Jennifer Bohnhoff's Blog, page 12

Happy Birthday, Smokey Bear!

Smokey Bear was authorized by the US Forest Service on August 9, 1944. His creation was part of the effort to protect forests during WWII when so many of the nation’s firefighters were serving in the armed forces. It took two months before artist Albert Staehle delivered the first poster for the campaign. On it, Smokey wears jeans and a campaign hat while he pours a bucket of water on a campfire. The message reads, "Smokey says – Care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires!"  The slogan "Remember ... only YOU can prevent forest fires." Was created by the Wartime Advertising Council (later called the Ad Council) in 1947. The words “forest fires" were replaced with "wildfires" in 2001 in response to a massive outbreak of wildfires in natural areas other than forests and to clarify that the campaign was advocating the prevention of unplanned fires, not controlled burns or prescribed fires for conservation purposes.
In May 1950, firefighters quelling the Capitan Cap Fire in New Mexico’s Lincoln National found a five-pound, three-month old American black bear cub high up in a tree. Because his paws and hind legs had been burned, the little bear was named Hotfoot Teddy. He was sent to Santa Fe, to live in the home of New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Ranger Ray Bell and his family while a local veterinarian helped him recover. After that, he lived with the assistant director of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish while the state game warden negotiated the cub to the Forest Service if he could be used in their conservation and wildfire prevention publicity programs. Somewhere along the line, the cub was renamed Smokey. At the end of June, 1950 the recovered, four-month old cub was flown to Washington, D.C., where a special exhibit was created for him in the National Zoo. Smokey Bear lived at the National Zoo for 26 years. During that time he received millions of visitors. So many letters were addressed to him that he got his own ZIP code (20252) in 1964.  Because Smokey and his mate, Goldie Bear, never had cubs, the zoo added "Little Smokey" to their cage in 1971. Interestingly, Little Smokey was also an orphaned bear cub from the Lincoln Forest. 
Smokey Bear officially "retired" from his role as living icon on May 2, 1975, and Little Smokey was renamed Smokey Bear II. A year later, Smokey died. His body was returned to Capitan, New Mexico, where he is buried in the State Historical Park.
Author Jennifer Bohnhoff is a New Mexico native who remembers visiting Smokey Bear at the National Zoo when she was a child. Her book Summer of the Bombers tells a fictionalized story of the Cerro Grande fire that ravaged Los Alamos, New Mexico in 2000.  An avid hiker, she asks you to help keep Smokey's memory by preventing fires while out in nature. 

Manuel Antonio Chaves, the Little Lion of New Mexico

Chavez in 1848 Manuel Antonio Chaves is an interesting person not only because he lived and was influential in three eras of New Mexico’s history. Born at the end of the Spanish colonial period, he grew to manhood in the rough and wild days of the Santa Fe trade when Mexico ruled the land. He spent his mature years during the period when New Mexico was a territory of the United States. He personally witnessed and was often an important part of almost every major historical event which occurred during the period, including the Texan-Santa Fe Expedition, the Mexican War, rebellion and uprisings, the Civil War, and skirmishes with Utes, Navajos, and Apache. Although just 5 feet 7 inches and 140 pounds, Chaves was such a tough fighter that he was called El Leoncito, The Little Lion. Although not everyone today honors him, he was a man of his time who worked tirelessly for his people. 
An early map of Atrisco Chaves was born October 18, 1818 in the village of Atrisco, which is now a part of Albuquerque. His family claimed lineal descendant from one of the Spanish conquistadores that came to New Mexico with Don Juan de Oñate in 1598. At the time of his birth, At that time, New Mexico was still a part of the Spanish Empire, an isolated northern border considered far from civilization. Hispanics and Native American tribes clashed, often violently in this frontier. As he likely spent most of his childhood tending the family’s sheep and working in their fields, he would have needed to keep a watchful eye out for raiding Navajos, who often stole livestock and children.  Navajos weren’t the only raiders in New Mexico at the time. Ranchers mounted raids against the Navajo, Ute, Apache and Comanche, stealing children to trade or sell as slaves. Chaves joined his first raiding party when he was only 16 years old. It was a disaster. His group, which had approximately fifty men, accidentally stumbled into a ceremonial gathering of thousands of Navajos in what was probably Canyon de Chelly. Chaves was wounded by arrows seven times. The only survivor, he managed to make the nearly 200-mile trek home with no provisions. Chaves’ bravery led him to be a leader whenever ranchers needed someone to organize attacks or to retrieve stolen sheep or horses. In 1851, Chaves led 600 men on a raid “to pursue the Navajo Nation to their extermination or complete surrender.” Although there is no record of how that particular campaign went, it is clear that over the years Chaves and his men killed dozens of Ute and Apache and stole horses, jewelry, blankets, weapons and slaves. Chaves’ household servants had been captured from the Comanches while still children.
Manuel Armijo By the time he was nineteen, New Mexico had become a province of an independent Mexico and the handsome, steely eyed and soft-voiced Chavez had gained a reputation as a capable fighter and fearless under fire. He was a crack shot with his Hawken rifle and a cunning scout. In August 1837, he was under the command of his cousin Manuel Armijo, who was putting down an uprising in Santa Fe that resulted in the murder of the governor, Albino Perez. Armijo was appointed to take Perez’ place and within two years, Chaves was commissioned as an ensign in the rural mounted militia.
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In 1841, he rejoined his cousin when New Mexico was threatened by a group of invading Texans. Governor Armijo and his militiamen managed to capture the hapless armed force known as the Texan-Santa Fe Expedition and Chaves, serving as secretary and interpreter, most likely negotiated the surrender of about half of the Texans, who were sent south to Mexican prisons. The Mexican government awarded Chaves the cross of honor for his service. Stephen Watts Kearny Chaves was prepared to fight as a militia officer for Armijo in 1846, when the United States invaded during the Mexican-American War, but this time, Armijo surrendered and the Battle of Santa Fe ended before it began. Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny managed to take New Mexico without firing a shot. Chaves was jailed, on charges that he was attempting to foment an uprising in Santa Fe, but he was later acquitted of all charges. In 1847, Chaves swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. He enlisted as a private in the U.S. “Emergency Brigade” that put down the Taos Revolt during which another New Mexican Governor, this time Charles Bent, was murdered. During the Siege of Pueblo de Taos, Chaves used his rifle butt to club down a Puebloan who was fighting with his captain, Ceran St. Vrain.  Once the U.S. was firmly in control of the territory, they found themselves just as beleaguered by Native incursions as the Spanish and Mexican regimes before them. In 1851, Chaves took part in military campaigns, leading an expedition against the Navajos. He was commissioned to Captain to lead one of six companies during the Ute-Jicarilla War in 1855. By 1860, he held the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Second New Mexico Mounted Volunteers, a unit that was formed to fight the Navajos and Apache. In 1861, he was placed in command of Fort Fauntleroy (later renamed Fort Wingate.) During his tenure there, a fight caused by allegations of cheating during a horse race led to several Navajo deaths. a fight between his men and visiting Navajos in which a number of Navajos were killed. Kit Carson arrested Chaves after the fight, but since the circumstances of the killings unclear and Confederate forces were threatening New Mexico’s southern border, Colonel Edward Canby suspended the house arrest after two months.

