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Civil War Mules in Fact, Fiction, and Poetry

7/27/2022

Mules were the backbone of both Confederate and Union Armies during the American Civil War. According to a page on the Stones River Battlefield site, about three million horses and mules served in the war. They pulled the supply wagons, pulled the limbers and caissons for cannons, and moved the ambulances.

Although mules died in battle, just like the soldiers they supported, a greater percentage died of overwork, disease, or starvation. Rarely was the daily feed ration for Union cavalry horses, ten pounds of hay and fourteen pounds of grain, available during the long campaigns.

Jemmy Martin, one of the lead characters in Where Duty Calls, my middle grade novel about the Civil War in New Mexico, loves the two mules who work on his family's farm. When his brother sells them to the Confederate Army, Jemmy decides to travel with them to protect them. He tries hard to find good forage for his mules after Major General Henry H. Sibley's army crosses into barren New Mexico territory on its way to capture the gold fields of Colorado.

But Jemmy couldn't protect his mules from Union trickery. The night before the battle of Valverde, a Union spy named Paddy Graydon concocted a plan for killing the Confederate hoofstock using a couple of run-down mules as weapons. While his plan didn't work, he managed to spook the Confederate's pack mules. The animals, who'd been denied access to water for several days, stampeded down to the Rio Grande, where Union soldiers rounded them up. Jemmy finds himself continuing to follow the army even though his reason for being with them is gone.

While Jemmy and his mules are fictional characters that I created for my novel, the story of Paddy Graydon is true. Graydon really did spook the Confederacy's pack mules, and the Union Army did really collect over 100 of the beasts when they broke to gain access to water. They lost over 100 animals and had to reconfigure their supply train. Before they left camp, the Confederates burned what they could no longer carry.

In Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, Civil War veteran John D. Billings shares the story of another mule stampede. During the night of Oct. 28, 1863, Union General John White Geary and Confederate General James Longstreet were fighting at Wauhatchie, Tennessee. The din or battle unnerved about two hundred mules, who stampeded into a body of Rebels commanded by Wade Hampton. The rebels thought they were being attacked by cavalry and fell back.

To commemorate this incident, one Union soldier penned a poem based on Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade.

Charge of the mule brigade

Half a mile, half a mile,
Half a mile onward,
Right through the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.
“Forward the Mule Brigade!”
“Charge for the Rebs!” they neighed.
Straight for the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.

“Forward the Mule Brigade!”
Was there a mule dismayed?
Not when the long ears felt
All their ropes sundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to make Rebs fly.
On! to the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.

Mules to the right of them,
Mules to the left of them,
Mules behind them
Pawed, neighed, and thundered.
Breaking their own confines,
Breaking through Longstreet's lines
Into the Georgia troops,
Stormed the two hundred.

Wild all their eyes did glare,
Whisked all their tails in air
Scattering the chivalry there,
While all the world wondered.
Not a mule back bestraddled,
Yet how they all skedaddled--
Fled every Georgian,
Unsabred, unsaddled,
Scattered and sundered!
How they were routed there
By the two hundred!

Mules to the right of them,
Mules to the left of them,
Mules behind them
Pawed, neighed, and thundered;
Followed by hoof and head
Full many a hero fled,
Fain in the last ditch dead,
Back from an ass's jaw
All that was left of them,--
Left by the two hundred.

When can their glory fade?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Mule Brigade,
Long-eared two hundred!

The Stones River Battlefield Website stated that roughly half the horses and mules employed during the Civil War didn't survive. Jemmy Martin loses his to Paddy Graydon's plan. He spends the next two books in the Rebels Along the Rio Grande series trying to find them and return them to his home near San Antonio, Texas.

Jennifer Bohnhoff is a retired middle school English and History teacher. She has written several novels, most of which are historical fiction for middle grade readers. Where Duty Calls is the first book in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, a trilogy set in New Mexico during the Civil War.

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There’s Gold in Them Thar Books!

7/18/2022

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Gold Rush Fever was an important part of America during the nineteenth century. The excitement and intrigue, the adventurous, desperate characters, and the challenges from other miners and from the elements of nature makes for awfully good reading for people of all ages. There is particularly good diggings for middle grade readers, ages 8-14.

The first American gold rush is one that few people remember. In 1799, a twelve-year-old boy named Conrad Reed found a 17-pound nugget of gold near his home in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Not knowing what it was, the nugget was used as a doorstop until a jeweler recognized it and bought it. In 1802, word got out about the sale of that nugget and the Carolina gold rush was on.
A second gold rush began in Dahlonega, Georgia in 1829. The subsequent influx of miners and immigrants raised tensions with local Cherokee tribes, eventually leading to the forced removal of the tribes in what became known as the "Trail of Tears."

The most famous gold rush in American history began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California. The surge ‘forty-niners,” people who immigrated to California hoping to strike it rich, caused California, which was not even a territory of the United States, to get on the fast-track to statehood. As in Georgia, Native Americans living near the goldfields were forcibly removed after clashing with miners.

