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Touring Pecos National Monument -- The Glorieta Battlefield Interpretive Trail

10/22/2024

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Some Civil War Battlefields have become national parks or tourist attractions, and they have kiosks and guidebooks to walk interested people through the events that happened there. Pecos National Monument strived to do a similar thing with its Glorieta Battlefield Interpretive Trail. Unfortunately for history fans. Much of the battlefield is buried under the asphalt of I-25, or is in private hands. While the Park Service has published a little guide to the interpretive trail, I'd like to add some information about areas of the battle that are outside the Park's boundaries to supplement the park's guide.

To follow along, begin driving I-25 east as it leaves Santa Fe.

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The Battle of Glorieta Pass could just as easily be called The Battle of Three Ranches, because three different ranches played prominent roles in the conflict. The first, Johnson’s Ranch, is no longer standing. This picture is what the ranch looked like in 1914. It would have been located on I-40, a little east of the turn off for Canoncito.
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Anthony D. Johnson, the owner of the ranch, had served in the Union Army. A Missouri native, he had bought the ranch with his severance pay, married a local woman named Cruz, and had fathered five children. Johnson made his living keeping travelers along the Santa Fe trail, and transporting supplies. When the Confederates arrived, he and his family fled into the hills just north of the ranch, where they could watch what was happening below. They camped until it was safe to return home. Johnson later transported wounded Confederates back to Santa Fe. He later moved his family to Trinidad, Colorado, where he died a mysterious death. 

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As you drive past the exit, you will see an old church on the left (north). That is Nuestra Señora de la Luz Church, built in 1880, it has a fascinating old cemetery full of unusual molded cement tombstones.
If you drive on the little frontage road in front of the church, it turns north and becomes Johnson Ranch Road.
The ranch itself was bulldozed in 1967 so that the interstate could go through.


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Confederate Major Charles L. Pyron (1819–1869) encamped at Johnson’s Ranch with 200-300 men from the Texas Volunteers 5th Regiment. As he waited for other Confederate units to catch up, he sent a scouting party up into Glorieta Pass. 

The first day of the battle took place just east of Johnson’s Ranch, in Apache Canyon. At the time of the Civil War, Apache Canyon had a deep arroyo that crossed the road, and there was a bridge over it. 
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Exit I-40 at exit 299. Cross over the interstate, then turn right to continue towards Pecos on state road 50. After about a mile, you will pass an old adobe that’s on the north side of the road. This is all that remains of Pigeon’s Ranch.
Alexander Pigeon (or Valle. No one is really sure what his real name was, and there are legal documents using both) Was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1817. He came to New Mexico along the Santa Fe Trail, probably in the late 1830s. He lived in Santa Fe, making his living as a trader, gambler, and land speculator until 1852, when he bought a portion of an 1815 land grant for 5,275 pesos.

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He and his wife Carmen built a large adobe ranch home, an inn large enough to house 40 guests, a tavern, corrals, stables, granaries, and a water well. The Ranch remained a viable hotel until 1879, when the New Mexico and Southern Pacific Railroad constructed a railroad through the pass. It continued to be a tourist destination when route 66 went through the pass, but gave up the ghost after I-25 made it into a backwater.  The black and white picture is by Ben Wittrock, and is dated 1880.

Early in the morning of March 26, a Union scouting party led by Lt. George Nelson rode to Pigeon’s Ranch, where a very excited Pigeon told them that a Confederate Party had just passed, going east. The patrol doubled back and encountered the three Confederates, who in the gloom thought that the Union soldiers were Confederates. “Are you here to relieve us?” one of the Confederates called. Nelson yelled back. “Yes! We’re here to relieve you of your arms.” He then captured the men and brought them back to Kozlowski’s Ranch, where the Union troops were bivouacked.

Kozlowski’s Ranch is the third of the three ranches involved in the Battle of Glorieta Pass. Located on the western side of the pass, it was where Major John Chivington and a 418-man unit from the 1st Colorado Volunteers  stopped, waiting for Colonel John Slough to bring the rest of the Union Troops down from Fort Union so they could capture Santa Fe. 
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Martin Kozlowski came from Warsaw, Poland. Born in 1827, he fought in the 1848 revolution against the Prussians, then became a refugee in England, where married an Irish woman named Ellene. The two immigrated to American in 1853, and Martin enlisted in the First Dragoons, who were fighting Apaches in the Southwest. When he mustered out of the Army in 1858, he used his 160-acre government bounty land warrant to purchase his ranch. Kozlowski grew corn and raised livestock, but a lot of his livelihood came from accommodating for travelers on the Santa Fe trail. A big Union supporter, he was thrilled to host Chivington and his men. 

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In 1925, the Kozlowski family sold the Ranch to Tex Austin, who renamed it the Forked Lightning Ranch. Tex used Martin’s old Trading Post as the Ranch headquarters. In 1941, "Buddy" Fogelson, a Texas oilman and rancher bought the ranch. He married Hollywood actress Greer Garson 8 years later. Garson donated the land to The Conservation Fund, who donated it to the federal government.

When you get to the Pecos Visitor Center, check to see if the Forked Lightning Ranch is open (it isn’t always open, but it has a nice little museum and is worth the visit.) 


When the Union scouting party returned to Kozlowski’s Ranch on the morning of March 26, 1862, and Chivington learned that the Confederates were encamped only 9 miles away, he decided not to wait for Slough and the rest of the Union army to arrive. They reached the summit of the pass, close to where Glorietta Retreat now is, at around 2p.m, and quickly a 30-man Confederate advance force.
Excited by this, the Coloradans rushed into Apache Canyon. The two sides met about a mile and a half west of Pigeon’s Ranch, or six miles northeast of Johnson’s Ranch.  The Confederates withdrew about a mile and a half, to a narrower section of the pass that could be better defended. They destroyed the bridge after crossing it. Chivington’s cavalry charged, leaping over the arroyo and sending the Confederates into a panic. 
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They fled to a bend in the road, where they could hold off the Federals and prevent a complete rout. Chivington decided that they were too far from their supply base to risk another attack and fell back to Pigeon's Ranch. In this first day of battle, the Federals sustained 27 casualties (19 killed, five wounded, and three missing), and the Confederates lost 125 (16 killed, 30 wounded, and 79 captured or missing). This small engagement, no more than a two hour skirmish, marked the first Federal victory in the New Mexico Territory. Up to this point, Confederates had won every battle. 
Having lost about a third of his command, Pyron retreated back to Johnson’s Ranch. He sent a messenger to Lieutenant Colonel William R. Scurry’s column, which was about 16 miles south, at Galisteo. Chivington also sent a messenger, urging Colonel Slough to hurry southward. That evening, both sides called a truce to tend to their dead and wounded. The truce continued unbroken through the next day.

​Stop in the Pecos National Monument Visitor Center.

While you’re there, tour the museum. You can pick up a guide for the Ancestral Sites Trail, an easy gravel path that loops through the old pueblo and church. 1.25 mile, with an elevation Change of 80 ft.  There is a free ranger guided tour from 10-11 am most days. Check the website for more information.
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Also, get the gate code and map to get to the Glorieta Battlefield Trail. The trailhead is 7.5 miles away from the visitor center and behind a locked gate. It is an easy, gravel loop trail that is 2.25 miles around. You can buy a trail guide at the visitor center which will have different information that this guide.
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Glorieta Battlefield Trail doesn’t really encompass the entire battle, but some of the third day. I suggest you read the trail guide produced by the Park Service. Here are a few extra notes that might make the route a little more interesting.