In 1862, Confederate General Henry Sibley led a force of Texans into New Mexico and Chaves found himself battling Texans once again. He and his militia fought at the battle of Valverde. Then, at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, he guided Major John Chivington's force to the Confederate supply train, where regular Union soldiers and New Mexico militia destroyed the supplies, forcing the Confederates to retreat back to Texas. 
Manuel Chaves later in life. After the Civil War, he was honorably discharged after allegations that he had sold Army wagons for his profit were dismissed. It seems from the record that Americans were constantly attempting to tarnish Chaves’ reputation but never had adequate proof to do so. But while the Civil War was over in New Mexico, the battle between Natives and Europeans was not. In 1863, a group of over 100 Navajos raided the Rio Grande valley near Socorro. They killed many people and drove off herds of cattle, horses, and sheep. When they took captive a son of Matías Contreras, a prominent local citizen, Chaves gathered a posse of 15 civilians. The Navajos attacked Chaves's group at a spring called Ojo de la Mónica. Chaves, recognized as the best marksman, fired his own rifle and also some of the others' while they reloaded for him. By nightfall, only Chaves and two other men remained alive and all their mounts had been killed. At dawn, with only three bullets left, the three men found that the Navajos had disappeared. Chaves later called the battle at Ojo de la Mónica his greatest fight. It most certainly helped result in the Long Walk, which ended the Indian wars in most of New Mexico.
In 1876, he relocated to San Mateo, New Mexico, where he ranched. He built a home within a hundred feet of oak trees where he had rested in his flight from Canyon de Chelly as a wounded teenager. Immediately behind those trees he built a family chapel where he was buried after he died in January 1889. The blind and frail 70-year-old was laid to rest with two musket balls in his pocket. Manuel Antonio Chaves lived a tumultuous life, during which his beloved land was held by the Spanish Empire, the Mexican Republic and the United States. Both Native Americans and the Confederacy contested for the territory. Throughout it all, Chaves served as a staunch defender of his people, regardless of what flag he fought under.
Manuel Chaves plays a large part in the Battle of Glorieta and a small part in The Worst Enemy, Jennifer Bohnhoff's middle grade historical novel. The Worst Enemy is book two  of a trilogy set in New Mexico during the Civil War. The author is available for class visits and talks to groups who are interested in the history behind the story. 

Gabriel Paul, Civil War Hero

Just about anyone can name a general from the Civil War. Gabriel René Paul’s name doesn’t come as readily as others, but he was an important figure and his story is an interesting one.

Gabriel René Paul was born on March 22, 1813, in St. Louis, Missouri, a city that had been founded by his maternal grandfather, the prosperous fur trader René-Auguste Chouteau, Jr. His father, Rene Paul, was a military engineer who had served as an officer in Napoleon’s army and who was wounded at Trafalgar. Paul followed in his father’s military footsteps, entering the United States Military Academy, commonly known as West Point, when he was only 16 years old. He graduated in the middle of the Class of 1834, ranked 18th of the 36 graduates.  

