Jennifer Bohnhoff's Blog, page 3

What is Hadrian's Wall?

Hadrian's Wall is a stone wall that spans the English countryside and (basically) separates England from Scotland. Beginning in the east on the River Tyne, it stretches all the way to the Solway Firth in the west, a distance of 80 Roman miles, or nearly 73 modern miles. Hadrian's Wall served as the northern boundary of the Roman Empire in Britain, but it was not the limit of Roman influence.

Romans first arrived in Britain in 55 B.C., when Julius Caesar landed two legions on the coast of Kent. He returned the following years with 800 ships, five legions and 2,000 cavalry. This time, he managed to force the British warlord Cassivellaunus to pay tribute to Rome and he set up a client king named Mandubracius, of the Trinovante Tribe. Caesar included accounts of both invasions in Commentarii de Bello Gallico, or his Commentary on the Gallic Wars. This text contains the earliest surviving significant eyewitness descriptions of the island's people, culture and geography.

The true conquest of Britain began in earnest in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius. By AD 87, most of what we now call England, Cornwall and Wales was under Roman control. In the north, a Roman road known as the Stanegate marked the northern boundary of the Empire. Stanegate, which means "stone road" in a Northumbrian dialect, is not the original, Roman name of the road, which has been lost to history.
The road is believed to have been built under Governor of Agricola, from 77 to 85 AD, during the reigns of the emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Along the Stanegate, forts, including Vindolanda (Chesterholm) were spaced at one-day marching intervals, or 14 Roman and 13 modern miles. Corstopitum (Corbridge) and Luguvalium (Carlisle), guarded important river crossings.

Something happened in 119 AD that challenged Rome's authority over her northern border. Although information is scant and sketchy, it appears that a local rebellion led to the deployment of Legio VI Victrix to assist in suppressing the resistance.Soon after, Legio VI Victrix replaced the Legio IX Hispana in their quarters at Eboracum (York). No one knows what happened to the IX, but a vague correspondence between an ancient historian named Fronto and emperor Marcus Aurelius describes the strength of the Celtic forces and how many Roman soldiers lost their lives, and may refer to something that happened during this period. The Ninth Legion disappears from the historic record about this time, but whether they were annihilated in a battle with a British tribe or transferred out of Britain is a mystery. In the 1800s,German historian Theodor Mommsen theorized that the Celts in northern England, particularly the Brigantes, caused the demise of the Ninth . In her bestselling novel, The Eagle of the Ninth, British author Rosemary Sutcliff suggested that the Ninth fell victim to the wilderness and native hostility beyond Hadrian’s Wall. I read this historical novel when I was in the 4th grade and credit it with my love both for historical fiction and for Iron Age Britain.
Whatever happened, British Governor Quintus Falco invited the Emperor Hadrian to visit Britain, in 122 and that led to the building of the wall about a mile north of the Stanegate that bears Hadrian's name. Perhaps Hadrian's Wall was built so that there would be no more disasters like the one that might have befallen the Ninth Legion. Perhaps the wall is just a massive monument to the power of Rome. Whatever it was intended to be, it is an impressive architectural feat. 
The wall spans the width of northern England. It served both as a defensive fortification and as a customs facility, regulating trade and travel between the Roman provinces and the outlying areas. Gates we now call milecastles, since they were spaced about a Roman mile apart, contained garrisons that housed a few dozen men. In between each pair of milecastles were two towers, also staffed by soldiers on patrol along the wall.
The wall took six years to construct. The wall was not the same consistency throughout. In the west, the wall was 11 feet high, 20 feet wide, and made mainly of turf. In the east, the wall was 15 feet high, 10 feet wide, and made of stone. The construction of the wall was not a "one and done" prospect, and there is evidence in the stonework that the wall's configuration, including that of the milecastles and watchtowers along it, were often reconfigured. Some historians believe that the wall had crenelations along it. Others believe the walkway was exposed. There is also some evidence that the wall was whitewashed. What a statement a long, white ribbon of stone would have made as it wound itself through the hills!
The Wall was not built by slaves or by local people, but by the army. Keeping soldiers busy with building and road projects was one of the ways Rome kept its soldiers strong, healthy, and out of trouble.  Legio II Augusta, Legio VI Victrix, and Legio XX Valeria Victrix left many inscriptions along the wall,  demonstrating which sections they had worked on. Each legion consisted of about 5,000  infantrymen. There is evidence that auxiliary units – the other main branch of the provincial army – and even sailors from the Roman British fleet helped on some portions of the wall. While they built the wall, the Legions did not occupy it. Once they had finished construction, Legio II Augusta moved to their base at Isca Augusta (modern Caerleon), Legio VI Victrix to its base at Eboracum (York), and Legio XX Valeria Victrix to Camulodunum (Colchester), leaving maintenance and garrisoning of the wall to the auxiliary forces.About 10,000 soldiers filled the 14 forts along the wall, including cavalry units of 1,000 troops stationed at either end.
The western and eastern portions of the wall have largely disappeared over time, with many of their stones being pilfered for medieval and modern building and road projects. Although the road projects have been covered in asphalt and cannot be seen, there are many houses and churches along the wall that have stones whose inscriptions show they were clearly once part of the wall. Much of the center portion of the wall, which runs through wilder and less populated land, still stands. 