Marker 2: The trail isn’t set up in a way that presents the battle in order. The actual beginning of the battle occurred west of here. This is where the second part of the battle occurred. The Union had pulled back to here, Artillery Hill, to take advantage of the high ground.

Confederate Major John Shropshire was a rich landowner who owned a 750 acre plantation and owned 61 slaves. Born in 1833 in Kentucky, both his parents died of cholera when he was just 3 years old. He was married and had one young son, Charles. He was a very tall man: I’ve seen 6’4” and 6’5”.

Shopshire led a flanking movement around the Union forces, then charged up the hill.  He and 30 of his men were killed in the fight. One source I read said that Shropshire was shot between the eyes by a Union private named George W. Pierce. Another says that the top of his head was sheared off by a cannonball.
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In June 1987 a man digging a foundation for a new house just across from the Pigeon Ranch discovered a the body. Archaeologists were called in. They discovered that the skeleton was of a 6’4” (or so) man, and the top of the skull was missing. Shropshire was reburied with military honors at his birthplace in Kentucky, alongside his parents in 1990. Archaeologists then discovered a grave with 30 skeletons, which were reburied in the Santa Fe Veterans cemetery.
 

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Marker 3 Is where the battle actually began.
John Slough had decided to use a pincer movement, sending John Chivington and two infantry battalions up Glorieta Mesa, with orders to circle around the Confederates and attack them from behind. He therefore had less men with him to attack the front of the Confederate forces.

Scurry believed the Union force was retreating to Fort Union. He decided to go after them, leaving his sick and wounded, one cannon, and a small guard with the supply wagons at Johnson's Ranch. He advanced up the canyon with around 1,000 men.

Slough ran into the Confederates here about 11:00 am.  Thirty minutes later, the Confederates' numerical superiority managed to push back the Union men to Marker 2’s position.

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At the same time as Shropshire was storming Artillery Hill, Scurry sent Henry Raguet to attack the Union right, and around 3:00 pm they succeeded in outflanking the Union right and taking what thereafter became known as Sharpshooters Ridge. Raguet was killed, but the ridge allowed Confederate riflemen to pick off Union artillerymen and infantry below them at Piegeon’s Ranch, making the Union position untenable.
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Slough was convinced that his own men were firing on him at Pigeon’s Ranch. This caused him to resign his commission and return to Colorado within days of the battle. 


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Marker 9  Alfred B. Peticolas kept a multi-book journal of his times with Sibley’s Battalion which included sketches of the places he’d seen. Unfortunately, some of the books were burned at Johnson’s ranch. The Confederates were poorly provisioned, and, coming from Texas, unprepared for how cold New Mexico would be. Many of them wore coats and pants scavenged from Union dead. (The wore the belts upside down, so the US on the belt buckle looked like SN, which they said stood for Southern Nation. This helped distinguish them from Union Soldiers – if you looked close enough. Obviously, Lt. Col Tappan did not.
 

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Lt. Col Samuel F. Tappan was raised in Massachusetts and came from a family of famous abolitionists. A man of high principles, he was the ranking officer and acting colonel when Slough resigned a few days after the victory at Glorieta Pass, but voluntarily relinquished his seniority rights and joined in signing a petition from among the men of the First Colorado to elevate Chivington. He had reason to regret this decision. Tappan headed the military commission that investigated Colonel Chivington for his role in the Sand Creek massacre. He and Gen. Sherman were the two commission members who finalized the Treaty of Bosque Redondo, which allowed the Navajos to return to their homelands, and he worked to assure the rights of the Plains Indians.

Marker 10 Slough reluctantly ordered a retreat, and Tappan and his artillery on Artillery Hill covered it. Slough reformed his line a half-mile east of Pigeon's Ranch, where skirmishing continued until dusk. The Union men finally retreated to Kozlowski's Ranch, leaving the Confederates in possession of the battlefield.
Control of the Battlefield is one of the factors in deciding who won. Scurry and the Confederates technically won the battle and, had they not lost their supplies, might have been able to push the Union troops back further in another day of fighting. Furthermore, Col. Tom Green’s men, who’d taken an alternative route south of the mountain pass, might have been able to swing around the mountain’s eastern edge and perform the pincer act on the Union Troops that Slough had intended to perform on the Confederates. The Confederate Army might then have been able to push on to the lightly guarded Fort Union, where they could have gotten enough supplies and ammunition to continue on to Colorado, and then California. With gold, and the deep ports of Los Angeles and San Diego, the war might have ended very differently. 


Jennifer Bohnhoff is the author of Rebels Along the Rio Grande, a trilogy of historical novels based on New Mexico during the Civil War. The second book in the series, The Worst Enemy, includes the Battle of Glorieta Pass. 

If you are planning to visit Pecos National Monument and want a printable version of this blog, click here. 
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The Colorado Contribution to New Mexico During the Civil War

10/11/2024

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Colorado came to be a territory of the United States in a piecemeal fashion. Its present-day eastern and central areas were part of the Louisiana Purchase, made 1803, while the western portion of the state was acquired during the Mexican War (1846-1848) from Mexico, who had gained control over the area in 1833 when it had won its independence from Spain. Even after all the land was firmly under U.S. control, the area was divided. Parts of present-day Colorado were included in New Mexico and Utah Territories, both organized in 1850. Others were of Kansas and Nebraska Territories, organized in 1854.

Until the late 1850s, when gold was discovered in Russellville Gulch in present-day Douglas County and along Cherry Creek near where it joins with the Platte River, Colorado only had about 7,500 settlers. By 1859, an estimated 100,000 men had entered the gold fields. Because many of these men came from Georgia and other southern states, the area had a distinctive lean towards southern sympathies.


Five days before Abraham Lincoln became President on 4 March 1861, his predecessor, James Buchanan signed the law that made Colorado a Territory.  Two weeks after his inauguration Lincoln, who wanted a pro-Union governor for Colorado Territory, proposed William Gilpin to the Senate, who appointed him, but then recessed before passing any appropriations for the new Territory. Gilpin was left with just a $1,500 contingency fund with which to run the new territory. He arrived in Denver before June and toured the mining camps, discovering that the boom had passed and a new census showed only about 25,000 people including 4,000 white females and 89 Negroes in the territory, most of them concentrated in the Clear Creek, Boulder, and South Park mining districts and in the small but growing town of Denver.

On April 12, Confederate forces fired on Ft. Sumter. The U.S. government’s focus shifted to calling up troop in the east, and the needs of Colorado was forgotten.  Concerned that the Confederacy would try to conquer the territory for its vast mineral deposits as well as its strategic location, Gilpin began organizing the Territorial military that summer. Morton C. Fisher, his newly appointed Purchasing Agent, was immediately sent out to buy and collect all the arms he could, both supply the new troops and to keep those arms out of the hands of Southern sympathizers. Not having the money to organize and equip the men, Gilpin issued $375,000 worth of drafts, known as Gilpin Scrip, directly upon the United States Secretary of the Treasury. These drafts were used as money in the Territory and were passed along to Washington, who honored payment for some of the script at a value considerably below face value. A year later, this illegal action would cost him his position as Territorial Governor, and he was forced to resign the next year. 