The next gold rush occurred in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory, in what soon became Colorado. The Pike's Peak Gold Rush began in July 1858. The estimated 100,000 gold seekers who took part in this rush were known as "fifty-niners" after 1859, the peak year of the rush. Their motto was “Pike's Peak or Bust!” even though the actual center of the mining activity was 85 miles north.

Cian Lachlann, one of the main characters in The Worst Enemy, book 2 in my Rebels Along the Rio Grande Trilogy (scheduled for release in 2023) is an orphaned Irish immigrant who becomes one the fifty-niners before joining the Colorado Volunteers and heading into New Mexico. The Book 1, Where Duty Calls, was published last month. It follows two boys through the Confederate invasion of New Mexico, up through the first battle. I am giving away five copies to people who would like a free copy in exchange for an honest critique. Email me at [email protected] if you’d like a copy.

The last great gold rush of the nineteenth century was the Klondike Gold Rush. This rush began in in 1896 when local miners in Yukon, in north-western Canada found gold. When news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, thousands of prospectors, known as "Klondikers," flooded the ports of Dyea and Skagway in Southeast Alaska, trekked over the Chilkoot or White Pass trails, then floated down the Yukon River to reach the goldfields. By the time many had made this arduous journey, the land had all been claimed. As with other gold rushes, the indigenous people of the area suffered greatly as their lands were overrun with desperate and unscrupulous prospectors.
If you want to strike gold with a middle grade reader, I suggest you try one of these books:

Jasper and the Riddle of Riley's Mine by Caroline Starr Rose
Eleven-year-old Jasper Johnson follows his older brother Melvin, who’s run away from their abusive, alcoholic father. The brothers leave the small town of Kirkland, Washington and take a steamer to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush. While he is a stowaway onboard the ship, Jasper overhears men talking about One-Eyed Riley, a prospector who left clues in the form of riddles that will reveal the location of his still-rich stake. Jasper decides he must find Riley’s mine, but in addition to unraveling the clues, the brothers must cross harsh terrain despite increasingly bad weather and having few supplies. Add to this a host of unscrupulous and dangerous people who are also searching for the mine, and the odds against these two boys are almost insurmountable. Jasper’s pluck overcomes many obstacles, and, with the help of a few good people interspersed amid the bad, the brothers find something even more valuable than gold. Caroline Starr Rose does a great job of intermingling facts with a great story so that readers will learn a lot about the history and topography of the Klondike while never feeling lectured to.

More books on the Klondike Gold Rush:

Gold Rush Fever: A Story of the Klondike, 1898 by Barbara Greenwood. 13-year-old Tim and his older brother, Roy, head off to the Klondike Gold Rush, where they face blinding snowstorms, raging rapids, backbreaking work and bitter disappointment. Each chapter in this book ends with facts, information, illustrations and photographs of the people and places of the time, and activities help bring the historical period to life.

Call of the Klondike: A True Gold Rush Adventure by David Meissner and Kim Richardson Another story of two young men during the Klondike Gold Rush, this book uses first-hand diaries, letters, telegrams and news articles (written by Pearce) to tell the true story of Marshall Bond and Stanley Pearce, two college buddies who leave Seattle to search for gold. They meet Jack London, the author of Call of the Wild and White Fang, and had an adventure that reads as big as fiction, but is true.

I Escaped The Gold Rush Fever: A California Gold Rush Survival Story by Scott Peters. It’s 1852, and 14-year-old Hudson runs away from her domineering aunt in San Francisco to go in search of her father. She finds him along the Klamath River, where tempers among the California’s Gold Rush miners and the indigenous people are running high. When anger erupts into murder in an incident based on what is known as the Klamath River Conflict, Hudson finds herself trying to save herself and her wounded father. This fast-paced book 11th in the I Escaped Series, is filled with action and sure to be a hit with fans of the I Survived Series, reluctant readers, and readers with short attention spans. A back section has facts about the California Gold Rush.

More books about the California Gold Rush

Gold Rush Girl, by Avi. Victoria Blaisdell stows away on the ship so that she can accompany her father from Rhode Island to California as he searches for gold. When her younger brother is kidnapped, Tory must search for him in Rotten Row, a part of San Francisco Bay crowded with hundreds of abandoned ships.

By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman Twelve-year-old Jack goes to California in search of gold to help his aunt keep her home. His trusty butler, Praiseworthy, joins him on the adventure which will have readers laughing out loud!

Want even more books about American Gold Rushes for middle grade readers? Check out this list.

Jennifer Bohnhoff is a retired middle school language arts and history teacher. She now stays home and writes, writes, writes, mostly historical fiction for middle grade readers.

Jennifer is also an affiliate at Bookshop.org, an online bookseller that gives 75% of its profits to independent bookstores, authors, and reviewers. As an affiliate, she receives a commission when people buy books by clicking through links on her blog. A matching commission goes to an independent bookseller.