The wall and its milecastles and watchtowers does not stand alone. A large earthen rampart-and-ditch combination called the Vallum runs south of the Wall. This earthwork had a ditch that was 20 feet across and 15 feet deep. Archaeologists are still not certain what the purpose of the Vallum was, but it might have been the southern boundary of a military zone that included the Wall and the series of defensive ditches and berms on the northern side of the wall.

Hadrian's Wall was not the limit of Roman influence in Britain. When Hadrian died in AD 138, his successor, Antoninus Pius moved the frontier north to the Forth–Clyde isthmus and built a new, turf wall. Later, four advance forts, each holding a 1,000-strong mixed regiment of infantry and cavalry, an irregular unit, and scouts were built north of the Wall. Hadrian's Wall continued to be occupied by the Romans for nearly 300 years, and the remains continue to awe visitors. 

Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former educator who writes historical and contemporary fiction for middle grade through adult readers. She plans to hike the length of Hadrian's Wall during the summer of 2025 and hopes to use what she learns there to write several novels set in Roman Britain.

More on Medallion Trees

 A couple of years ago I wrote about Medallion Trees in the Sandia Mountains. Last week, I went on a hike on which I came across four more medallions. 

Medallion trees have an aluminum or brass or steel washer attached to them. These medallions are about 1½ to 2 inches in diameter and cover a hole where a core sample was taken. The core sample helped determine the germination date, or GD of the tree. Whoever took the sample then found an historic eventthat corresponded with that date and stamped in on the medallion. Some of the medallions include other information, including the type of tree.  No one knows who created the medallion trees, or if they do, they aren't sharing that information. There are at least 84 medallion trees in the Sandias, although the numbering on some of the medallions suggest that there used to be over 100.

The hike I was on went along a trail that is sometimes called the North Faulty Trail and sometimes called the Mystery Trail. Like the medallions, no one knows who blazed this trail that begins near the Doc Long Picnic area and goes all the way to Sandia Man Cave. The trail is well traveled and well cared for despite the fact that the Forest Service does not recognize it or maintain it. It is one of the more level of the trails in the Sandias, which made it a good one to pick while I trained to walk along Hadrian's Wall, and event I've planned for June 2025. 

The first tree I came across was the Grimms Fairy Tales Tree. Marked as #126, this ponderosa pine had a germination date of 1812. The tree is named for the publication of Grimm's Fairy Tales, a book of German folktales compiled by Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) Grimm, two academic brothers who collected stories from the people. Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White are all part of this collection. 

A little father along the path I came to a tree with a medallion that identified it as the Edward VI King of

England Tree. The medallion on this pinyon pine included no additional information, but a website says that this is tree #43 and the medallion was places in 1999, so I wonder if this is a replacement medallion. The website also had a GD of circa 1556.  Edward VI was the only surviving son of Henry VIII. Born to Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, Edward became King of England and Ireland on 28 January 1547, when he was only nine years old. The first English monarch to be raised as a Protestant, he died in 1553. 

The Edward VI tree was a little bit off the trail, down a rather steep slope that was covered with dangerous stones that could roll away underfoot. The difficulty of the short walk is what prevented me from getting a good picture of the medallion that was on the Bloody Mary Tree. This pinyon pine was just a stone throw's away. This tree, marked as #44, also has data that was put on the tree in 1999. Also known as Mary I or Mary Tudor, she was the half sister of Edward VI, so it is fitting that their trees stand close to each other. Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain as the wife of King Philip II from January 1556 until her death in 1558, she tried to bring Great Britain back into the Catholic fold. 

The final tree I saw on my hike was the Anne Boleyn Beheaded Tree. This tree has a GD or somewhere around ~1536,  and is tree #99. Anne Boleyn was the second wife of Henry VIII, and the mother of Queen Elizabeth. She was beheaded in 1536, after which Henry married Jane Seymour. 

If you only knew about these trees, you might assume that most are tied in with British history. This isn't really the case.

