custer
• united states army
• united states cavalry
• frontier and pioneer life
• dakota territory
• generals' spouses

Opening tracks: first 24 of 29

1. 01 - Dedication, Preface, Change of Station — 16:54
2. 02 - A Blizzard — 28:40
3. 03 - Western Hospitality — 12:53
4. 04 - Cavalry on the March — 25:12
5. 05 - Camping Among the Sioux — 23:47
6. 06 - A Visit to the Village of Two Bears — 26:39
7. 07 - Adventures During the Last Days of the March — 27:16
8. 08 - Separation and Reunion — 16:49
9. 09 - Our New Home at Fort Lincoln — 20:35
10. 10 - Incidents of Everyday Life — 23:25
11. 11 - The Burning of Our Quarters\ — 18:40
12. 12 - Perplexities and Pleasures of Domestic Life — 14:09
13. 13 - A Strong Heart Dance — 14:53
14. 14 - Garrison Life — 23:30
15. 15 - General Custer's Literary Work — 10:09
16. 16 - Indian Depredations — 9:22
17. 17 - A Day of Anxiety and Terror — 15:59
18. 18 - Improvements at the Post, and Gardening — 14:19
19. 19 - General Custer's Library — 14:08
20. 20 - The Summer of the Black Hills Expedition — 27:17
21. 21 - Domestic Trials — 18:58
22. 22 - Capture and Escape of Rain-in-the-Face — 26:04
23. 23 - Garrison Amusements — 18:10
24. 24 - An Indian Council — 8:00

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.