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Gilpin’s intent was to use the money to create the First Regiment of volunteers consisting of ten companies. He appointed John P. Slough to be its Colonel and Samuel F. Tappan, to be Lt. Colonel. Gilpin had planned for John M. Chivington, an elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to be the Chaplain, but when Chivington turned down the appointment and requested a fighting commission, he was made Major. The troops were ordered to Camp Weld, a new installation being built about two miles south of Denver. Gilpin’s Script paid for the building of Camp Weld as well as uniforms, arms, supplies and equipment for the troops.
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One of the first men to join Gilpin’s new militia was Samuel H. Cook, who convinced 80 men from the gold fields of the South Clear Creek mining district to join with him on a ride to Kansas, where they would join the Union Army and serve under General James Lane. As they were passing through Denver in the middle of August, Cook met Governor Gilpin, who persuaded him to remain in Colorado and join what was becoming the First Regiment of the Colorado Volunteers. Cook’s men became a mounted troop, designated as Company F.  

In December of 1861, news came from New Mexico that Confederate troops under H.H. Sibley had invaded over the Texas border, two companies of Colorado Volunteers set out for New Mexico. These companies were Captain Theodore H. Dodd’s Independent Company, Colorado Volunteers and Captain James H. Ford’s Independent Company, Colorado Volunteers. Dodd’s Company was sent to Fort Craig, where they resisted a charge of lancers in the battle of Valverde on  February 21, 1862. Ford’s Company was sent to Taos and then Santa Fe before being ordered back to Ft. Union.  

On February 14, 1862 orders arrived that asked that all available forces that Colorado could spare be sent south to aid Colonel Canby, the commander of the Department of War in New Mexico. On February 22, the main body of the First Colorado Regiment, including Captain Cook’s Co. F, set out amid intense snow storms. They arrived at Fort Union on March 10th and were joined the next day by Ford’s Company. Slough would march most of these men south, where they participated in the Battle of Glorieta before joining forces with Canby to shepherd the retreating Confederates back to their own territory, ensuring that both New Mexico and Colorado Territories would remain in Union hands. 


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Jennifer Bohnhoff's trilogy, Rebels Along the Rio Grande, is written for middle grade readers who are interested in the Civil War in New Mexico. 
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Civil War Books for Middle Grade Readers

9/28/2024

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The American Civil War may be 150 years ago, but it still fascinates adults and children alike. When people think about the Civil War, they think of Antietam, Gettysburg, and other great battles in the east. They think of the Emancipation Proclamation and the freeing of the Black slaves in the south. With the possible exception of Bloody Kansas, few people are aware that there were Civil War battles east of the Mississippi, but there were.

I learned how few people were aware of the Civil War in the west when I taught New Mexico history to 7th graders. My parents were surprised when their children started talking about Civil War battles. Some even told me that I was wrong, and that there were no battles here. There were, and had the Confederacy won them, the war might have turned out very differently. I wrote Rebels Along the Rio Grande because there was such a paucity of material on this subject.

Here’s a list of books about the Civil War for middle school readers. Some are fiction. Some are nonfiction. But only mine are about what happened in the New Mexico territory during the war. On this topic, I am out standing, alone, in my field.  

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Behind Enemy Lines  by Seymour Reit
Emma Edmonds may be Canadian-born, but when the Civil War begins, she crops her hair, dons men's clothing, and enlists as a spy for the Union Army. Disguised as, among others, a peddler, a slave, and a bookkeeper, she gathers information while risking discovery and death for the sake of freedom. This is fictional, but readers will forget that and be caught up in Emma’s harrowing escapes from discovery.

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Spies in the Civil War for Kids: A History Book  by Daniel Lewer. Any kid who reads Behind Enemy Lines will want to follow up with this book, where they will learn the facts behind the fiction. It’s fascinating to learn about the clever plots, inventive gadgets, and clever disguises that aren’t always presented in the history books.  Lots of full-color illustrations and battle maps draw in reluctant readers.

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The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg  by Rodman Philbrick
I love Rodman Philbrick’s writing, and this novel is among his best. There’s a good reason it’s a  Newbery Honor winner. Homer is a 12 year-old orphan whose older brother, Harold, has been sold into the Union Army. Homer runs away from Pine Swamp, Maine, to find Harold, and finds himself in the company of thieves, scallywags, and spies. In turns funny and sad, readers will be pulled along to the dramatic climax that takes place on  Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg.


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If Gettysburg is your thing, I recommend you read my novel The Bent Reed after finishing Philbrick’s book. Sarah McCoombs feels isolated and uncomfortable when her mother pulls her from school and allows a doctor to treat her scoliosis with a cumbersome body cast. When the McCoombs farm becomes a battle field and then a hospital, Sarah must reach deep inside herself to find the strength to cope as she nurses wounded soldiers from both sides. 

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Bull Run  by Paul Fleischman is another of my favorite books. The winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and an ALA Notable Children's Book, this novel tells the story of the Civil War’s first great battle from sixteen different points of view representing north and south, male and female, black and white. I’ve used this book in my classroom, assigning the different parts to different students, and it was an emotional experience, especially when some of the voices disappeared and the students knew that they had been killed. 

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Don't Know Much About the Civil War: Everything You Need to Know about America's Greatest Conflict But Never Learned  by Kenneth C. Davis
Part of a series of “Don’t Know Much About” books, this book wasn’t really written specifically for middle grade readers, but it is extremely readable, and a great resource for even reluctant students.  New York Times bestselling author Ken Davis describes every major event of the Civil War era, but he also includes the little tidbits that students love.  A great, encyclopedic book that kids can peruse and jump around through.

My trilogy, Rebels Along the Rio Grande tells the story of three boys from different cultures. When his brother sells the family mules to a regiment of Texas Mounted Volunteers, Jemmy Martin becomes a packer, a teamster, and finally a medic as he follows his mules in a desperate attempt to bring them home safely. Raul Atencio is the nephew of a prosperous Socorro, New Mexico merchant who sells goods to the Union Army. He’s delivering supplies when the Confederates arrive and he becomes an unwilling participant in the defense of the Fort. In search of security and a full belly, Irish orphan Cian Lochlann gives up gold prospecting to join the Colorado Volunteers, then finds himself at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, which historians have called the "Gettysburg of the West." This fictional series, heavily based on true events, tells the story of the Confederate invasion of New Mexico from its beginning, presented in book 1, Where Duty Calls, the dramatic climax in The Worst Enemy,  right through their final retreat in The Famished Country.

Do you know another middle grade book on the Civil War that you could recommend? Leave it in the comments to help other readers.

To celebrate the publication of The Famished Country on October 15, I’m giving away two paperback and two ebook copies of each of my Civil War titles. If you would like one, reply with the name of the book you would like, and whether you want a paperback or digital copy. I would very much appreciate if you left a review on the book you received.

Many of the links in this blog post link to Bookshop.org, an online bookseller that gives 75% of its profits to independent bookstores, authors, and reviewers. If you click through these links and make a purchase on Bookshop.org, I will receive a commission, and Bookshop.org will give a matching commission to independent booksellers. If you’re not looking to buy, you can find or request these books from your local library.

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William Wing Loring, the One Armed General

8/27/2024

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William Wing Loring’s military career spanned more than four decades. He fought under three different flags.

Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on December 4, 1818, his father could trace his ancestry back to the original Plymouth Colony and his mother came from a prominent North Carolina family. The family moved to St. Augustine, Florida soon after Spain ceded it to the United States.

Loring’s military career began when he was 14 years old and joined the 2nd Florida Volunteers to fight Seminole Indians.

​When he was 17, stories about the Battle of the Alamo inspired Loring to run away from home and join the Texas revolutionaries. His time as a Texas patriot was short. His father tracked him down and forced him to return home, where he rejoined his old unit. By the time he was 18, he had risen in the ranks to 2nd lieutenant. A year later, his family sent him to a prestigious Boarding School in Alexandria. From there he went to Georgetown College. He was admitted to the Florida bar in 1842, and served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1843 to 1845. 