Who created the medallion trees is a mystery. So is who created the North Faulty Trail. While I may not know who these intrepid and interesting people are, I am grateful for the work they have done in the Sandia Mountains, for they've made the world a more interesting place in which to roam.

Finding the Clovis Culture

In 1926, when scientists from the Colorado Museum of Natural History found a stone projectile point imbedded in the rib of a bison antiquus, a large predecessor of modern American bison, changed the whole time frame for human habitation in North America.  
That point, found near the town of Folsom, in north eastern New Mexico, proved that early man had been hunting bison as far back as 9,000 B.C.E., 7,000 years earlier than previously thought. But that find was just the first of many that have pushed back our understanding of when humans came to the Americas. The hunt for the earliest American was on!
As news of the Folsom find began to spread, people started taking an interest in old bones found in the ground. One of those was a 19 year old Eagle Scout from Clovis, New Mexico. His name was James Ridgely Whiteman.
One day in February of 1929, Whiteman was walking along Blackwater Draw, an arroyo between Clovis and Portales. In a letter he wrote to the Smithsonian Institution, he said he found fluted points in association with mammoth bones.

Mammoths weren’t alive at the time of the Folsom kills. If Whiteman was right, his find was even older.
No one paid much attention to Whiteman's letter, and the discovery he had made in Blackwater Draw went unexplored. In 1932, a horse-drawn scraper that the highway department was using to collect gravel for a road project uncovered a huge pile of bones right where Whiteman had said they were.

The next year, Edgar B. Howard, an archeologist from the University of Pennsylvania, began a four year excavation of the site. He and his colleagues found ancient spearheads, stone tools, hearths, and evidence of almost continuous human occupation at the site dating back 13,000 years. He named these people the Clovis people, after the nearby town of Clovis, New Mexico.
Howard concluded that Clovis people camped on the west side of the lake, where they could have a view of the surroundings. They didn’t seem to camp for long periods before they moved on to other places. If there were no mammoths around, they hunted smaller game.
Blackwater Draw was an animal trap. Hunters waited until mammoths and other animals got trapped in the mud at the edge of a lake, then attacked them. Scientists have found other animal bones, too: Bison, saber toothed tigers, ambelodons, large ground sloths, peccaries,and dire wolves. Some might have been hunted, but others died of natural causes, got caught in the mud, or were killed by other animals. 
By the time of the Folsom Culture, there were no ground sloths, ambelodons or mammoths left, but they hunted at Blackwater Draw, too. Artifacts indicate that they tended to camp on the Northwest edge of the lake, where they could look for approaching herds of bison. Archaeologists can tell that Folsom groups stayed longer than the Clovis groups had, but they, too, moved on once they had skinned and butchered their bison.
One reason people did not remain at Blackwater Draw is that there is no good stone for making points in the area. The stones for points found at Blackwater Draw were brought from other places, including Alibates (near Amarillo, Texas), the upper Colorado River in Colorado, the Valles Caldera in New Mexico's Jemez mountains, and the Sangre de Cristo mountains, north of Santa Fe. The distribution and number of points help archaeologists determine how early man traveled throughout the area. 
Today, there is a building sheltering the kill site at Blackwater Draw, which is part of the Blackwater Draw National Historic Landmark. The bones lay on many levels, showing the large period of time in which this site was an active hunting area. The different levels are clearly marked. Down the road is an excellent museum, and camp sites are available at Oasis State Park, which is a little more than four miles away. 
A former middle school Social Studies and English teacher, Jennifer Bohnhoff is now a full time writer of historical and contemporary fiction for middle grade through adult readers. Her middle grade novel, In the Shadow of Sunrise, tells the story of a handicapped Folsom boy who is on the verge of manhood and learning his strengths.

Readings in Prehistory for Middle Grade and Adult Readers

 If you ask nearly anyonefor a recommendation for a book set in prehistoric times, you’ll likely hear Clan of the Cave Bearmentioned. The first of Jean M. Auel’s six book Earth's Children series waspublished in 1980 and is still popular today. Set around 30,000 years ago, ittells the story of Ayla, an orphaned Cro-Magnon girl who is adopted and raisedby a tribe of Neanderthals. It is a coming-of-age book, but beginning with thesecond book, the explicit romantic sex makes it inappropriate for middle gradereaders. That is not to say that there are no books set in prehistoric times thatare appropriate for middle graders. Here are a few recommendations:

Set in Western Europe35,000 years ago, Noonalookis the story of a man who used to be great within his clan, but age anddisability has shoved him into the forgotten fringes of society. When a raidingparty leaves behind one of their young boys, Noonalook decides to return him tohis people. This story is unusual for a middle grade novel, as most stories inthis niche feature protagonists that are in their early to mid teens. Thedialog is often limited to indecipherable strings like "Sundu, gello narnodum. Stedona mellekon" and the like. While I understand when outsidersspeak gibberish, I wonder when it comes out of the mouth of our POV character.Shouldn't we readers be able to understand his words just as much as histhoughts? Self-published, it has a handful of errors.

