Fake Money to Raise Real Troops

 

 

William Gilpin believed in the west. A native of Pennsylvania, Gilpin was born in 1813. He attended school in England for two years, then went to the University of Pennsylvania, finally graduating in really 1836 from the United States Military Academy at West Point

In 1843, Gilpin joined Kit Carson and several other notable westerners on John Charles Fremont's expedition to map the route over the Continental Divide as far as Oregon. A few years later, Major Gilpin marched his regiment to Chihuahua City during the Mexican-American War. He did well enough there that Gilpin received command of a volunteer force organized to suppress Indian uprisings in the West and to protect the Santa Fe Trail. After this, Gilpin settled in Independence, Missouri, where he set up a law practice and gave lectures on the health and wealth that was available in the Rocky Mountains.

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In February of 1861, Colorado was organized as a territory of the United States, and President Lincoln appointed Colonel Gilpin to be its Governor. Upon arriving in the Territory, Gilpin realized that one of the most important tasks he had was to defend against a Confederate invasion. Almost all of Colorado's regular Army troops had been called east when the Civil War began, leaving the rich gold fields of the Rockies vulnerable. Not realizing that Confederate General Henry Sibley was raising an invasion force in Texas, Washington refused to support Gilpin's request for the organization of Union forces in Colorado Territory. 

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Gilpin then took it upon himself to protect the territory. He organized the First Colorado Regiment of Volunteers and paid for it by issuing $375,000 in negotiable drafts that were payable from the national treasury. The drafts became known as Gilpin Scrip, and the Colorado First Volunteers, a force of 1,342 men the scrip helped arm and house, became known as Gilpin's Pet Lambs.

At first, the merchants of Denver were all too happy to exchange their goods for Gilpin Scrip. However, Washington considered the scrip illegal  and the U.S. Treasury refused to redeem them. Despite traveling to Washington to plead his case, the cabinet removed Gilpin from office by a unanimous vote. Ironically, Gilpin achieved his purpose. His illegally funded First Regiment distinguished itself, participating at the Battle of Valverde outside Fort Craig, and routing Confederate General Henry Sibley's Army at Glorieta Pass.

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Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former New Mexico history teacher who now writes from her home in the mountains of central New Mexico. Her next book The Worst Enemy, tells the story of the Colorado Volunteers and the Civil War battle of Glorieta. Written for middle grade through adult readers. It will be published this August by Artemesia Publishing and is available now for preorder.

If you would like to know more, join Jennifer's email list here. 

One very entertaining book on Gilpin is Colorado: A History, by Marshall Sprague (1984).

John Potts Slough: Victor of Glorieta

 

Colonel John P. Slough , of the First Colorado Regiment ( From a war - time photograph loaned by Mr. Samuel C. Dorsey , of Denver . ) John Potts Slough came from a prestigious military and political family. His ancestor, Mattias Slough, was the first colonel appointed by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War and was also a member of the Pennsylvania assembly before he left public life to run a tavern in Lancaster County.  John had big shoes, and expectations, to fill.  John Potts Slough (whose name rhymes with 'plough') was born on February 1, 1829, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned a degree in law and was elected as a Democrat to the Ohio General Assembly. Things were looking promising for this young man, but all was not perfect. Potts was noted for having a fierce temper and could pepper his tirades with obscenities. He was expelled from the Legislature after engaging in a fist fight with another assemblyman. He then moved to Kansas where he was narrowly defeated in a race for the Governor's seat. Slough then moved to Denver and became one of its preeminent lawyers. When the Civil War broke out, he entered the service as the Captain of the 1st Colorado "Pike's Peakers" Volunteer Regiment, then convinced the territory's  Governor, William Gilpin, to raise his rank to Colonel. Slough used family money to support the troops. He located a vacant building, the Buffalo House Hotel, and got it donated for use as barracks until Camp Weld was built on the south side of Denver. Despite his organizational acumen, Slough was not popular with the troops, who found him cold and imperious. In 1862, a Confederate army invaded New Mexico Territory, and Slough marched his regiment to Fort Union. Once there, he took assumed control of the fort, arguing that he outranked Colonel Paul, the regular Army officer who had been in control, by reason of an earlier appointment date.  Colonel Edward Canby, who commanded the Department of New Mexico, ordered Slough to stay at the fort, but Slough deliberately misinterpreted the orders and marched to Glorieta Pass, where he engaged in a battle that ultimately turned the tide and sent the Confederate Army back to Texas. The victory was not a sweet one for Slough. Worried that he would be drummed out for disobeying orders and convinced that his own men fired on him during the battle, he resigned his commission and left the state. Slough went to Washington, D.C., where once again things seemed to be going his way. He was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers and became the military Governor of Alexandria, Virginia. Slough served as pallbearer at Lincoln's funeral and was a member of the court that convicted Henry Wirz, commander of the notorious Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson appointed Slough the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Mexico.  Slough is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio. Once he returned to the territory, Slough again showed concern for his old troops. His efforts to have proper burials for the soldiers killed at Glorieta resulted in the creation of the National Cemetery in Santa Fe in 1867. In 1895, Confederates who died in the battle were interred there as well.   But once again, Slough's fiery temper and outspoken tirades got him into trouble. President Andrew Johnson wanted  Slough  to break down the corrupt patronage system that had plagued New Mexico for centuries, and Slough began by attacking peonage, which he compared to slavery. This swiftly earned him enemies in the still divided and notoriously violent territory.  On December 17, 1867, Slough was playing billiards in the La Fonda Hotel when he and another former Union officer and New Mexico legislator, William Logan Ryerson, got in an argument. Two days later, Ryerson, who was also a part of the notoriously corrupt Santa Fe Ring, fatally shot an unarmed Slough in the lobby of Santa Fe's Exchange Hotel. Ryerson was tried for murder but the jury acquitted him, saying he had acted in self defense. Slough is one of the historical characters in Jennifer Bohnhoff's Civil War novel The Worst Enemy which will be published in August 2023 by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing. The Worst Enemy is the second in the trilogy Rebels Along the Rio Grande. and is available for preorder. The first book in the series, Where Duty Calls, was published in 2022 and is available here. Both novels are suitable for middle grade readers and above.

