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.

The Thiepval Memorial

 

Back in 2019, when I was researching World War I for A Blaze of Poppies, I had the honor of touring battlefields and memorials in Belgium and France. It was a sobering experience, and one of the most sobering was the memorial outside the little town of Thiepval, in Picardy, France.  The Thiepval Memorial is dedicated to the men of the British Commonwealth who went missing in the Battles that occurred in the Somme between 1915 and 1918 and whose bodies have not been found. Designed by Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, one of the most famous architects of the time, it is the only memorial that Edward VIII ever dedicated, since he abdicated soon after.  Inside the memorial, a large inscription on an internal surface of the memorial reads: Here are recorded names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields July 1915 February 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death. Piers of Portland stone are engraved with over 72,000 names. 90 per cent of these soldiers died in the first Battle of the Somme, between 1 July and 18 November 1916.  Because the monument is reserved for those missing or unidentified soldiers who have no known grave, a soldier’s name is excised from the wall by filling in the inscription with cement when his body is found and identified. The remains are then given a funeral with full military honors at a cemetery close to the location at which they were discovered. This practice has resulted in numerous gaps in the lists of names. 80 names came off the monument 2018.  Just behind the Thiepval Memorial lies two cemeteries that commemorate the joint nature of the 1916 offensive. One side of the cemetery holds 300 soldiers of the British Commonwealth under rectangular, white stone headstones inscribed with "A Soldier of the Great War / Known unto God". The other side holds the graves of 300 French soldiers under grey stone crosses that bear the single word "Inconnu" ('unknown'). Most of the soldiers buried here – 239 of the British Commonwealth and 253 of the French – are unidentified. Their bodies were found on the battlefields of the Somme and as far north as Loos and as far south as Le Quesnel, then reburied here between December 1931 and March 1932. I'm not a numbers person, but over 72,000! Even if I can't really conceive a number that large, I know it is huge. And that's not the number of men who died in the area: it's the number of men who died and whose bodies were never recovered. It's astounding and beyond comprehension.   World War I was supposed to be the Great War: the War to End All Wars. Yet here we are, over a hundred years later and wars rage throughout the globe. Clearly, we have not yet learned the lesson such carnage should have taught us.  Jennifer Bohnhoff is the author of a number of historical novels for middle grade through adult readers. A Blaze of Poppies is set in New Mexico and the French Battlefields in the time leading up to and including the American involvement in World War I. Her intent in writing the book was not to glorify war, but to give readers a taste of what life might have been like during that tumultuous period.

The New Mexico National Guard In A Blaze of Poppies

 

 

A Blaze of Poppies takes place in Southern New Mexico and France during the tumultuous 1910s. Its main character, Agnes Day, is a ranching woman who is determined to keep her family’s ranch, the Sunset, within the family who’s held it for three generations.

The family’s brand is the lazy D, a capital D laid over on its side. The D not only stands for the Days, who’ve owned the ranch since before the Civil War, but on its side it looks like a sunrise. 

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The man who quietly supports Agnes through difficult times is Will Bowers, a member of the National Guard who is serving border patrol at Camp Columbus.
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New Mexico’s National Guard began serving its country before New Mexico was even a state. In 1898, when the Spanish American War broke out, New Mexico Guardsmen helped form the 2nd Squadron, 1st United States Cavalry. This unit was part of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders and were among those who charged up San Juan Hill.

Teddy (center) and some of his Rough Riders.

In 1916, when Pancho Villa raided the southern New Mexican town of Columbus, New Mexico’s National Guard, under the command of Black Jack Pershing, pursued the outlaw into Mexico. The Guard spent the next year on this border duty. 

Pershing was so impressed with the Guards’ performance in the rough field conditions of the desert southwest that he insisted they join the mobilization efforts when the United States entered World War I. New Mexico National Guardsmen were among some of the first to arrive in France. They didn’t, however, go over as a single unit. The First Infantry Regiment was activated into Federal Service and assigned to the 40th Infantry Division. A Battery of Field Artillery was assigned to the 41st Division and became part of the 146th Field Artillery Regiment, which took part in the actions at Champagne-Marne, Alsne-Marne, and Meuse-Argonne.