Childrenof the Dawnland is the first in a two book series by authors W. Michael Gearand Kathleen O'Neal Gear.  Set at the endof the Ice Age, it tells the story of  atwelve-year-old named Twig, who feels compelled to supress her spirit dreamsthat act like premonitions. When her village is attacked by an enemy people,Twig and her companion, Greyhawk, escape and begin a journey to find the caveof the reclusive witch-woman, Cobia, who might be able to interpret her dreamthat a green light is going to explode from the sky and destroy the world. Wellwritten, well researched, and exciting, I recommend this book highly.

The Gears areamong those rare authors who can write both for adults and for children. If youare an adult and Children of the Dawnland appeals to you, I recommend People of the Sea. Set twelvethousand years ago, in the Sierra Nevada, the people are facing the end oftheir way of life and the glaciers melt, destroying the habitat of themastodons. The people wonder why the Spirits are taking away the animals theydepend on, and their fear is compounded when a beautiful woman arrives, fleeingfrom her abusive husband. 

This novel is part of a series that progresses throughcenturies, from the first arrivals in the Americas through the coming of Europeans.The Gears, who are both writers and archaeologists, are probably the leadingexperts on early man in the Americas, and their books, both for children andadults, are depict the prehistoric world accurately and interestingly. 

Patricia Miller-Schroeder’sSisters of the Wolf isa buddy journey novel, set in Ice Age Europe and featuring two girls in a questto escape a deranged, power-hungry kidnapper and return to their families.Keena is a Neanderthal and Shinoni a Cro-Magnon, but they must join forces tomake it through a dangerous Ice Age landscape filled with predatory animals,earthquakes and icy rivers. The cooperation doesn't just extend between races,but between species as the girl ally themselves with wolves, mammoths andhorses in their race to escape. This is a book that middle grade readers willlove, especially if they are looking for strong female protagonists, but itslips into fantasy a bit too much for my tastes. I just can’t buy their ridingmammoths and the like. 

Justin Denzel’s TheBoy of the Painted Cave tells the story of the artistic Tao, who lives asan outcast because he’d rather paint wild bears and woolly mammoths than huntthem despite the fact that he is not one of the Chosen Ones who can be cavepainters. Alone in the wilderness, he makes allies of  a wild wolf dog named Ram and the mysteriousGraybeard, who teaches him the true secret of the hunt. This book realisticallydepicts the prehistoric world.

First published in 1984,Ann Turnbull’s Maroo of the Winter Caves, is a classic that
deserves tocontinue being read. Set in southern France during the last Ice Age, it tellsthe story of a girl in the Madeleine people, a group of semi-nomadic hunter gatherersthat lived in Europe 17,000-12,000 years ago. When multiple tragedies strikeher small band, Maroo and her younger brother Otak must leave her family andstrike out on their own to get help. Their route, over the mountains during ablizzard, is fraught with danger. I really appreciated how historicallyaccurate this book is. There was no magic, no fantasy silliness. The people'sspirit beliefs were believable. This is a short and easy read for youngermiddle grade readers who want to experience what life might really have beenlike.

Wolf Brother is the firstbook in a series entitled the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. Michelle Paver’sstory takes place in Europe six thousand years ago. Twelve-year-old Torak andhis wolf-cub companion journey through deep forests, across giant glaciers, andinto dangers they never imagined as they battle to save their world from evilforces which seek to destroy it.  As muchfantasy as prehistory, there are plenty of monsters and magic and cross-speciescommunication for middle grade readers who don't want to be stuck in reality.

Lastly, I’d like torecommend you give my own contribution to prehistoric middle grade
novels a try.  Set in what is now Colorado, New Mexico and Texas 10,000years ago, In the Shadow of Sunrise  tells the story of Earth Shadow, a handicapped boy who is part of theFolsom Culture. He has come of age and is finally able to join the adults fromhis clan on a summer trip where he hunts, gathers supplies, makes alliances with people from other clans, and learns that his mental abilities more than compensate for his physical inabilities. I did extensive research and visitedthe locations that became scenes in this book, and I believe it accuratelydepicts the period while offering a heartwarming coming of age story. 

I have one copy each of Maroo, Noonalook, Sisters of the Wolf and In the Shadow of Sunrise to give away to interested readers. All have been read but are in good condition. If you'd like to be considered for any of these titles, leave a comment below. 

Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former middle grade social studies and English teacher who is now devoting her time to writing historical and contemporary novels for middle grade through adult readers. He most recent, In the Shadow of Sunrise, was published in early April, 2025. 

Oral History as Distant Memory

 

 

Back when I was writing  The Last Song of the Swan, my novel retelling the Beowulf story in both the distant past and the present, one of the major questions I wanted to answer is whether oral history remembered events from long ago. I wondered then if Grendel, the monster in Beowulf, could be a Neanderthal.  This month Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing will release In the Shadow of Sunrise, a novel set in New Mexico 11,000-10,000 years ago, during the time that the people now called Folsom man wandered the area, and the same question, in a slightly different context, has popped up again. Can old stories remember events from thousands of years before their telling? In his book Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs asks the same question. He points out that many Native American oral traditions refer to giant, dangerous animals who walked the world when it was new. In most of those stories, there are heroes who are monster slayers, or who drive the beasts into the underworld so that man can live unmolested by them. Childs wonders if these heroes are the Clovis people, who left evidence that they were here 12,000–11,000 years ago. If so, the monsters might be the megafauna that lived in North America at the close of the last Ice Age. He wonders, particularly, if these monsters aren't the mammoths and mastodons that roamed the grasslands. Childs shares a story shared in 1934 in American Anthropology. According to a Penobscot legend from Maine, there was once a hero named Snowy Owl who discovered that watercourses were drying up. When he sought the reason why, he found great animals with backs like hills and long teeth, who drank for half a day at a time. Snowy Owl shot them all, restoring water to the valley.

​Backs like hills? Long teeth? Could these monsters be mammoths or mastodons? In 1781, Thomas Jefferson learned of a Mr. Stanley, who had been taken prisoner by Indians, but escaped and returned east. Stanley had been taken somewhere west of the Continental Divide, where he claimed to have seen bones bigger than any known living land animal. The natives described the animal these bones came from, and said that it still existed in the northern part of the territory. Mr. Stanley believed they were elephants.In the 1700s, fossils were often said to be the remains of animals that had not gotten on the ark when Noah had save the earth's fauna from the great flood. But what if some of them had survived? What if they still existed in the wilds of the American west?Jefferson had already heard of a place named Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, where mammoth bones had been found. The bones were just that: bones. They had not been mineralized into fossils.Jefferson was so intrigued that he sent Meriwether Lewis to Big Bone Lick in 1803, with the purpose of collecting some of the mysterious bones. He was so pleased with the results that a year later, he sent Lewis and William Clark west in the hopes of finding more than just the bones of these magnificent creatures.  Drawing of an early 19th century attempt at a mammoth restoration. Note the upside-down tusks. (Image: WikiCommons/Public Domain)While the Lewis and Clark expedition didn't find any mammoths, the animals were still in the memory of the people they encountered. More than a century later, an anthropologist collecting stories in the Northwest was still hearing about them. In a footnote to his 1918 study, James Teit wrote that he was told of a very large animal, built like a hairy elephant, These animals, he said, had not been seen for several generations. but their bones were still found occasionally .

Several generations? Since mammoths are thought to have gone extinct approximately 11,000 years ago, those are very long generations, indeed. But longer still is the memory of the people who were still telling stories about these creatures.
Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former middle school and high school history and language arts teacher. She lives in the mountains of central New Mexico and write historical and contemporary fiction for middle grade through adult readers. She is available to lecture on the history behind her stories.

The booklinks in the above blog are for my recommended book lists on Bookshop.org, an online bookseller that gives 75% of its profits to independent bookstores, authors, and reviewers. If you click through my book lists and make a purchase on Bookshop.org, I will receive a commission, and Bookshop.org will give a matching commission to independent booksellers. But if you’re not looking to buy, browse my lists and find the books you’re interested in at your local library.

A Weekend to Remember

  This past weekend five friends and I participated in the Bataan Memorial Death March, which has taken place every March for the past 36 years. This was my tenth time to participate. I've completed both the full course, which is a 26.2 mile marathon, and I've participated in what they call the honorary course, which at 14.2 miles is a little longer than a standard half marathon. I've run the course and walked it, and I expect this time will be my last.

The march commemorates the forcible transfer of somewhere around 75,000  American and Filipino troops the Bataan Peninsula to prisoner of war camps following their surrender after the three-month Battle of Bataan during WWII. The transfer began on April 9, 1942. Depending on where they surrendered, the men marched up to 65 miles, many without any food or water. Those who broke out of formation to drink from pools of rainwater were shot, and those who could not keep up were bayoneted. Although different sources report widely differing numbers, casualty estimates for the mare range from 5,000 to 18,000 deaths for Filipino troops and 500 to 650 deaths for Americans.