After graduating, Paul was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 7th United States Infantry. He served in Florida in the last 1830s and early 1840s, where he participated in the Seminole Wars. Like many of the other men who would become generals during the Civil War, he served under both Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott during the Mexican-American War. He saw battle action at Fort Brown, Monterrey, Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, Molino del Rey and Chapultepac. He was given an honorary promotion, or brevet, to the rank of major when he led a storming party and captured a Mexican army flag during the battle of Chapultepac. After the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Paul served in several different frontier army posts and participated in several expeditions up the Rio Grande and into Utah.

​When the Civil War began, Paul was a Major in the 8th Infantry Regiment stationed at Fort Union in the New Mexico Territory. In December 1861 he was appointed Colonel of the 4th New Mexico Volunteers and commander of the fort. After the Battle of Valverde, Colonel E.R.S. Canby, the commander of all Union troops in New Mexico, sent a message to Paul telling him to hold the fort at all costs. However, when Colonel John Potts Slough arrived with his Colorado volunteers, he announced that he outranked Paul because he had been commissioned a few days earlier than Paul had. Slough deliberately ignored Canby’s orders and proceeded south with his troops, who engaged in the Battle of Glorieta, leaving Paul to guard the fort. 
A portrait taken after Gettysburg. If you look closely, it is clear that his eye socket is empty. In late May 1862, Paul mustered out of the New Mexico Volunteers, and holding the rank of Major in the Regular Army, was sent east to work on the defenses of Washington. While he was stationed there, his wife went to the White House and pleaded President Lincoln for a promotion for her husband.  Lincoln documented the meeting with a note that read “Today Mrs. Major Paul calls and urges appointment of her husband as a Brigadier [General]. She is a saucy woman and will keep tormenting me until I may have to do it.” Less than two weeks later, President Lincoln signed Gabriel Paul’s commission as a Brigadier General of volunteers. He was given the assignment of brigade commander in the First Army Corps, and he led troops at Fredericksburg and at Chancellorsville.

At Gettysburg, he was transferred to a brigade in 2nd Division, where he led the soldiers of the 16th Maine, 13th Massachusetts, 94th and 104th New York, and 107th Pennsylvania Infantries as they threw up makeshift barricades and entrenchments in front of the Lutheran Seminary building during the early parts of the first day of fighting. When some 8,000 Confederates backed with 16 cannons began making significant inroads into the Union First Corps’s exposed right flank along a prominent rise of ground known as Oak Hill Ridge, the Second Corps was called in. When Henry Baxter’s brigade was nearly out of ammunition, Gabriel Paul’s brigade was brought forward to take its place.  It was soon after his men had arrived on Oak Hill that he was struck in the head by a bullet that entered behind his right eye, passed through his head, and exited through his left eye socket. The men who watched him fall believed that Paul had been killed and left him where he lay as the battle intensified. Late in the afternoon, the First Corps and Eleventh Corps troops surrounding Paul’s brigade broke and began to retreat.  Baxter’s and Paul’s men followed. When the division reformed on Cemetery Hill, it was discovered that 1,667 of the approximately 2,500 men who had gone into battle that morning had become casualties. Paul was one of the 776 men killed, wounded, or missing from his brigade.
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When soldiers returned to the field to search for living among the dead, they found Paul and carried him to a field hospital in the rear. Later, Paul was brevetted a Brigadier General in the Regular Army “For Gallant and Meritorious Service at the Battle of Gettysburg.” He was completely blind and his sense of smell and hearing were seriously impaired for the rest of his life, and he suffered frequent headaches and seizures, yet he refused to leave the service. He worked as Deputy Governor of the Soldier’s Home near Washington, and then was the administrator of the Military Asylum at Harrodsburg, Kentucky. On December 20, 1866, he finally retired. For the next twenty-two years, Gabriel Paul’s health deteriorated. During the final years of his life, seizures were an almost daily occurrence, and he suffered up to six epileptic attacks a day. When he died on May 5, 1886 twenty-two years, ten months, and five days after the battle of Gettysburg, his doctor pronounced that the cause of death was an “epileptiform convulsion, the result of a wound received at the battle of Gettysburg, Pa.” He was buried in Section 1, Lot 16 of Arlington National Cemetery.

The Battle of Gettysburg claimed the lives of more generals than any other battle in the American Civil War.  Six general officers fell either dead or fatally wounded at both Antietam and Franklin. By most accounts, nine generals were either killed or listed among the mortally wounded at Gettysburg. The casualties include four Union (John Reynolds, Samuel Zook, Stephen Weed, Elon Farnsworth) and five Confederates (Lewis Armistead, Paul Semmes, William Barksdale, Dorsey Pender, Richard Garnett.) If we include Strong Vincent, who fell atop Little Round Top and who was posthumously honored with a promotion to brigadier general, the number climbs to ten, five for each side.  I think that Gabriel Paul should be included in this list, even though he didn’t die until much later. He represents the countless many whose lives ended due to the Civil War, even if they didn’t die. 
Gabriel Rene Paul is a background character in The Worst Enemy, book 2 of Jennifer Bohnhoff's trilogy Rebels Along the Rio Grande. Written for middle grade readers and above, the trilogy tells the story of the Civil War in New Mexico Territory.  It is published by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing. Contact the publisher for class set discounts and teacher's guides.

