Life in Custer's Cavalry: Diaries and Letters of Albert and Jennie Barnitz, 1867-1868 by Albert Barnitz
Albert and Jennie Barnitz were both perceptive, articulate individuals who fully realized that they were involved in fascinating historically important events. They have left a record of frontier military life that can scarcely be matched elsewhere...Historian and buff alike will find this volume both enlightening and entertaining.--Paul A. Hutton, Journal of American History The reader will come to like Albert and Jennie Barnitz, whose letters trigger a time machine in which we come to know a good deal more about Life in Custer's Cavalry.--Montana Albert Barnitz...served with Custer's famed Seventh Cavalry for four years, 1867-70...In 1867 Albert and Jennie (Platt), both of Ohio, married and headed for the Kansas frontier. Four months later the growing perils of Indian clashes forced her to return east...[Their] letters and diaries, dated from January 17, 1867, to February 10, 1869, are vivid and accurate...[They] provide a keen picture of life in the Seventh Cavalry, both in garrison and field, immediately after the Civil War. --The Historian Editor Robert Utley's books available in Bison Books editions include Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life; Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891; and Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865.