Samuel H. Cook, Miner and Soldier

 

 

A photo of a real boy who became the inspiration for my fictitious character, Cian Lachlann.

When I began writing Rebels on the Rio Grande, my series of historical novels on the Civil War in New Mexico, I soon realized that no real characters were present for all the events I wished to portray. That left me with a choice: did I add a lot more point of view characters into my stories so that I could always be assured to have someone the reader knew at each event? Or did I take out interesting and significant events because none of my characters were actually there?

I finally settled on a third approach. I filled my books with real, historical characters, yet I created fictitious characters for my main characters. That way, they could be everywhere I needed them to be. In The Worst Enemy, the second novel in my series, I created Cian Lachlann, an orphaned boy originally from Ireland, to represent the Union side of the story. He is representative of a number of real boys who joined the war effort out of desperation and a need for food and guidance.

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Samuel H. Cook

One of the real people who show up in The Worst Enemy, is Samuel H. Cook. 

​ Cook came to the Rockies in 1859 in search of gold. 
By summer of 1861, he and his partners, George Nelson, and Luther Wilson, were out money, out of food, and nearly out of hope.

Reading a newspaper near their Golden, Colorado claim, Cook saw an advertisement that stated "the United States Government desperately need troops to wage war and defend itself from secessionist aggression."

The article claimed that any man who could recruit 25 volunteers would be an officer and lead his own troops.

Cook rode the fifteen miles into Denver and had recruiting posters printed. He plastered those posters throughout Rocky Mountain gold mining towns. Men began to show up at his tent to sign up the next day.

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Luther Wilson

Cook's first two recruits were his mining partners. George Nelson became Captain Cook's First Lieutenant, and Luther Wilson his Second Lieutenant.

But these three were not the only men in the Colorado gold fields who needed a fresh start. The prospect of regular meals, warm clothing, and a comfortable bed attracted many hungry miners from across the region. By mid August, Cook was able to report that he had 87 volunteers ready to ride with him to Kansas to join the Union Army. Cook's old friend, Colonel Jim Lane, wrote back from Leavenworth, Kansas with Cook's appointment, welcoming him.

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Governor William Gilpin

Cook and his men never made it to Kansas.
They stopped for lunch in Denver on the first day of their ride to Kansas, and William Gilpin, the territorial governor, treated Cook to a meal at Sutherland House, one of the fanciest eateries in town. During that meal, Gilpin convinced Cook that the territory needed protection just as much as the Union did, and that he and his men would do well to stay in Colorado. 

Cook convinced his men to join the 1st Regiment of the Colorado Volunteers, which Gilpin had appointed Colonel John P. Slough to lead.

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John Slough

Slough wanted to run an infantry regiment, but two of his companies, one of which was Cook's Company F, refused to give up their horses. 

Cook is credited with being the first Union casualty in the Battle of Apache Canyon, the name given to the first day of the Battle of Glorieta Pass.  He was his three times in the thigh by buck and ball before his horse went down. He survived his wounds, but never saw action again.

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Rebels Along the Rio Grande is a trilogy of historical fiction novels set in New Mexico during the Civil War. Samuel Cook, George Nelson, and Luther Wilson are all real people, but are portrayed fictitiously in the second of the novels, The Worst Enemy which will be published on August 15, 2023 by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing. It can be preordered on Bookshop.org. The Worst Enemy continues the story begun in Where Duty Calls, which was a finalist for both the prestigious Zia Award and the Spur Award.

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Mrs. Bohnhoff is an educator, historian, and author who lives in the mountains of central New Mexico. You can read about all of her books here.