We'd trained for months to be ready for this event, walking in flat, sandy soils along the Rio Grande, on
the rolling trails of the Sandia foothills, on city streets, and in forests. We'd gone to museums and parks that had memorials that were related to WWII and New Mexico's experience in it. I think we were ready, both mentally and physically. At the last memorial we visited, the Veteran's Park in Las Cruces, we viewed this sculpture, which shows three men, one looking back at what they have been through, one looking down at where they are, and one looking forward, into the future. Last year, we meet the son and nephew of two of the men whose faces were models for this art. They were participants in the march. His father survived. His uncle didn't. In years past, former POWs were there to tell their story and cheer us on as we marched in their honor. The last participant died recently. He was 105. Even though none of the survivors were there, the march was meaningful. Many of the marchers were related to men who had been in the march.

We began well before the sun was up, standing in line with the other marchers through a moving
opening ceremony. Then, just as dawn began lightening the eastern sky, the cannon boomed and the march began. Many of the marchers were in uniform, and some were carrying heavy packs. Others, honoring the men who carried their sick and wounded comrades during the original march, carried 8X8 posts, sawed off to weigh what a man would weigh. Many had pictures of their relatives pinned to their backs and were happy to talk about their relatives if asked. All of this made for a veery different experience than your regular marathon. This event is less a race than a walking memorial, a commemoration of the bravery of our WWII troops. 

Much of the march was on dirt roads, and with 6,000 people and drought conditions, the trail was often dusty. But we had medics driving ATVs along the side of the course, checking for people who were struggling, and frequent aide stations where we received water, sports drinks, oranges and bananas. One station even offered pickles and cups of pickle juice!

Five and a half hours and fourteen miles later, we crossed the finish line. We were tired, but elated to be a part of something so big and so meaningful. Our participation was a mere whisper of what the original marchers went through, and for that we were both humbled and grateful. It was a weekend to remember, and a weekend where remembering those who came before us and risked their all that we could live free was far more important than winning a race. 

Places to go to Experience ​the Civil War in New Mexico

 A lot of time has passed since the Civil War moved through New Mexico. During that time, the Rio Grande has moved its bed, obliterating the old battlefield. Asphalt roads have been laid down where trails used to be. Old buildings have been torn down and replaced by others. All this makes it impossible to see that a soldier might have seen back in the 1860s, but there are still places a interested person can go to see what this period might have been like. Here are a few suggestions. Call ahead to make sure that sites are open. 

In Texas
The Military Forces Museum in Austin is housed in a 1918 mess hall and features thousands of war relics and historic photos representing every war from Texas Independence to the present. 512-782-5659
The Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio has exhibits about the different cultures that have come together in Texas. They have a small exhibit of Civil War artifacts. 210-458-2300.​The route that Sibley took to get to New Mexico roughly follows I-90. The Army of New Mexico did not stop at Fort Lancaster, which is located near the town of Sheffield, near I-10, but the ruins of the fort are open and a good example of the kinds of forts that were in Texas at the time. 432-836-4391. Farther west, Fort Davis also has a self guided walking tour. 432-426-3224. Old Fort Bliss is a reconstruction of the adobe fort that existed at the time of the Civil War, and is open for tourists. There is also a military museum at the newer portion of Fort Bliss that has artifacts and exhibits.  915-568-4518 or 915-588-8482.​In New Mexico
It wasn’t there at the time, of course, but when Sibley invaded New Mexico, he largely followed what is now the 1-25 corridor. Here are some places where you can see places mentioned in this story. Call ahead to verify that sites are open. 

Old Mesilla was the Confederate western headquarters. Located south of Las Cruces, you can visit the plaza, where the Confederate flag hung. There are Civil War artifacts in the Gadsden Museum, which is located at 1875 W Boutz Rd in Mesilla 575-526-6293.
​
San Augustin Spring, where Major Isaac Lynde surrendered the garrison of Fort Fillmore to Confederate Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor, is just over 14 miles east of Las Cruces on I-70. The springs are not easy to access, but the drive up to San Augustin Pass helps explain why Lynde’s men were struggling in the summer heat, and the view of White Sands and the Tularosa Basin is spectacular. Ft. Selden​The Army didn’t create Fort Seldon until 1865, but the Confederates created Camp Robledo there in 1861 to protect the northern entrance of the Mesilla Valley. The present-day State Monument has displays and self-guided tours that reflect 19th century military life, with a focus on the Buffalo Soldiers and Douglas MacArthur, who lived at the fort when he was a young boy. 575-526-8911. 
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Only the bottom few feet of some adobe walls, the remnants of the stone jail, and some mounded dirt is all that’s left of Fort Craig, but the National Historic Site offers brochures and self-guided tours. 575-835-0412 From here, the Mesa de la Contadera looms up in the north, making it clear where the battle was fought. The actual battlefield is on private land and is inaccessible except by private tour. The Geronimo Springs Museum, in Truth or Consequences, has hosted these tours in the past. (575) 894-6600. Close to the battlefield, on the west side of the Rio Grande is a Civil War Monument, erected in 1936, that honors the Confederate men and Texas Mounted Volunteers who died at the Battle of Valverde. To see it, take the San Marcial Exit off I-25 (A85) and go east. The monument is right near the entrance to the Armendariz Ranch. San Marcial, a small town built after the Valverde battle which is now a ghost town, is nearby. The town of Valverde, which was already abandoned by the time of the Civil War, was across the river from San Marcial.


