Martin Personeus, was also in the Seventh Cavalry and in the same outfit (Company L) as Crisfield. They were married a few months after Custer's battle.

Military records Dorothy found show that Personeus enlisted in 1861 (he fought at Gettysburg) and joined the Seventh Cavalry in 1866. In 1872, four years before Custer died, Personeus was in South Carolina. He was discharged from the Army in 1877, less than a year after The Battle of Little Big Horn.

By 1886, according to the Congressional Record, Personeus was in the state mental facility in Jacksonville. "Personeus is now incurably insane," reads the Senate record. Before his mental condition deteriorated too far, however, he had instituted paperwork for a federal pension, claiming his military service caused his decline. He died on Christmas Eve, 1889.

The House and Senate both agreed and voted to award a pension to Mary Personeus and her children, or as the official record has it, "the fruit of said marriage."