When the Mexican-American War began, Loring left his law practice to join the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen as a captain. He was storming the Castle of Chapultepec at Mexico City when he lost his arm. Because of his gallant actions in that battle, he was promoted to brevet colonel. After the war, Loring decided to stay in the Army instead of returning to his law practice. 
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The Battle of Chapultepec. Print by N. Currier
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Loring was given command of the Rio Grande frontier in Texas in 1852. Four years later, he became the youngest line colonel in the history of the army. In 1857 he and the Rifles were transferred to New Mexico, where they took part in operations against the Apache, Comanche and Kiowa, and fought in the Mormon War. He was named commander of the Department of New Mexico in March of 1861, but he didn’t hold the post long. Soon after Fort Sumner was shelled, he resigned his commission to join the Confederate Army. Some historians speculate that Loring either planned to deliver New Mexico to the Confederacy or put Union supplies into the hands of Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley, but he did neither. Loring did the honorable thing and left the territory in Union hands.

 In a conference in New Mexico, before departing for Confederate service, Loring told his officers, "The South is my home, and I am going to throw up my commission and shall join the Southern Army, and each of you can do as you think best." ​
Loring’s service during the Civil War started well, but became embroiled in arguments with other Confederates. Jefferson Davis welcomed him by promoting him to brigadier general, and then General Robert E. Lee assigned him to the Army of Northwestern Virginia. However, Lee soon had misgivings about Loring’s command. By the end of the year, Loring’s army was sent to assist General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Again, he and his superior did not get along. Anxious not to alienate either commander, the Confederate government promoted Loring to major general and reassigned him to southeastern Virginia. Loring later resigned over a conflict concerning recruiting practices in Virginia. ​
When he regretted his resignation and sought reassignment, Robert E. Lee is supposed to have said, “There is no room in this army for that man.” Lee’s opinion may have developed because of Loring’s explosive temper. His salty language --one soldier said that he could "curse a cannon uphill without horses" – may have also played a part. It is also true that the highest ranks of the Confederacy were a bit of an old boy’s club, with most of the members having been trained at West Point, and Loring was not part of that crowd. Whatever the cause of the upper echelon’s enmity against him, the men under him did not feel the same. They followed him obediently and even gave him nicknames, including “Old One Wing,” “Old Ringlets,” and “Old Billy.” After he urged his men to “Give them blizzards, boys, give them blizzards!” during the defense of Fort Pemberton against the Federal flotilla on the Mississippi River, he earned the nickname “Old Blizzards.”
PictureLoring Pasha as a general in the Khedivate of Egypt
When Loring had gotten on the wrong side of every superior in Virginia, he was sent to defend Vicksburg. There, he argued with General John C. Pemberton and was subsequently assigned to the Army of Mississippi under General Leonidas Polk. Loring was shot in the chest and spent several months recuperating before being assigned to serve under General John B. Hood in Tennessee.
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After the war over, Loring spent some time in  New York City, trying to develop a career in banking. Bored with civilian life, he moved to Egypt, where he joined Henry Hopkins Sibley and several other Americans who came to  help modernize the Egyptian army.  Loring, in charge of the country’s coastal defenses, became a favorite of Ismail, the Khedive and earned the title of “Fereck Pasha” or major general.  Loring 
wrote a book about his Egyptian experiences, entitled A Confederate Soldier in Egypt (1884).He died two years later, in New York City. 

To read about how his monument was moved in 2020, click here.

Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former educator who now devotes her time to writing historical and contemporary fiction for middle grade and adult readers. She has written a trilogy of novels set in New Mexico during the Civil War which is entitled Rebels Along the Rio Grande. 
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Annabel Lee Watkins: A Character in The Famished Country

8/9/2024

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The Famished Country, book 3 in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, my trilogy of middle grade historical novels set in New Mexico Territory during the American Civil War, comes out this fall. If you've read Where Duty Calls or The Worst Enemy, books 1 and 2, you will know that, while the main characters are fictitious, many of the background and supporting characters are not. I developed my main characters by blending the experiences of several real people, so that my characters could be all the places I wanted them to be, but I set them into a world that was real and filled with real people. Here is an introduction to one of the principal characters and the real and fictious people in her life:
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Annabel Lee Watkins is the beautiful teenaged daughter of a Major in the Union Army. Her mother died giving birth to her, and her father has been dragging her from fort to fort her whole life.

Annabel's father named her after the last poem Edgar Allen Poe wrote. It was  about his great love for a dead woman, and has always made Annabel wonder if her father actually sees her, or the shadow of her dead mother.

​Annabel despises the rustic forts of the American West and longs to be sent back east to a finishing school where she will learn the manners and make the connections that will allow her to live a much more refined life. 

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When Colonel Canby, the Commandant of all Union troops in New Mexico Territory learns that a Confederate Force is advancing towards Fort Craig, he sends the fort's women and children north to keep them out of harm's way. Wagons filled with these refugees lumber up the Camino Real, the old Spanish Royal Road that stretched up the Rio Grande. Some of the riders are bound for Fort Union, the great supply depot that guards the final stretches of the Santa Fe Trail, but Annabel's journey ends in Santa Fe.

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Annabel is the reason that Raul Atencio becomes trapped in Fort Craig in book 1, Where Duty Calls. The nephew of a prominent Socorro merchant, Raul is delivering corn to the fort when he first lays eyes on the girl that he only knows as 'The Major's Golden Daughter.' Smitten with the haughty beauty, Raul finds excuses to visit the fort. On one of those visits, he finds Annabel gone and the Confederates present. He is forced to stay, and ends up participating in the Battle of Valverde as a runner for Kit Carson, the famous mountain man and scout who is leading a group of New Mexico Volunteers. 

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In Santa Fe, Annabel finds shelter in the home of Louisa Canby, the wife of Colonel Canby. Annabel expects life with the officer's wife to be a whirl of balls, teas, and social events, but Mrs. Canby is a practical woman and has turned her home into a hospital for wounded Confederates as a way to keep Santa Fe from being looted.

​Annabel sees Jemmy Martin, a wounded Confederate, as a way out of her circumstances. But Jemmy, and fate, has different plans for her.

Annabel Lee
By Edgar Allan Poe

​It was many and many a year ago,
   In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
   By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
   I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
   My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
   And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
   Went envying her and me--
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
   In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
   Of those who were older than we--
   Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the angels in Heaven above
   Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
   In her sepulchre there by the sea--
   In her tomb by the sounding sea.
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Jennifer Bohnhoff is a retired teacher who now writes historical and contemporary fiction for middle grade and adult readers. 
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New Mexico, the Famished Country

5/30/2024

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At the beginning of the Civil War, Henry Hopkins Sibley had a grandiose plan. Because he'd been stationed at Fernando de Taos and at Fort Union, he thought he knew the territory of New Mexico. But he didn't know it well enough, and his grandiose plan failed. He later blamed his failure not on his incompetence or lack of knowledge, but on the land itself. ​

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When the Civil War broke out, Sibley was serving under the commander  of the department, Colonel William W. Loring, a career Army officer who'd lost an arm during the Mexican American War. Loring, whose home state was Florida, had already sent his own letter of resignation to Washington when Sibley, a Louisiana native, tendered his resignation to him an April 28th.

Impatient to leave because of circulating rumors  of high-ranking commissions in the Confederate Army, Sibley asked for “the authority to leave this Dept. immediately.” 