The Half Dime

Coins aren’t common currency anymore. In these days of debit and credit cards, most people don’t carry a pocketful of change. When they do, they find that cashiers don’t know what to do with coins. Computerized cash registers have made counting back change a lost skill.
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But most of us still recognize coins. Pennies and dimes haven’t changed much in the past few years. The nickel got a bit of an update, with a larger, half forward facing Thomas Jefferson replacing the old side view. Quarters frequently change, with women and states replacing the eagle.  Even with these changes of design, most Americans over the age of five can identify their country’s coinage.
America had some coins in the past that are no longer minted. The half dime is one of them.  The half dime, or half disme (pronounced deem), was a silver coin that had a value of five cents. It might have been the first coin struck by the United States Mint under the Coinage Act of 1792; some experts consider those first strikes to be practice pieces and therefore not real coins.  It is a small coin, half the size of a ten-cent piece. Through the years, the pictures on the half dime changed. Early coins had a picture of the face of Liberty, her hair flowing backwards as if she were making great progress. By the 1830s, Liberty’s face had been replaced by a full Liberty seated on a rock (Plymouth Rock? I found no sources that told me.) and holding a shield. 84,828,478 Seated Liberty half dimes were struck for circulation in the mints at Philadelphia, San Francisco and New Orleans between 1837 and 1873.

In the 1860s, the use of nickel to replace silver in coinage became a popular lobbying point. In 1865m tge treasury became producing a new three cent coin made out of a copper-nickel alloy. The following year, a five cent pieces was added to American coinage. This new coin was larger than the silver half dime and less easily lost, making it the more popular of the two redundant coins. The half dime was discontinued in 1873.​ In The Worst Enemy,  Raul Atencio gives Jemmy Martin a half dime as payment for caring for his brother Arsenio. Since the Confederate soldiers and their teamsters had not been paid since leaving Texas, a half dime was a rare and useful gift. Later in the book, Jemmy uses that coin to pay for something that might save another boy’s life.  Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former middle and high school teacher who now writes novels for adults and middle grade readers.

The Worst Enemy, is book 2 of Rebels Along the Rio Grande, her middle grade trilogy set in New Mexico during the Civil War. It is scheduled for release by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing, on August 15, 2023 but can be preordered on Bookshop. The first book in the series, Where Duty Calls, was a finalist for both the New Mexico Presswomen's Zia Award and the Western Writers of America's Spur Award. It can be ordered in paperback or ebook here. A free, downloadable teachers guide is available through the publisher. 

Book three, tentatively titled The Famished Country, will be published in spring of 2024. 

The Drummer Boy of Valverde

A Gothic Ghost story by Jennifer Bohnhoff, 
based on the Characters in
​her Historical Novel, Where Duty Calls They lined up now, in three long rows behind the low sand hill. The front line, all 200 of them,  prone against the hill while the back two lines, the second wave of 250 and the third wave of 300, squatted on their heels. Behind them, sergeants walked up and down, shouting at the men to make sure their guns had a priming cap in place, to shoot low, and not until they were within effective range. 
The whites of their eyes, Jemmy thought, then wondered where he’d heard that before. 

Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.
 
He glanced right, at Jaspar Jones, whose hands trembled and whose eyes looked as round as a rabbit’s.  Plenty of white showing, all the way around.  Jones’d make a fine target if the Abolitionists were looking for the whites of his eyes. Jemmy looked past him at the line of men.  Some twitched in anticipation of the fight to come.  Some used the backs of their hands to wipe tears from their faces. Some prayed, their hands clutched together as their lips moved with the earnest intensity that only the doomed can know. Some men lay so still that he wondered if they’d gone to sleep.

Behind him, Colonel Green called for the men’s attention. The line quieted.  Everyone trusted “Daddy” Green to do right by them.  

“Boys,” he called, “I want Colonel Canby’s guns! When I yell, raise the Rebel yell and follow me!”  

All along the line, men affirmed the Colonel, some with cheers and others with quiet “yes, sirs.” Jemmy felt his resolve harden into a knot in his throat. Afraid his voice would come out in a squeak, he nodded his assent. 

He looked left and noticed Wee Willie squatting close by, his drumsticks clutched in his fists, his jaw set with a gritty determination that made the boy look old beyond his years. Willie’s pale skin looked even paler than usual, his black eyes sunken into his face. He was a curious one, that Willie: so small that Jemmy couldn’t look at him without wondering how his Mama could have let him run off to war. Some said he was an orphan, but that was just a rumor. Willie never spoke. He hung around the edges of the camp, eating what others offered him, sleeping on the floor of the Colonel’s tent like a pet pup.

Just beyond Willie, John Norvell and Frederick Wade hunkered shoulder to shoulder.

“Fred, we are whipped, and I will never see my mother again!” John said in between wracking sobs.  

Jemmy closed his eyes, trying to wipe the image of Norvell’s tears from his mind. He raised one shoulder and then the other, lessening the tension in his back. The shoot low part bothered him.  Sure, it was just fine if he did it.  He was in the first line of men and there’d be nothing in front of him except blue coats.  It didn’t matter if he hit them in the head or the kneecap.  Shot was shot, and a Yank with a ball in him wouldn’t be trying to return the favor. But Jemmy wasn’t so sure he wanted the second or third waves of men, the men who came behind him, to be shooting low. He didn’t cotton to taking a ball in the back. Not from one of his own. Not when it might be mistaken as a mark that Jemmy was running from the Federal line instead of toward it. He didn’t want to be mistaken for a coward.