Please do not see her affiliation with Bookshop.org as a discouragement to shop directly at your local independent bookseller or to borrow from your local library. Everyone should support their public library and local booksellers as much as possible. .

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A HISTORY OF WINE IN NEW MEXICO

7/7/2022

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New Mexico has been making wine longer than any other state in the Union.

In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate led Spanish colonists to the upper valleys of the Rio Grande near Española, founding Santa Fe de Nuevo México. Accompanying him were Franciscan monks, charged with ministering to the Hispanos of New Mexico and spreading Christianity among the Native Americans. Central to their mission was providing daily mass, which included Holy Communion. According to the Catholic faith, the wine served during communion became, through transubstantiation, the blood of Christ shed for the redemptions of sinners.

The monks had a problem, however: wine was difficult to come by in New Mexico. One quarter of Spain’s foreign trade revenue came from wine exports, and Spain was keen to protect this income source. A 1595 Spanish law forbade the export of Spanish grapevines and made it illegal to plant them in foreign soil. Instead of having a local source for their sacramental wines, monks in the colonies had to rely on wine that had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and been brought up the Camino Real, a journey that took several months at best and often over a year.

The wine shipped from Spain was light pink in color and tasted like sherry, with an alcohol content of 18%, and 10% sugar content. The heavy stoneware jugs it traveled in held between 2.6 and 3.6 gallons and resembled the jugs used in Roman times. The jugs had a green glaze that leached lead applied to their interiors. Prolonged exposure to heat during the journey and the acidity of the wine exacerbated the leaching.

Mexican wine jugs, 1830s

In 1629, a Franciscan monk named Fray Garcîa de Zuñiga and a Capuchin monk named Antonio de Arteaga decided that New Mexico had been deprived of their own wine long enough. They smuggled vines out of Spain and planted New Mexico’s first grapes in a field at the Piro Pueblo, just south of present-day Socorro. The cuttings they brought were from a variety of grape known as the Vitis vinifera, which is called the Mission grape today. It is still grown in New Mexico.

Soon, churches all over the region were planting and cultivating their own vineyards. By 1633, New Mexican viticulture was firmly established. But the relationship between Spanish settlers and Native Southwestern tribes deteriorated. In 1680, the Pueblo Revolt led to the expulsion of the Spanish settlers. During their twelve-year absence, many of their vineyards were destroyed.

https://aces.nmsu.edu/ces/viticulture/history.html

When the Spanish returned, so did winemaking. Vineyards were planted along the Rio Grande from the northern border with Colorado all the way to the southern border near El Paso, Texas. Spain ceased to dictate policy when it lost control to Mexico. In 1853, New Mexico became a U.S. territory and it opened its borders to the east. The resulting influx of Americans brought significant changes to the land, and to the winemaking industry.

In 1868, Jean Baptiste Lamy, the first bishop of Santa Fe invited Jesuit priests to settle in Albuquerque and establish the Immaculate Conception Parish. Originally from Naples, Italy, the priests brought with them their own winemaking techniques, which they used when they founded their own winery. Other Italians followed, becoming merchants in Albuquerque’s booming downtown. New Mexico’s wine production increased nearly tenfold in the next ten years. By 1880, New Mexico had twice as much acreage in grapevines as New York and ranked fifth in the nation for wine production. By 1900, New Mexico was producing almost a million gallons of wine a year.

Ovidio and Ettore Franchini, proprietors of Franchini Brothers store, enjoying a glass of homemade Italian wine ca 1910. (Photo courtesy of Henrietta Berger, Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico, 2009-03-04

The 20th century didn’t begin well for New Mexico’s vineyards. In the 1920s, Prohibition limited wine production to small amounts for medicinal and sacramental purposes. Then a series of flood, including one in 1943 that was the largest flood in 100 years, destroyed the fields. Many thought that New Mexico would never again become a major producer of wine.

Once again, New Mexico’s wine industry bounced back. Beginning in the 1970s, small commercial wineries began operating in New Mexico. There were four in 1979. Two years later, Hervé Lescombes a winemaker from Burgundy, France came to try his luck in the desert. Many other European investors followed. Today, more than 40 wineries and vineyards produce more than tens of thousands of gallons of wine annually in New Mexico, contributing millions of dollars to the state’s revenue.

Let us raise a glass to the tenacity of those who kept New Mexico’s wineries going, despite laws, rebellions, drought and flood.

A former New Mexico history teacher, Jennifer Bohnhoff was born in the southern part of the state and has lived her entire adult life in New Mexico. She has written several historical fiction novels, some of which are set in New Mexico. Visit her website for more information on her and her novels.

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Civil War Mules in Fact, Fiction, and Poetry

There’s Gold in Them Thar Books!

A HISTORY OF WINE IN NEW MEXICO

ABout Jennifer Bohnhoff

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