Women Writing the West Willa Cather Award Winner for Scholarly Nonfiction

Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the LittleBighorn" is an ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to 19th Century American Biography supplemental studies curriculum.

– Library Bookwatch/Midwest Book Review

America has a mythic story that is inhabited by giants, men like General George Armstrong Custer, Captain Thomas Ward Custer, and Lieutenant James Calhoun. They live large on the silver screen, in literature, and in the American imagination. We can all see them on Last Stand Hill, out of ammunition, their sabers drawn, knowing the end is coming. But there is another story—a story that has largely been ignored for over a century and a half. It’s the powerful and heartrending tale of what happened to the wives they left behind after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Hounded by the media and tormented by souvenir hunters, they were not allowed to move beyond the sorrow.

Once or twice in a lifetime comes a meticulously researched book that so radically changes your understanding of a historical event it is as though the scales fall from your eyes and you actually see what happened for the first time. The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn is that book.

Listen to the women’s side of the story. We promise you will never be the same.

– W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear, New York Times bestselling authors of Dissolution and The Ice Orphan

The Widowed Ones is based on a highly original idea; it’s an authentic look into the lives of those left behind after battle. In this case, it’s the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and the main character, in this latest of Chris Enss’s non-fiction books about women of the west, is Elizabeth Custer.

Custer and the officers who fell during battle were dedicated soldiers. But they were also husbands and brothers, sons and fathers. When they died, they left an extraordinary gap in their wives’ lives. There was no income. It was difficult for a woman to find a respectable job. There were children and aging parents to care for. There was the deep grief that each widow carried throughout her life.

The women in The Widowed Ones rode with their husbands into the frontier. They set about making homes in new territory. Elizabeth Custer often rode 70 and 80 miles per day with her husband, and she reveled in the adventure. Other wives chose to stay in camp.

These women had one thing in common—they each lost their partner in a polarizing battle. They formed, what we would call now, a support group. The women of the Widows’ Circle met with each other, commiserated, and supported each other. Those who could not be present stayed in touch by telegraph and letter. They were the only ones who truly understood each other’s situation. They were watched by a worldwide press. Their motto? “Once a widow, always cautious.”

The Widowed Ones is exceptional in several ways, not the least of which is that every detail was carefully researched but it reads as if it were a novel. Very few non-fiction books are difficult for a reader to put down. This is one of those books.

– Win and Meredith Blevins, Best Selling Authors of The Darkness Rolling and Moonlight Water

“The rigor of the scholarly research on display here is quite simply astonishing, as the authors seem to leave no stone unturned.”

– Kirkus Reviews

“This is a perspicacious study that not only captures these particular women’s plights, but also an age in which independence for women came with extensive difficulties.”

– Kirkus Reviews

“Well-researched and dramatically conveyed historical account.”

– Kirkus Reviews

“Readers interested in 19th-century, women’s and military history will be drawn into this thoroughly humane and sympathetic treatment of U.S. army widows.”

– Library Journal

“Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian’s inspiring history title, The Widowed Ones, is about seven women who banded together to overcome their grief.Itis a compelling history text focused on women’s experiences following the Battle of the Little Bighorn.”

– Foreword Clarion Reviews

This reviewer owns countless books on Custer and the battle at the Little Big Horn. Some are well researched. Some are well written. Few enjoy both qualities. “The Widowed Ones” scores ten in both respects.

It also presents an entirely new angle to the oft done subject matter. In other words, this is the best Custer book ever for the casual reader and the jaded western researcher. Bravo! Chris Enss. She, in collaboration with Howard Kazanjian and Chris Kortlander, gives a stunning and emotionally charged view of the women that were left behind after the historic loss of George Custer’s command in 1876.

The book weaves its way through the devastation wrought upon Libby Custer and the widowed wives of the men that wore the blue of the 7th Cavalry. Enss and Kazanjian do a terrific job detailing the women’s handling of loss; not only their husband’s demise, but also the pain of official criticism aimed to besmirch their loved ones, and their grappling with getting on with their lives without any apparent means. The path Libby et. al. took is detailed in “The Widowed Ones”, an insightful glimpse of how the survivors cope, or don’t. Each reader can measure their grit and resolute devotion to their fallen husbands. It is a marvelous story. Enss and company have filled in a neglected hole in one of the West’s greatest historical events. If you are restricted to one last book purchase, this is the one.”

– Arizona Daily Star