The ghostly sun, a pale disk behind thin, gray clouds, hung high overhead, a little past the apex. Snow had started again, tiny dry pellets brought in almost horizontal that it bit his cheeks and made his eyes water. Why did the wind have to come from the west today?  Why couldn’t it be at his back, pushing him on towards victory?  It seemed like God himself was against him. 

He stretched his neck, thrusting his chin forward so he could look over the top of the hill without exposing the crown of his head. There, not 800 yards from him, Federal cannons pointed directly at him, their open muzzles looking like astonished mouths.  Soon, he knew, they’d be belching fire at him. Fire, and deadly chunks of metal.

Jemmy shook his head hard. He had to stop talking scary to himself or he was going to end up like Norvell or Jones. Shaking his head didn’t dislodge the images that swirled around in his head like ghost stories. He knew he needed to hear the sound of his own voice, to talk himself calm like he did with his mules.
“You ain’t got nothing to be scairt of,” he told himself in as convincing a manner as he could muster.  “The men behind you is there to support you, not shoot you in the back. And the snow and wind? It done mask our sound. It’ll confuse the Federals into thinking there’re less of us than there are.  An’ grapeshot and canister’s aimed at the generals and such. Them cannons ain’t interested in a little guy like me.”

Jemmy gave his head a firm nod, but ghastly, terrifying images kept pushing his convictions from him. He frowned. If he couldn’t be brave from himself, perhaps he could be brave for someone else. He grabbed We Willie’s shoulder, pulling the drummer boy into a side embrace.

“This here’s your first fight, son, but you got nothing to be scairt of,” Jemmy said, more to himself than to Willie.  “God’s on our side, sure as shoot’n. He ain’t going to let us down. When we let go our rebel yell, them Abs’ll skedaddle back to their fort with their tails between their legs and we’ll take possession of those fine guns. So don’t you worry none.  It’s on to San Francisco for us.” 

Jemmy pounded the drummer boy into his side with a series of encouraging whacks.  He didn’t know if he had said anything to calm Wee Willie, but he was beginning to feel better already.

 Willie pulled away from Jemmy. He scrambled back to his feet. He held up his fists, the sticks ready to beat the advance, sending men over the hill and into the cannon’s line of fire. 

“You are mistaken, Private.” Willie’s little voice lilted as high and light as birdsong. The sound of it surprised Jemmy. He was sure this was the first time he’d ever heard the drummer boy speak. “This is not my first fight. I have been leading men into battle since time immemorial. It was I who beat the advance at Waterloo.  I who beat at Yorktown. At Agincourt.  And Thermopylae. But you are right in one respect: I have nothing to be afraid of.” 

The boy pulled back his lips in a grin that was more grimace, and the two rows of teeth gave his pale face a skull-like appearance. Jemmy swore that his eyes gleamed a bright and burning red. Jemmy’s mouth dropped open in astonishment, but before he could draw breath, Colonel Green’s voice filled his ears.

“Up, boys, and at ‘em!”
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Wee Willie beat the advance and two hundred men bellowed the rebel yell and clambered over the hill.   Where Duty Calls is the first book in a trilogy of historical novels set in New Mexico during the time of the American Civil War. It is written for middle grade readers and adults who want to learn about the war in an immersive way. Published by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing, a free, 100 page teacher's guide is available on the publisher's website. Teachers, ask about special discounts for class sets. The author, Jennifer Bohnhoff, is available for in person and online meetings. presentations, and discussions. 

Buried in a Bacon Box

Towards the end of The Bent Reed, my middle grade novel set in Gettysburg during the Civil War, the main character finds her father working in his carpentry shop. He is sawing planks to make coffins, using the wood from Rose's Wood Lot, a small field that stood near what became known as Devil's Den. The woodlot had been the scene of fierce fighting.  Most of the trees had lost all their leaves. Many had never recovered. Pa laughs sadly and says that it is fitting for men to be buried in wood that had died the same day as they. As Pa works, others are exhuming bodies hastily buried in fields and roadsides throughout the area. A month after this scene, President Lincoln will come to dedicate a new cemetery. He gives the Gettysburg Address at that dedication.  Not every Union soldier got the benefit of being buried in a coffin. In I Married A Soldier, a memoir of Army life in the Southwest during the 1850s-1870s, Lydia Spencer Lane explains that wood was so scarce that it was customary to forgo burying coffins. She was told in Santa Fe that bodies were carried to the church in one, but removed and rolled in old blankets before being consigned to the tomb. Thus, coffins could be used and reused indefinitely.
​This was not acceptable to people who had been raised in the East, who did everything within their power to create coffins for their dead. Ms. Lane explains that, when there was not enough lumber at hand to make a coffin, old packing boxes and commissary boxes were brought into requisition.  She recalled one officer who died at a post in Texas and was carried to his final resting place in a very rough coffin which had marked, in great black letters along the side, "200 lbs. bacon." In Where Duty Calls, the first book in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, my trilogy set in New Mexico during the Civil War, a Confederate soldier who dies on pneumonia while on the campaign trail is buried in a coffin created from packing crates. William Kemp, the dead soldier, is an actual person, and the record of his death is part of the official records of Sibley's campaign to capture the west and its gold. Jennifer Bohnhoff is the author of historical fiction novels for middle school readers through adults. Book two of Rebels Along the Rio Grande will be published by Artemesia Publishing in August, 2023 and is available for preorder on Bookshop.org.

