Real Characters

 

Where Duty Calls, the Middle Grade Civil War Novel set in New Mexico Territory that I published through Kinkajou Press last summer, is populated with a mix of fictitious and real people.  All of the important events and dates are historical, the information gleaned from diaries, newspapers, and secondary sources. If I could have found real people who were always in the middle of the action, I would have made them my main characters. Since I couldn’t, I created Jemmy and Raul. The small, personal scenes depicting their family life are entirely made up. But when my sources described a scene I wanted to include in my novel, I often added the writer of the account into my novel. ​Some of the real people whose diaries, letters and sources I used proved to be real characters, with wonderful stories of their own.  One of these is Frederick S. Wade, who left the teaching profession to enlist as a private in the Army of New Mexico, the force Major General Henry Hopkins Sibley organized in Texas for the purpose of taking New Mexico Territory for the Confederacy. ​ Frederick Wade in his later years Wade’s obituary,in the June 27, 1925 edition of the San Antonio Express says that he was the one who told Abraham Lincoln that Texas would secede from the Union.  Born in Ontario, Canada, Wade was raised in Illinois, then moved to Texas in 1857. In 1860, he was visiting his parents in Illinois when Lincoln asked him about Texan opinion.  The obituary states that Lincoln tried to get Wade to tour Texas and urge it to remain with the Union. Wade declined, and Texas joined the Confederacy. Wade then joined the Confederate brigade being formed by Tom Green. He continued to serve under Green until he became a prisoner of war in 1862. While in prison camp, Wade helped a friend escape. His friend had contracted smallpox and was in the hospital. One day, Wade found him sitting in a coffin with a white sheet around him. Wade sprinkled the man’s face and hands with flour, then sealed the coffin and made sure it was loaded on the top of the other coffins in the dead wagon.  After the wagon had left the prison, the man raised the lid of the coffin and called “Come to judgement” in his spookiest voice. The frightened driver ran away yelling “Ghosties! Ghosties!” Wade’s friend then stole one of the horses and escaped to Canada. You can read this story, plus some other remembrances here. ​ Who needs to make up characters when people like this already exist? Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former middle grade teacher. Where Duty Calls is the first book in a trilogy entitled Rebels Along the Rio Grande. Book 2, The Worst Enemy, will be published by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing,  in August, 2023.