When May 31 arrived and he still had not heard anything, he took seven days’ leave of absence, bid his command goodbye, and left Fort Union on the next stage.  He
 accepted an appointment to colonel in the Confederate army. By June, 1861, Sibley had been promoted to brigadier general.  

Sibley's promotion was prompted by his visit to Richmond, Virginia, where he persuaded Confederate President Jefferson Davis that he could sweep through New Mexico and seize Colorado and California for the Confederacy.This bold plan would not only increase the size of the Confederacy, but it would achieve the dream of Manifest Destiny, making the rebel nation stretch from sea to shining sea. Gold from Colorado and California's gold fields would enrich the Southern war chest, and the deep water port of Los Angeles would help supply the army with materiel that was not getting through the Atlantic Union blockade. The proposal sounded too good to be true, especially since Sibley claimed he could do it without encumbering the Confederacy for his supplies. Sibley claimed that he could live off the land during his trek through New Mexico. He believed there was enough water, fodder for the animals, and food for his men. He had heard enough New Mexicans complain about the army presence that he believed New Mexicans would willingly support a Confederate army. Sibley was wrong, both about the amount of supplies available and about the people's opinion of the Confederate army that he led. 
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​Brig. Gen. Henry H. Sibley's supply problems began long before he entered New Mexico Territory.  Sibley began assembling his small army in San Antonio late in the summer of 1861. He quickly discovered that outfitting his troops would take far longer than he had anticipated. There were few available weapons, uniforms and military supplies for his 2,500 man force, which he had named The Army of New Mexico, and so when the men finally began the trek to the territories, many did so wearing their civilian clothing and carrying whatever weapons they had brought from home. This included squirrel guns, shotguns, and ancient blunderbusses. 

One of the reasons ​Brig. Gen. Henry H. Sibley was so wrong about New Mexico's ability to sustain his army was a matter of timing. Since outfitting and training his troops took far longer than expected, Sibley's force didn’t begin the 600-mile march across Texas until November. The landscape of West Texas provided very little grass and other forage for the Army's horses and mules, and there was so little water that Sibley's line of march spaced itself so that each regiment was a full day behind the next, allowing the springs to recover somewhat between regiments. Still, the going was rough and the army began losing hoof stock.
 

After the war, William Lott Davidson, a 24-year old private in Company A of the 5th Texas, recalled that “‘Chill November’s surly blast’ came down upon us as we camped upon the Nueces. There was no timber to shield us and the wind swept at us, and the boys on guard at night must have had a hard time pacing their beats on the cold frozen ground. We were tasting the bitter delights and mournful realities of a soldier’s life. We are now for the first time beginning to find out that we are engaged in no child’s play.”
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map by Matt Bohnhoff
Nothing became easier after The Army of New Mexico entered New Mexico Territory. The weather at New Mexico's higher elevations was brutal. Firsthand accounts recall repeatedly waking up covered in snow. Davidson wrote that the sentries "paced in rags and tatters, their weary best through the long tedious hours of the night, with bare-feet over the frozen and ice-covered ground. ‘Found dead on post’ and ‘froze to death last night’ were sounds we often heard, as a poor, stiff, lifeless body was brought into camp, the dauntless spirit having gone to sleep, to rest with the brave.”

Blizzards, combined with too little food and forage led to illness among both men and beast. Measles and pneumonia ran rampant through the troops.
Picturemap by Matt Bohnhoff, from Where Duty Calls
After failing to take Fort Craig in a frontal assault, Sibley decided to execute what he called "a roundance on Yankeedom" and bypass the fort. ​This flanking march forced the Confederate Army away from the Rio Grande, the only source of water in the area. Both the men and their animals suffered intense thirst. Private Laughter of the 2nd Texas recalled that “The dry beef we had for supper needed moisture. The fact was, if one of us coughed you could see the dust fly.” 

The old western saying that “whiskey is for drinking, but water is for fighting” proved true. The Battle of Valverde occured when the Confederate Army finally returned to the river on the other side of Contadora Mesa and found their access to water blocked by Union troops.

To add to the misery, a major sandstorm, one of many recorded in soldier's diaries and memoirs, hit just before the battle of Valverde. These brutal storms were more proof that Sibley's men were campaigning in the extreme and inhospitable environment of the upper Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts.
Pictureillustration by Ian Bristow in The Worst Enemy
The Confederate's problems continued as the Army continued to head north. In Albuquerque, where they had hoped to pillage the government storehouses. They found that the Union soldiers had burned the supplies before retreating north. Running low on everything, Sibley was once again forced to split his forces in order to maximize their ability to forage on the sparse winter grass. Private Davidson was part of the army that was sent into the Sandia Mountains, where it was believed that grass was abundant. He found that what grass there was was buried beneath deep snow. "The army was marched out in the mountains east of Albuquerque and camped, as I thought, for the winter as the weather was very cold, sleeting and snowing all the time. At this camp we remained a week and we buried fifty men, and if the weather and exposure had continued much longer, we would have buried the whole brigade.”

The weather was no kinder in the mountains east of Santa Fe, where the Santa Fe Trail snaked through Glorieta Pass on its way to Fort Union, where the Confederate Army hoped to capture a wealth of Union supplies. The Texans won another tactical victory at the Battle of Glorieta, but returned to their supply train to find it burned. That night, Davidson wrote that “a severe snow storm arose and snow fell to the depth of a foot and several of our wounded froze to death.”

Pictureillustration by Ian Bristow in The Famished Country
​Weakened by two battles, long marches, extended exposure, repeated winter storms, and insufficient supplies, it became clear that the Confederate Army had no choice but to to withdraw back down the Rio Grande. With the exception of a couple of cannonade skirmishes at Albuquerque and Peralta, Colonel Canby, the cautious commander of Union forces in New Mexico was content to not engage in any more battles. Instead, he allowed the weather and terrain to finish off Sibley’s army while he skirted alongside the Rio Grande, herding the pitiful remnants of The Army of New Mexico out of the territory they'd hoped to conquer. 

Picturemap by Matt Bohnhoff, included in The Famished Country
Brig. Gen. Henry H. Sibley had launched an invasion force of 2,500 men in a grandiose scheme to take the Colorado and California goldfields, establish a port on the Pacific coast, and open a route for a coast to coast railroad system, all of which would have dramatically expanded the Confederacy’s presence in the Southwest and perhaps changed the trajectory of the war. By the time his disastrous retreat was completed in the summer of 1862, he returned to San Antonio with less than a third of the men he had begun with. Davidson wrote that, “We left San Antonio eight months earlier with near three thousand men ….And now in rags and tatters, foot-sore and weary, we again march, if a reel and stagger can be called a march, along the streets of San Antonio with fourteen hundred men. I can furnish a list of four hundred and thirty-seven dead, but where are the other sixteen hundred?” While not all the the unrecorded can be accounted for, many deserted on the long retreat, heading for California or hiding in the hills.

 In a letter to John McRae, the father of Alexander McRae, a native South Carolinian who fought for the Union, General Sibley blamed the countryside itself for his retreat. 

“You will naturally speculate upon 
the causes of my precipitate evacuation 
of the Territory of New Mexico 
after it had been virtually conquered.
My dear Sir, we beat the enemy 
whenever we encountered him.
The famished country beat us.”
Sibley's New Mexico Campaign was small in comparison to the battles waged in the east. But on a percentage basis, it was one of the most devastating campaigns any Civil War army suffered through without surrendering. That outcome is even more dramatic when we consider the fact that each of the engagements was a tactical victory for the Confederate forces. Ultimately, Sibley was driven back, far short of his ambitious goals, by the sparsely populated territory's brutal terrain and unforgiving distances. It was, indeed, the famished country that beat him. 