Cherry Clafouti to Commemorate D-Day

Clafouti is a French dessert that looks beautiful and is simple to make. It might be just the thing to make in early June, when cherries are ripe and we think back to D-Day and the sacrifices our Allied troops made when they stormed the beaches of Normandy to wrest control from German troops.  Clafouti
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1 1/2 sweet cherries, pitted
1 cup milk
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup flour
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp almond extract or kirsch
confectioner's sugar for dusting
​ Preheat oven to 350°
Butter a 1 ½ quart baking dish with low sides.
Arrange the cherries in a single layer in the dish.
 
Combine the milk and cream in a saucepan and heat but do not boil. Remove from heat and use a whisk to add the flour a little at a time until well blended.
 
Wisk together the eggs, sugar and salt in a small bowl. Add the kirsch or almond extract and the heated milk mixture and pour over the cherries.
 
Bake 45-55 minutes, until browned and puffed, yet still soft I the center. A knife stuck into the center should come out clean.
 
Transfer to a rack and cool slightly before dusting with confectioner’s sugar. Serve warm. 4 servings.
Jennifer Bohnhoff is an author who writes historical fiction for middle grade through adult readers. Elephants on the Moon is her story about a French girl who joins the Resistance fighters in preparing for the D-Day invasions, and is available in paperback and ebook. 

Both the image and the recipe featured here are adapted from Chuck Williams: Simple French Cooking, (San Francisco, Weldon Owens, Inc., 1996) 

Black Jack Pershing: The General of the Armies

John Pershing as a young boy. [The Story of General Pershing, Everett T. Tomlinson, 1919) General John Joseph Pershing is the only person who has held the special rank of General of the Armies of the United States during his lifetime. (The only other people to have held this rank are George Washington, who was awarded it posthumously in 1976, and Ulysses S. Grant who received the honor in 2020.) His military career spanned several wars during the period when the United States was becoming a force to be reckoned with on the world stage. Through his many famous and talented protégés, his influence continued long after his retirement.

Pershing was born on a farm in Laclede, Missouri on September 13, 1860.  His mother was a homemaker and his father, John Fletcher Pershing, owned a general store and served as Laclede’s postmaster. During the Civil War, John Fletcher worked as a sutler, a civilian merchant who accompanied an army and sold goods to soldiers, for the Union. John Joseph was the oldest of nine children, six of which survived to adulthood. The family was not wealthy and expected their eldest son to contribute. John began working at the age of 14, giving some of his money to the family and saving the rest until he had enough to pay for his education.  John Pershing as a West Point cadet (Photo: public domain) Pershing studied at Kirksville Normal School (now Truman State University), where he received his teaching degree in 1880. He taught African-American schoolchildren at Prairie Mound School, but became interested in law and went back to school to become a lawyer. When he decided that he could not get as good an education as he wanted in Missouri, he applied to the Military Academy at West Point, where cadets received a high-quality education for free in exchange for military service. At West Point, his leadership skills became apparent and he found himself in many command roles. He was the class president all four years. In 1885, when President Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral train passed West Point, Pershing commanded the honor guard.  ​After graduating in 1886, Pershing was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. He reported for duty in 6th U.S. Cavalry Regiment in New Mexico, where he participated in several Indian War campaigns, including fighting the Apaches led by Geronimo.
Next, Pershing was posted to the University of Nebraska, where he taught military science. During his four years there, Pershing earned the law degree he’d so long wished for.
 
In 1896, he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant and assigned to a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original regiments of Buffalo Soldiers, racially segregated black units. This began Pershing’s long association with black units.

Horse Theft: not just in the Old West

This drawing appears on all membership certificates of the Society in Dedham (Massachusetts) for Apprehending Horse Thieves. No one likes a horse thief. The term ‘horse thief’ is used not only for people who literally steal horses, but as an insult, implying that the person has no moral decency whatsoever. This may have come about because horses were central to life in the west during the 19th century. Without a horse, travel, farming, and ranching were virtually impossible. A person who stole a horse left his victim unable to support himself and unable to move on. In the Old West, the saying was that if you stole a man's horse, you had condemned him to death.

Horse theft was such a problem that organizations were founded just to address the issue. The Anti Horse Thief Association, first organized in Missouri in 1854, grew to over 40,000 members spread across nine central and western US states. Between 1899 and 1909, they recovered $83,000 worth of livestock and saw the conviction of over 250 thieves in Oklahoma alone.  
Because horse theft was such a serious crime, the punishments were also serious. In 1780,  Pennsylvania passed "An Act to Increase the Punishments of Horse Stealing," which had a tiered system for dealing with offenders.  First time offenders were given 39 lashes, then had their ears cut off and nailed to the pillory, where they had to stand for an hour. A second offense added branding of the forehead with an ‘H” and a ‘T.” This law was repealed in 1860. Horse theft was a hanging offense in many western states and territories. Often, the aggrieved would take justice into their own hands. These days, while punishments are not so severe, they can still be stiff. In 2011, one Arkansas woman was sentenced to 60 years in prison for stealing five horses and their equipment. 
While horses are no longer as important to life and well being as they once were, their theft is still relatively common. Horse Illustrated Magazine estimates that approximately 55,000 horses a year are taken from their lawful owners by strangers or opponents in civil or legal disputes. Organized groups of thieves often work one area or state, moving on when the law becomes aware of them. Other thieves move into areas that have suffered natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes, stealing animals that have escaped during the chaos and preying on vulnerable victims. Some stolen horses are killed for their meat. Others become the focus of ransom attempts. Many are resold with false papers at auction, or end up as riding mounts.

