American Historical Ephemera & Photography, Featuring Property from the James Milgram, M.D., Collection of Broadsides, Ephemeral Americana & Historical Documents

14 x 18 in. carved wood plaque featuring a group of 3 stirrups mounted above 3.75 x 2 in. metal cavalry crossed sabers insignia and a paragraph describing the provenance of the stirrups which has been permanently adhered to the wood surface (2 of 3 stirrups are detached from mount and retain glue remnants, glue remnants also on wood above sabers). Stirrups, each of a different style, are attributed to use by General George A. Custer as described in the accompanying documentation. 

[With:] A group of two stapled documents pertaining to provenance: a copy of an undated 2pp letter from Marceillus Francis DuVall of Sturgis, Michigan, describing his great-grandfather's acquisition of the stirrups from Custer and indicating that the "relics" were acquired from him by Kenneth J. Large, with a later note in the margin signed by Kenneth J. Large indicating that he sold the "aforementioned Custer stirrups to Bob Johnson on Nov. 18, 1984"; and with a letter of 7 December 1984  addressed to Robert Johnson from Monroe, Michigan, historian and Custer expert Dr. Lawrence A. Frost, in which Frost provides details on family names and properties located within Monroe. 

Though Custer was born in Ohio, he spent large portions of his youth in Monroe, Michigan, living with his half-sister who moved there upon her marriage. It was while in Monroe that Custer met his future wife, Libbie Bacon, and the two were wed there on 9 February 1864. The DuVall letter accompanying the stirrups indicates that "During Custer's time in the Army, he would come back 'to court' Miss Bacon and make his 'headquarters' at the [Bacon] home between assignments...during one of these trips he gave the three pairs [of stirrups] to my great grandfather." The same letter adds that one shoe of each pair was then given by the great-grandfather in 1914 to DuVall.