In past years, Socorro sponsored a reenactment of the Battle of Valverde on the weekend closest to the February 21 anniversary of the battle. The town also sponsors several historic walking tours that visit period houses around the plaza. 575-835-0424 The San Miguel church is also on the plaza. Both Pedro Baca and Manuel Armijo are buried there. (575) 835-2891. Some Civil War information can be viewed at the BLM office. (575) 835-0412 in Socorro. ​  Alfred Petticolas, a Confederate sergeant, sketched this picture of the Confederate flag flying in front of Albuquerque's San Felipe Church when southern troops occupied Albuquerque from March 2 to April 12, 1862.  Albuquerque’s Old Town plaza no longer flies the Confederate flag (it was finally taken down in the early 2000s), but two cannons remain near the grandstand. The cannons are replicas of two of the eight cannons which the Confederates buried in a stable behind the church so they could use the guns’ carriages to carry supplies.  The cannons were dug up in 1889. 

They are also said to have buried some of their dead – casualties of battle or illness – in Albuquerque, but no Confederate graves ever have been found in the Albuquerque area.  The National Cemetery in Santa Fe was created in 1867 as a result of John P. Slough's efforts to have proper burials for the soldiers killed at Glorieta. The first interments at the cemetery site were the remains of 265 U.S. soldiers taken from the battlefields of Glorieta, Kozlowsky's Ranch, and Fort Marcy. Later, the remains of five Confederate soldiers were removed from the Masonic Cemetery and reinterred in the Santa Fe National Cemetery. The cemetery also has the reinterred remains of soldiers from Fort Craig, which date from the Civil War era and include many Buffalo Soldiers from a later period. Captain James (Paddy) Graydon is buried in plot 9, C474. The cemetery also has a monument honoring the remains of 31 Confederate soldiers who were discovered in a mass grave on the site of the Glorieta battlefield on June 23, 1987 and were reinterred at the Santa Fe National Cemetery on April 25, 1993. Some of the heaviest fighting during the Battle of Glorieta Pass occured at Pigeon's Ranch. ​Built around 1857 by Alexander Vallé, a Frenchman known as Pigeon for his dancing style, this house is all that remains of his 23 room establishment that was a popular place to stay along the Santa Fe Trail. From 1926 to1937, when Route 66 passed right beside the house. it became a popular roadside attraction. All that remains is a single building which huddles, forgotten, along ​ NM HW 50 just west of Pecos, New Mexico. The “Oldest Well in the U.S.A.” is still across the road from the ranch house. Pecos National Park holds what had been Kowzlowski's Ranch, where the Union made its headquarters for the Battle of Glorieta Pass. Their museum has some exhibits about the battle and, in the past, a Union and Confederate camp has been set up on the weekend closest to the date of the battle. A 2.3 mile Civil War Battlefield Trail can be accessed by  checking in at the Visitor Center and getting a gate code from a ranger.

Planning to walk the Civil War Battlefield Trail? Here's a guide that supplements the one the forest service can sell you.

Mustard Sauce

 Back in 1985, my husband and I spent a week on a schooner in the waters off Maine. We sailed among the islands, ate lobster on the beaches, and had a wonderful time.

One of the meals we had was a New England boiled beef dinner, with carrots and cabbage and potatoes and a wonderful mustard sauce. 

I don't think I've made boiled beef since then, but I've made many, many jars of the mustard sauce. We use it for corned beef every March, and for sandwiches and on ham. It's simple, made of ingredients that are household staples, but it adds a zing to a lot of different foods.

I'll be making a batch before St. Patrick's Day. If you do, too, let me know what you think!

Mustard Sauce

Stir together (in a double boiler if you have one. I don't, and it turns out just fine)2 TBS dry mustard 
1 tsp flour
1/2 tsp salt1/4 cup sugar
Add in, stirring a bit at a time until it is mixed in well and there's no lumps
1 cup evaporated milk
Slowly heat up, stirring constantly. When it is hot but not quite bubbling, add and stir1 beaten egg yolk
Slowly drizzle in, while still stirring1/2 cup heated cider vinegar
Take off heat and pour into glass jars. Store in refrigerator. 