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The Famished Country, a phrase taken from Major Sibley's letter to John McRae, is the title of Book 3 of Rebels Along the Rio Grande, a trilogy of historical fiction novels for middle grade through adult readers. Published by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing, The Famished Country will be available in October, 2024. 
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Recovering the Identity of Lost Soldiers

5/24/2024

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PicturePhoto credit: author. Taken inside the American Cemetery new Belleau Woods.
When I visited American World War I cemeteries in Europe in 2019, one of the most sobering things to see were the graves to unmarked soldiers. Historically, most soldiers who died in battle were never identified. The Graves Registration Service, called Mortuary Affairs" since 1991, has changed that. This organization is charged with making sure that fallen American soldiers are identified and are laid to rest in proper burial places.

From ancient times, rank-and-file soldiers were usually stripped of arms and armor and left on the battlefield for human and animal scavengers. In later centuries, a swift burial near the place of death became the norm. Only in the case of the famous or the high ranking was an effort made to identify the deceased. In remote American frontier outposts, quartermasters buried dead soldiers, often without a coffin since wood was in short supply. They marked the graves with whatever they had on hand, and entered the death into the records. Forts moved, grave markers fell down or rotted away, and the location of the graves were lost to time. 
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Things hadn’t changed much by the time the United States invaded Mexico during the 1846-47 Mexican-American War. When the U.S. government wanted to build a monument to the men who died in the Battle of Buena Vista, they could not find where General Zachary Taylor, who later became our 12th President, had buried his fallen men because he did not mark the location on the map in his report. 

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During the American Civil War, soldiers themselves began to take their identification should they die in battle into their own hands.  Although there was no officially mandated form of identification, soldiers often pinned paper slips on their coats with their name and address. Others bought commercially made badges with their name and unit engraved. 

When the Union Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River and entered Virginia on May 4, 1864, they were appalled to find the bones of their former comrades, lost a year earlier, lying unattended on the ground. Many soldiers examined the remains for markings on clothing or equipment, the nature of the fatal wound, and dental peculiarities such as missing teeth in an attempt to identify the fallen. This approach became the centerpiece of 20th century identification methods. Once done, the men buried the deceased before moving on.
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Captain James M. Moore of the Quartermaster Cemeterial Division personally led a group of his men to the field after the Battle of Fort Stevens outside Washington, D.C. They searched for and recovered both remains and personal items, identifying every single Union soldier lost in that battle. This effort helped establish the Quartermaster Corps as the entity in charge of caring for the fallen. 
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By war’s end, Congress had authorized a national cemetery system and the remains of Union soldiers were disinterred and reburied at them. One of those cemeteries was created through the efforts of John P. Slough, the Union Commander at the Battle of Glorieta Pass.  After the war he returned to New Mexico to serve as the territory’s Chief Justice and during that time he helped create the Veteran’s cemetery in Santa Fe to inter the Union soldiers who had died while serving under him. Later, Confederate soldiers were reinterred there as well.  Nation wide, some 300,000 dead soldiers were moved from their temporary graves to the newly established national cemeteries.
During the Spanish-American War, the U.S. became the first country to institute the policy that soldiers killed abroad should be returned to their next-of-kin. In the Philippines, Chaplain Charles C. Pierce established the QM Office of Identification and started developing what have become the modern identification techniques. He collected information such as place of death, the nature of the wounds, and the physical characteristics of the deceased soldiers, resulting in unprecedented accuracy even with bodies weeks or months old. He also suggested that a soldier's combat field kit should contain an "identity disk," the forerunner of the "dog tag" that American soldiers began wearing in 1917, when America entered World War I.
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General John (Black Jack) Pershing, the leader of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, recalled the now-retired Major Pierce into service to head the newly created Graves Registration Service (GRREG) so that the 47,000 U.S. servicemen who would die in Europe could be found, identified and returned home.
Pershing noted the courage of these men in recovering the bodies of their comrades in 1918: 

"(They) began their work under heavy shell of fire and gas, and, although troops were in dugouts, these men immediately went to the cemetery and in order to preserve records and locations, repaired and erected new crosses as fast as old ones were blown down. They also completed the extension to the cemetery, this work occupying a period of one and a half hours, during which time shells were falling continuously and they were subjected to mustard gas. They gathered many bodies which had been first in the hands of the Germans, and were later retaken by American counterattacks. Identification was especially difficult, all papers and tags having been removed, and most of the bodies being in a terrible condition and beyond recognition.”
While some of the dead were disinterred from temporary cemeteries and returned to the U.S. after the war, 30,000 were left in permanent cemeteries in Europe. Like former President Theodore Roosevelt, who requested that his son, Quentin, be buried near the site where his plane crashed, many believed that soldiers killed overseas should remain there. 
The GRREG was disbanded after World War I and had to be reactivated in World War II, when 30 GRREG companies worked in perilous conditions. Famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle reported that the men recovering the dead during the heavy fighting at Anzio frequently had to take shelter in freshly dug graves. They also had to deal with dangers such as booby-trapped bodies and snipers. When collecting bodies and taking them to temporary burial sites, the GREGG tried to use a route that avoided combat troops so the latter wouldn't have to be confronted with the death of their comrades. The grisly work resulted in some of the highest rates of PTSD in the military.
During the Korean War in 1950, the chaotic nature of the front, the mountainous terrain, and the uncertain lines of communication prevented the establishment of large cemeteries. The 108th QM Graves Registration Platoon, the only grave registration unit in Korea, sent 15 men to each of the three U.S. divisions to help in the construction of individual division cemeteries, which ended up being dug up so they wouldn't fall into enemy hands. The policy of "concurrent return, sending the fallen to the U.S. without first going into a temporary cemetery, which is still in effect today, grew out of that turmoil.

By the time of the Vietnam War, the identification of war dead had improved greatly, aided by ever-improving transportation, communication and laboratories. Only 28 American soldiers killed during the Vietnam War remained unidentified by the war's end. Using DNA analysis, the last one was identified in 1998.
​
May it be that no future comrade in arms will ever have to remain "known but to God."


Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former educator who writes historical fiction for middle grade readers through adults. You may read more about her and her books here, on her website. 
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Divided Duty

4/4/2024

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Picturethe United States Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division. digital ID 04642
Recently, one of my fans let me know that there was a poem about Alexander McRrae, the Union officer who lost his battery of artillery pieces to the Confederates at the Battle of Valverde. Given that tidbit of information, I went down a rabbit hole and discovered not only a poem, but a couple of interesting people.
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The poet, it turns out, is a man named Theodore Marburg.  Marburg wrote a number of books. Some are poetry. Others are treatises on economics, government, the Spanish American War, and The League of Nations. He was also the United States Minister to Belgium from 1912 to 1914, the executive secretary of an organization called the League to Enforce Peace, and a prominent advocate of the League of Nations

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Marburg was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 10, 1862, which means that McRae was already dead when the poet was born. I found that interesting, and wondered what caused him to want to write a poem about someone he never knew. He died in Vancouver on March 3, 1946.
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The poem about Captain McRae, entitled DIVIDED DUTY, comes from In The Hills: Poems, a small volume that was privately printed in Paris 1893, then revised and reprinted by The Knickerocker Press, a division of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, in 1924.