In my novel Summer of the Bombers, it is a wildfire that leads to the theft of a girl's horse. Punkin Davis has to ride her horse into the fictional town of Alamitos when a Forest Service Controlled burn jumps its lines because of high winds. In the parking lot of the high school that is organizing assistance for those affected by the fire, Punkin meets a woman who says she is from the Equine Assistance League, and will keep her horse in a safe place. Unfortunately, there is no Equine Assistance League, and woman and horse disappear. It takes Punkin quite a bit of time to get on her feet and figure out what she needs to do to get her horse back, but she finally gets the help she needs from Stolen Horse Internaational.. While Summer of the Bombers might be a work of fiction, Stolen Horse International is not. The organization works diligently to recover stolen horses. Also known as NetPosse or SHI, it has been assisting horse owners with recovering their horses for over twenty-five years. It was founded by Debi and Harold Metcalfe after their own horse, Idaho, was stolen on September 26, 1997. Idaho was recovered after almost a year of searching. The non-profit organization relies on thousands of volunteers, who distribute fliers, usually by e-mail. In addition for helping in the search and recovery of horses, the organization works closely with law enforcement personnel to aid in the apprehension of the thieves.    Debi Metcalfe's book, Horse Theft. Been There—Done That, explains how horse owners can protect their horses from theft, and what can be done to recover stolen horses. There are chapters on identification methods and prevention information that can stop theft from ever happening, and lots of resources to help if it does. 

This book was a fantastic resource for me as I wrote Summer of the Bombers. It's been a tremendous resource for many who've lost their horses. It is worth reading if you have a horse or know someone who does. 
Now that my novel is complete, I would like to give my copy of this book away to someone who would benefit from it. Comment on this blog if you would like to be considered for it. Jennifer Bohnhoff is a novelist who lives in the mountains of central New Mexico. An avid horsewoman in her youth, her novel Summer of the Bombers was inspired by the Cerro Grande Fire, which swept through Los Alamos during the summer of 2000.

Play Ball!

Baseball is America's sport! When it became America's sport well over a century ago, that really meant it was a sport for white males. Over time, like America itself, it's changed and become more inclusive. Now that opening day is here, it's time to share some great books about baseball with middle grade readers.  ​Like Madelyn l'Engle, Ellen Klages follows a family of brilliant and talented people through their adventurous life. L'Engle follows the Murry family through the series that begins with A Wrinkle in Time. Klages follows the Gordon family beginning with Green Glass Sea. 

In Out of Left Field, youngest daughter, Katy Gordon is a baseball fanatic in a world where everything, except Little League admission rules, is changing. The San Francisco Seals, the hometown favorites for 50 years, are going away, to be replaced by the Giants. Sputnik is launched and schools in the south are being integrated. But Kay, who throws a mean pitch so singular that it doesn't even have a name, cannot join Little League because she's a girl. When her teacher assigns an American hero research paper, Katy delves deeply into the history of female baseball players in order to prove that the Little League rules make no sense.

This book has interesting, fully developed characters, and a plot line that shows how kids can change the world through activism, but it also paints a brilliant picture of what life was like in 1957. You can read this novel on its own, but it's even richer when read with its companion stories, Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace.  If you're looking for a movie tie-in to Out of Left Field, try The Perfect Game. Based on a true story, this sweet and innocent movie tells the story of a group of boys from Monterrey, Mexico who became the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series. It, too, is set in 1957 and gives a good picture of the prejudice against both blacks and hispanics that was common in that period. Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen is a sweet story about a girl with autism who wants to join a baseball team and pitch the knuckleball she learned from a pro player. Told in letters and emails between Vivy and VJ Capello, the major-league knuckleballer who's her hero (and a pretty nice guy for responding to all her letters!), this novel will help readers get into the head of a girl who's not much different despite her disabilities. She has to face bullies and her own personal fears when she gets on the mound, but she does it with bravery and honesty and a kindness towards others that is genuinely inspiring. Baseball Genius was written by Tim Green and Derek Jeter, so you know the sports parts are dead-on accurate, exciting, and detailed enough to follow well: it's like listening to a game on the radio! The rest of the story is exciting, too: every one of the very short chapters has a cliff hanger of an ending that will keep even reluctant readers going. The story centers on Jalen DeLuca, the son of a hard-working immigrant father and a mother who's left the family to pursue her dream. Jalen's dad doesn't make enough at his Italian restaurant to support his son's baseball aspirations, so Jalen tries to make money by stealing balls from the home of the Yankee's second baseman. This starts a series of events that leads to Jalen using his uncanny ability to predict pitches to help the Yankee stay on the team. While most middle grade readers will love this book, I can't help but feel uncomfortable with the message  that kids can steal and cheat if their circumstances justify it. Green and Jeter wrote this book before the Astros' infamous trashcan banging episode. I wonder how they feel about it now.  In The Grip, a Middle Grade book that reads like an autobiography, Marcus Stroman and co-author Samantha Thornhill team up on a story about a young ball player.  Marcus showed talent from a young age, and his father is determined to make that talent pay off. Even though he and mom are divorced, he makes sure Marcus practices every morning. Eventually, Marcus feels overwhelmed by the mental pressure this brings, but his mother finds him a therapist who can help him deal with it.