In the Shadow of Sunrise ARC now available!

 

In the Shadow of Sunrise, my middle grade novel set in the American Southwest 10,000 years ago, will be coming out on April 8, 2025. 

I'd love it if it opened to great reviews! That's what ARCs - Advanced Reader Copies - are all about.

If you'd like to read this book before it comes out, click here.

In the Shadow of Sunrise tells the story of Earth Shadow, a bow who was born the smaller and weaker of twin brothers. Earth Shadow is anxious to step out of the shadow of Sunrise, his physically stronger twin brother. The two are now old enough to join their clan’ s adults on the annual Walk Around, a summer-long journey to gather stones for implements and connect with other clans. He worries that if he doesn’ t participate in the hunt that will take place at the Great Gathering of all the clans, this Walk Around will be his last, and he will spend the rest of his summers staying behind with the sick, elderly, and very young. As he listens to Grandmother's stories of the ancestors, Earth Shadow discovers that his creativity and reasoning may be as important to the survival and success of the clan as his brother's hunting skills.

This is a coming of age story set in a very different time, yet young boys then feel much the same way as young boys now about the future and their place within it. 

The places visited during the Walk Around are all places where archaeologists have found evidence of Folsom occupation. Located in what is now Southern Colorado, Northwestern Texas, and New Mexico, many of the sites are open to the public now. 

This book would be an excellent social studies/literature tie in for grades 4-9. A teacher's guide and powerpoint presentation are available through the author. 

Real People in ​REBELS ALONG THE RIO GRANDE

Although the main characters in Rebels Along the Rio Grande are fictitious characters, almost all of the background characters are real, historical people. Here are a few of the most famous: 

Illustration by Ian Bristow from Where Duty Calls
Christopher "Kit" Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) is perhaps the most famous Indian Scout, mountain man, and frontiersman of all time. Carson left his home in rural Missouri when he was only 16 to become a mountain man and trapper in the rugged Rocky Mountains. By the time of the Civil War, he had added wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer to his resume. Carson was a legend in his own lifetime, and his exploits, although greatly exaggerated, appeared in dime novels.Carson was a quiet man, short in stature, and uncomfortable with his own celebrity In Where Duty Calls, he is mending his own clothes when he meets Raul for the first time at Fort Craig. Carson was then leading a division of New Mexico Volunteers. 


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Edward R.S.Canby (November 9, 1817 – April 11, 1873) was a West Point graduate who was in command of New Mexico territory's Fort Defiance when the Civil War broke out. He was appointed colonel of the 19th Infantry on May 14, 1861 and made commander of the Department of New Mexico after the man who had been commander left to join the Confederacy.
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More an administrator than a fighter, Canby was a cautious and careful leader. He realized that defending the entire territory from every possible attack would stretch his forces too thinly, so he amassed his troops at Fort Craig, to guard the route up the Rio Grande. He was defeated at the Battle of Valverde, but managed to retain the fort and keep its precious stores of food and arms out of enemy hands. Eventually, this forced the Confederates to abandon their campaign and return to Texas.

Canby made no secret of his distain for the New Mexico Volunteers. His reports blamed them for more cowardice and incompetence than they deserved.

​Canby was killed in 1873 while attending peace talks with the Modoc in the Pacific Northwest. He was the only United States general to be killed during the Indian Wars.

​Illustration by Ian Bristow in The Famished Country 
Henry Hopkins Sibley (May 25, 1816 – August 23, 1886) was also a West Point graduate who was serving in New Mexico territory at the outbreak of the Civil War. He resigned his commission on May 13, 1861, the day of his promotion to major in the 1st Dragoons and joined the Confederate Army. Sibley convinced Confederate President Jefferson Davis to put him in command of a brigade of volunteer cavalry in West Texas, which he named the Army of New Mexico. Sibley's intention for the New Mexico Campaign was to capture Fort Union on the Santa Fe Trail and make it a forward base of supply. He would then capture the gold and silver mines of Colorado and the warm-water ports of California. Sibley was accused of alcoholism during his time in New Mexico. Before the war ended, he had been court martialed and censured. After the war, he served as an advisor for the Egyptian Army, but continued to struggle with alcoholism. He died in poverty.
Rebels Along the Rio Grande is a trilogy of middle grade historical novels set in New Mexico during the American Civil War. The author, Jennifer Bohnhoff, taught middle and high school English and History and is available to speak with classes and interested groups about the history behind these novels.