The poem has a footnote, which says

When the American civil war began there happened to be in the regular service a young officer whose home, with all that the word implies, was the South. There were many such. His story is but a type. Is it difficult to picture the struggle that came to them with the sense of a divided duty? This one, with the clearer vision which events have justified, felt that the higher duty was the preservation of the nation; but the thought of fighting against his kindred and the friends of his boyhood so preyed on his mind that he is believed to have courted the death which soon came to him. When the element of fate enters, hurrying the just and the brave to a tragic end, the story must always excite our interest and sympathy. At the battle of Val Verde in New Mexico, February 21, 1862, our hero met his death. The battery, of which, although a cavalry officer, he had been given command for the day, was overwhelmed by the Texans. He remained seated on one of the guns, defending himself until the enemy shot him down. They did him the honor to give his name to one of our forts and to take him back to West Point, to the quiet cemetery in the hills. 
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McRae's tombstone. It is just four stones down from that of George Armstrong Custer
The poem is almost as much about the beautiful setting of the West Point Cemetery as it is about the man buried there.  It made me wonder if the tombstone inspired the poet to research the man buried beneath it.
​

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McRae, a native North Carolinian, commanded Company I, 3rd United States Regular Cavalry. His commanding officer, Colonel Edward R.S. Canby, had given him an artillery battery of six pieces. During the Battle of Valverde, February 21, 1862, McRae's battery performed with great success until about 750 Confederate Texans led by Colonel Thomas Green charged the Union guns. Screaming the Rebel yell, the three waves of confederates were poorly armed  with short-range shotguns, pistols, muskets, and bowie knives. Green had instructed his men to drop to the ground whenever they saw flashes from the artiller's muzzles. The Union men thought they were inflicting great casualties on the Rebels, but the fact that they just kept coming spooked the New Mexico Volunteers supporting McRae and his officers. Many fled the battery and ran panic-stricken across the Rio Grande, unnerving the Volunteer troops who were then being held in reserve.

The Texans fell upon the battery and fierce hand-to-hand fighting swirled around the artillery pieces. Samuel Lockridge, a Texan officer leading the charge is reported to have shouted, "Surrender McRae, we don't want to kill you!" to which the North Carolinian replied, "I shall never forsake my guns!" Both men then suffered fatal bullet wounds. The loss of the battery caused Colonel Canby to issue orders for a full retreat to Fort Craig. The captured guns, thereafter known as the Valverde Battery, continued to fire against Union troops for the remainder of the war.

 After the war, Confederate Gen. Henry Sibley, who led the Confederate forces into New Mexico, wrote a letter to Alexander McRae’s father. In it, he said  "The universal voice of this Army attests to the gallantry of your son. He fell valiantly defending the battery he commanded. There are few fallen soldiers that are admired by both armies of a conflict. Capt. Alexander McRae was one."

DIVIDED DUTY 

OH, plateau the eagle's brood has known
 What potent dead you hold!
In fear of God, in duty's light,
 For country and for human right
 On varied fields they fought the fight
And, while you claim their mould,
 
They live and will live through the year,
Though deaf to drum and fife,
For manly deeds are fertile seeds
That spring again to life.
 
What peace, what perfect peace broods o'er
The soldiers ' burial - ground
Here in the heart of the silent hills
With Hudson flowing round.
 
A stately guard, these mighty hills,
Close crowding one another,
Gigantic Storm King locking arms
With Old Cro ' Nest, his brother!
 
Their summits command to the North a range
Where a sleeping figure lies
Stretched on its back on the mountain tops
Against the changing skies.
 
There Rip Van Winkle, the children know,
Beheld with exceeding wonder
The queer little men whose ninepin balls
Create the summer thunder.
 
Down from the Donderberg scurried the winds
That tossed the Dutch sailor of yore.
Down from the highlands the captains came
When trembled and strained a nation's frame,
When all the fair land was aflame,
Aflame with civil war.
 
Far in the South was the home of one '
Twas there he had spent life's morn-
Where winds are soft and women are kind
And gentleness is born;
 
Where the grey moss waves from the great live - oak
And the scarlet tanager flutters;
Where the mocking - bird, hid in the bamboo- vine,
Its passionate melody utters.
 
The boom of the gun upon Sumter that caused
A million hearts to sicken,
That rolled o'er the land and grew as it rolled
While a knell in the mother's breast was tolled
And city and meadow and mountain old
With the spirit of war were stricken,
 
Brought from the hills of the Hudson one
Whose home was the South, ' tis true,
But o'er him the flag of his fathers waved:
He marched in command of the blue.
Oh, the sad story, the story they tell,
The story of duty and death!
The comfort of heaven, the anguish of hell,
Surging with every breath!
 
Out from the North, the awakening North,
Came comrades whose step was light.
Ah! that was their home, and a mother's prayer
Went with them into the fight.
 
Measureless plains of the wide South - west
Ye shook ' neath the tread of men.
Nor winds of the prairie, though mighty they be,
That fashioned your reaches like waves of the sea,
Nor rush of the bison once roaming you free
Have caused you to tremble as when
Through all the long day the sulphureous smoke
Hung heavy over the field
And man from his brother the hand of God
Seemed powerless to shield.
 
The battle is lost.
What use to stay When his men are slain or fled!
Did anguish too great for the brave to bear
Bring longing to lie with the dead?
 
His battery silenced, on one of the guns
Alone he sat ' mid the rout,
Unmoved as the cliff that the ocean in anger
Whirls its white surges about
 
A whirlwind of dust, a whirlwind of men,
 A whirlwind of lead therefrom,
A vain pistol shot from the figure alone
And the coveted end had come.
 
What peace, what perfect peace broods now
O'er the beautiful burial - ground,
Up in the hills, the stately hills,
With the river flowing round.
Picture1916: Captain Marburg and his first wife
 In researching the poet, I found that Theodore Marburg had an interesting son. Captain Theodore Marburg Jr. was born November 27, 1893 in France and attended Oxford University. When World War I broke out, he joined the Royal Flying Corps, which required him to take the oath of allegiance to the British Government. While on a mission to photograph the German lines in 1915, his plane crashed and a strut pierced his left knee, requiring the leg to be amputated. Marburg wanted to return to the US to get an American-made artificial leg, but the U.S. government refused to issue him a passport since, according to their interpretation of law, he had broken his allegiance to the United States by taking the oath in Britain. His widely publicized case led President Wilson to a bill in October 1917 that restored US citizenship to US citizens who enlisted in Canadian, British, and French services before the US declaration of war if they took an oath of allegiance at a US consulate. Marburg then came back to the U.S. and was treated at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Marburg’s life did not go well after the war. Believing an outdoor life would be good for his health, Marburg moved to Arizona, where he purchased a cattle ranch. His first wife, Baroness Gesell de Vavario of Belgium, did not like ranch life and divorced him. He had only been married a month when he shot himself in the head on February 17, 1922. He was buried in Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, Maryland. It would be interesting to learn more about Marburg Jr. and his struggles. 


Jennifer Bohnhoff is the author of a number of historical novels for middle grade and adult readers. Where Duty Calls, the first in the trilogy Rebels Along the Rio Grande, includes the scene where McRae's battery is charged by the Confederates. A Blaze of Poppies tells the story of a young, female rancher from New Mexico who serves as a nurse in World War I and comes back to marry a wounded American soldier. 
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The Civil War Battle of Albuquerque

3/28/2024

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PictureLa Glorieta today. It was originally built sometime before 1803. John Phelan, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
The Battle of Albuquerque was one of the least significant battles of the American Civil War. It was so small that it is more appropriately called a skirmish. 

General H.H. Sibley’s Army of New Mexico had begun with great intentions. Its leader had planned to take the California and Colorado goldfields at little cost to the Confederacy, fulfilling a Southern version of Manifest Destiny. But things went wrong from the start, and they soon discovered that New Mexicans were not as willing to feed and shelter an army made up of Texans as Sibley had supposed.