The book will help children explore what it is like to have parents divorce, being teased for being short, and the need to just be a kid. It is not a fast paced or exciting book, and the plot has no real surprises, but kids who have aspirations for the big league will find an affinity with Marcus and will appreciate knowing that even Golden Glove winners were kids once.   Jenn Bishop's novel The Distance to Home tells the story of Quinnen, a girl who was the star pitcher on her baseball team, the Panthers. When her sister Haley  dies, Quin loses heart for everything, including baseball. Told in chapters that alternate between last summer, when Haley died and this summer, when Quinn is still working through guilt and grief, the story slowly emerges as Quinn begins to understand that she isn't the only one affected by the death. As she develops empathy and understanding, she finds the courage to get back in the game. This book made me cry! Another baseball book about a player dealing with the loss of a sibling is Mike Lupicia's The Only Game. Lupicia is the uncontested king of sports novels for middle grade readers; when I was still teaching, his books were in the hands of all my jock boys. He does a good job of describing the games like a true sports announcer, but he also does a good job of revealing the secret fears of middle school athletes. In this novel, the main character is a star pitcher, but feels so much guilt after his dare devil brother's accidental death that he leaves the team. What helps him heal is helping another kid named Teddy, whose weight and lack of confidence has kept him on the sidelines all his life. I don't read a lot of graphic novels, but this one attracted me both because it was about baseball and because it was historical fiction. I'm glad I read it, and I think it's perfect for 3-7th grade boys, especially reluctant readers. 

The story in Stealing Home is about Sandy Saito, a Canadian of Japanese descent whose life changes when Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. Sandy is a typical boy. He reads comic books and loves baseball, especially the local Japanese team, the Asahi. Suddenly, he is perceived as different and dangerous. The Canadian government begins treating ethnic Japanese as enemy aliens, taking away their radios and cars. He is excluded from games and taunted by other children. Finally, his family is separated and forced to move to internment camps with substandard facilities. 

J. Torres and David Nashimoto tell a fictional story with so much emotion and historic accuracy that it reads like a memoir. I especially appreciated the extensive background information and resources for further study that are in the back of the book . Linda Sue Park's Keeping Score is the story of Maggie Fortini, a Dodgers fan who lives in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Maggie can't play baseball for the same reason that Katy Gordon, the girl in Out in Left Field can't play: back then, it just wasn't allowed. Unlike Katy, Maggie doesn't buck the system. Instead, she learns to keep score from Jim, one of the guys down at the firestation where her father used to work. When Jim enlists and goes to Korea, keeping score is one of the things that connects her to Jim, and it develops into a child-like kind of magic that keeps the world orderly. But when the Dodgers lose AGAIN and then Jim stops writing, Maggie begins to question everything, even God.  The Sweet Spot , Stacy Barnett Mozer, is a great book for athletic middle school and upper elementary girls. Thirteen-year-old Sam Barrette’s baseball coach tells her that her attitude's holding her back, but how can she not have an attitude when she has to listen to boys and people in the stands screaming things like “Go play softball,” all season, just because she's the only girl playing in the 13U league. Lovely and sensitive, this book will help guide girls through the difficulties of asserting themselves and becoming leaders in a man's world.
​ The Girl Who Threw Butterflies, by Mick Cochrane, is another book about a girl trying to play baseball. After her father's death in a car accident, eighth grader, Molly Williams decides to join the baseball team and show off the knuckleball her father taught her how to throw. Although the author does a little more telling than showing, this book also gives a fair picture of a girl overcoming hardships, both on the field and in her personal life. Anne E. Burg's All the Broken Pieces is a novel in verse that tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy whose mother was Vietnamese and his father, an American soldier who abandoned him after the war. He flees his native Vietnam and is adopted in the U.S. is mother urged him to flee to the US, and now he lives with a caring adoptive family.

It's a story about baseball, but it’s even more about fitting in, adoption, discrimination, post traumatic stress disorder, guilt and sorrow, and the difficulty of soldiers returning to the US after the war. Both haunting and lyrical, this book goes beyond the usual baseball-themed books to show an emotional picture of a specific and difficult time in history. Matt Pin is a boy between cultures, who can show the reader both sides of the story with grace and courage. 

I've got one copy of this novel. Tell me in the comments that you'd like it and I'll pick one lucky responder to get it! The links in this blog will take you to Bookshop.org, an online bookseller. I am an affiliate with Bookshop and receive a small commision when someone uses my link to purchase a book. A local bookstore also receives a commission. I appreciate the fact that this bookseller supports local businesses in a time when more and more sales go to distant, online retailers. Community is important and deserve our support.

However, I encourage readers to check with their local libraries first!

Jennifer Bohnhoff is an author of books for readers from middle grade to adult. She is not an avid baseball fan, but she is married to one and loves to sit in the stands, eat a hot dog, and take in the action. You can read more about her and her books on her website.