After its supply train was destroyed while they were fighting the Battle of Glorieta Pass, Sibley’s army retreated to Santa Fe and began straggling into Albuquerque, where they commandeered L
a Glorieta, the already old hacienda that was owned by German entrepreneur Franz Huning. 


PictureCol. E.R.S. Canby
Meanwhile, Col. Canby, whose troops had been bottled up in Fort Craig and living on half rations, moved his men north, leaving Kit Carson and his New Mexico Volunteers to defend the fort. On April 8, Canby arrived at the small farming settlement of Barelas, south of Albuquerque. Scouting reports informed him that the main Rebel force had not yet arrived from Santa Fe and only a small group of Confederates held the town. ​

Canby decided to use his four pieces of artillery  to make what he called a “noisy demonstration.” Rebel cannons returned fire from Huning's grist mill, which was located near what is now the intersection of Laguna and Central. The artillery duel lasted for several hours until a delegation of concerned citizens approached Canby under a white flag. They explained that  Sibley had refused to allow the town’s women and children to evacuate, and the Union shelling was endangering them. Rather than risk public opinion in a territory that wasn’t wholly supportive of American rule, Canby ordered his men to stop firing, ending the Battle of Albuquerque.​
The townspeople and the Confederates didn’t know it was over, however. They waited anxiously as the sunset glowed red, orange and pink. In the fading light, the yellow glow of Canyby’s campfires dotted the horizon. Union buglers, drummers and fifers played “Tattoo” marking the end of the day, then continued with more music as, gradually, the campfires died out. It wasn’t until morning that it became apparent that Canby and his troops had slipped away in the darkness, leaving the musicians and the campfires to cover their movement. 
Unwilling to face Sibley’s entire army, which might reach Albuquerque at any moment, Canby had moved his men eastward into the Sandia Mountains. A few days later  in the little village of San Antonio, he met up with the Colorado volunteers now under the command of John Chivington. Now, he thought, his troops were large enough to resume the attack on Gen. Sibley.​
PictureThe howitzer replicas, Old Town Albuquerque
But Sibley’s forces had left Albuquerque, ending a possible second act of the Battle of Albuquerque. The General had arrived in Albuquerque soon after the artillery exchange and  explained to his officers that, with only enough food for 15 days and no more than 40 rounds of ammunition per man,  the best course of action would be to retreat down the Rio Grande valley and return to Texas.  So that they couldn’t be used against his retreating troops, he had eight brass howitzers buried in a corral behind San Felipe Neri Church. On the morning of April 12, Sibley abandoned his wounded and proceeded south. The two armies would not encounter each other until two days later, at the Battle of Peralta.
​

Although hardly a battle,  the artillery duel is the only battle ever to be fought within the city limits of Albuquerque. The eight brass howitzers were later recovered, and two are preserved in The Albuquerque Museum and replicas of the guns stand around the edges of Albuquerque's Old Town Plaza..  ​


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Jennifer Bohnhoff taught New Mexico history at Desert Ridge and Edgewood Middle Schools, in central New Mexico. She is now a full time author and lecturer. Rebels Along the Rio Grande is her trilogy of historical fiction set in New Mexico, and is suitable for middle grade through adult readers. Where Duty Calls and The Worst Enemy are already published. The third and final book in the trilogy, The Famished Country, will be released in October. The Battle of Albuquerque will be depicted in that book. 

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An Interesting Connection

8/24/2023

1 Comment

 
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Back in July I wrote a blog about Gabriel Rene Paul, the commanding officer at Fort Union at the time of the Civil War. I had no idea then that I would run across a curious connection to him so soon, but I have: a connection between him and Sacajawea, the young Shoshone woman who traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. 

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Not much is actually known about Sacajawea. The teenaged girl left no writings of her own, if indeed she could write. The journals, letters, official records, and reports from the period call her by many names, and often fail to record that she was even present.  Author Candy Moulton’s Sacajawea: mystery, myth and legend does a great job of piecing together a thorough timeline of her life those few references, then goes on to tackle Sacajawea’s legacy and the myths surrounding her years after the Expedition.  ​

Picture© 2022 by WikiCommons user Tommy5544. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. This design by Glenna Goodacre and modeled by Shoshone Randy’L He-dow Teton
Sacajawea may be legendary for her travel with Lewis and Clark, but her legacy comes through her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Jean Baptiste was just an infant when he crossed the continent with his mother and father, the French trapper Toussaint Charbonneau. The members of the expedition nicknamed the baby Pompey, and named a prominent stone pillar in Montana after him. He is the only Native American child who has been honored to have his image placed on an American coin. 

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Pompey's Pillar
PictureAugust Chouteau,
William Clark was so taken with the child that he offered to adopt him and raise him as his own. This was too good an opportunity for the Frenchman and his Indian wife to refuse. Adoption by the man who had been the Indian agent for all tribes west of the Mississippi and was now the Governor of Louisiana Territory would open the child to the upper echelons of power and wealth. In 1809, when Jean Baptiste was about four years old, the couple brought him to St. Louis, where he was baptized and handed over to his new guardian.

Toussaint was clever in his choice for his son’s godfather, picking someone who would offer just as much prestige and chances for advancement as Clark himself did. August Chouteau, who jointly founded the city of St. Louis with his stepfather, Pierre de Laclède Liguest, was one of the richest and most politically prominent men on the western frontier. His twelve-year-old daughter, Eulalie, became the child’s godmother. 

Now, here’s the curious connection: Four years later, after her marriage to Louis Rene Paul, Eulalie would give birth to her son, Gabriel Rene Paul. This child would grow up to be the commander of Fort Union at the time of the Civil War, and later be seriously wounded at Gettysburg. The godmother of a child on the Lewis and Clark expedition was the mother of a Civil War general!
PictureColonel Philip St. George Cook
But that wasn’t the only connection I found between Jean Baptiste Charbonneau and someone else who’s been an interest of mine. Charbonneau followed his in his father's footsteps, becoming and trapper and guide and meeting many of the men who were famous for trailblazing the west, including Kit Carson and Jim Bridger. In 1846, during the Mexican American War, he was hired by Colonel Philip St. George Cook to guide the Mormon Battalion to California. Charbonneau met Cooke and his men in Albuquerque on October 24 and took them all the way to the Pacific. It was the second time he’d seen this ocean, but the first time he’d remember it: he’d seen it when he was just about a year old, when his mother had guided Lewis and Clark through the Rockies. 

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Left: The only picture that may be a picture of Charbonne.

Above: Charonne's gravestone. He died enroute to a Montana goldfield when he was 61 years old.



Jennifer Bohnhoff writes novels for middle school readers through adults. Gabriel Rene Paul plays a very small part in her recent novel, The Worst Enemy, book 2 of the trilogy Rebels Along the Rio Grande.  
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    ABout Jennifer Bohnhoff

    I am a former middle school teacher who loves travel and history, so it should come as no surprise that many of my books are middle grade historical novels set in beautiful or interesting places.  But not all of them.  I hope there's one title here that will speak to you personally and deeply.

    What I love most: that "ah hah" moment when a reader suddenly understands the connections between himself, the past, and the world around him.  Those moments are rarified, mountain-top experiences.



    Can't get enough of Jennifer Bohnhoff's blogs?  She's also on Mad About MG History.  

    ​
    Looking for more books for middle grade readers? Greg Pattridge hosts MMGM, where you can find loads of recommendations.

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