Because the 41st Division was largely made up of soldiers from Oregon and other northwest states that bordered the Pacific Ocean, it was named the "Sunset Division." Its semicircular shoulder patch featured a red background, with a yellow sun setting into a blue sea.

When Agnes first sees Will’s patch, she thinks it is a sunrise instead of a sunset. To her, it looks like a fancier version of the lazy D that is the family brand. They are, after all, the Day family, and the ranch is The Sunrise Ranch. She muses that perhaps she should add rays to the lazy D so it will look even more like the image on Will’s patch. 

Agnes wants to keep the ranch, and she wants Will to be there with her. But Will has a hidden past that makes him afraid to commit, even to the woman he loves. Read A Blaze of Poppies to find out whether the story ends in sunshine or shadow. 

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A Blaze of Poppies is an historical novel set in southern New Mexico at the time of the Pancho Villa Raid and World War I. If you'd like to see pictures that correspond with the story, go to Jennifer's Pinterest page. To buy the novel as an ebook, go to Amazon. A paperback version can be bought at many online booksellers, including Amazon and Bookshop, Signed copies can be bought directly from the author.

The Mysterious Medallion Trees of the Sandia Mountains

 

I love having the Sandia Mountains right out my back door. There are lots of trails: some challenging, some of them a leisurely walk in the woods. Like all forested areas, we have beautiful trees and wildflowers, lots of birds and deer and the occasional bear. But one of the things that makes the Sandias unique are the Medallion trees.  Medallion trees are trees that are marked with silver dollar-sized metal disks. Some are coppery or brassy, while others look to be made from stainless steel or aluminum. Each carries a historical event that took place the same year that the tree was likely germinated. Many also number the tree. I’ve seen numbers as high  as #123, indicating that there are well over 100 trees, although the only list I’ve ever found tops out in the 80s.  The trees are not numbered in chronological order. Tree #1, which germinated sometime around 1652, marks the invention of the frankfurter.  The oldest tree is #19, which commemorates the crowning of Robert II of Scotland in1371.  The youngest, marking Alaska becoming the 49th state, sprouted in 1959. #47, the George Washington Birthday Tree, has fallen and the medal is on the lower side, making it difficult to see.  No one knows who began marking the Medallion trees. Sources suggest that the effort began in the last 1920s, and that perhaps Civilian Conservation Corps workers might have started it.  Whoever it was drilled core samples into some of the largest trees in the Sandias and counted the rings before they fabricated the medallions, then hiked back to install the disks over the core sample holes. It was definitely a labor of love. ​ Jennifer Bohnhoff is a writer and former educator who loves getting lost in the mountains on long rambles. To learn more about her and her books, go to her website.

Johnson's Ranch, the Third in Glorieta: The Battle of Three Ranches

 

Johnson Ranch, 1917 Three ranches figure prominently in the action surrounding the March 26-28, 1862 Battle of Glorieta Pass. The first was Martin Kozlowski’s ranch. Situated at the eastern entrance of this narrow pass in the mountains east of Santa Fe, this location served as headquarters for the Union Army. The second, Pigeon’s Ranch, sits near the top of the pass and is where the main battle took place. The third site, Johnson’s Ranch, is located at the western end of Glorieta Pass, and was where the Confederate camp was located. All three ranches were also waypoints along the Santa Fe trail, which wended through Glorieta pass before dropping out of the mountains to its western terminus in Santa Fe. Like the other two ranches, the owner of Johnson’s Ranch, a Missouri native named Anthony D. Johnson, was known to be strong Union supporter.  At the first appearance of the Southern Army, Johnson took his New Mexican-born wife, Cruz, and their five children, and fled into the hills, where they camped in the frigid weather until it was safe to return home.    Pyron   On March 28, the second day of the battle, Confederate Major Charles L. Pyron and Colonel William Scurry thought their camp, far to rear, was safe. Thinking no Union forces could get by them through the narrow pass, they left their 80 supply wagons lightly defended with just one canon and a small contingent of soldiers. Most of the remaining men in camp were either injured or ailing. It never occurred to the Confederates that the Union Army could attack their supply train, but that is exactly what Colonel John M. Chivington did. Guided by the legendary Manuel Antonio Chaves, a New Mexico Volunteer nicknamed El Leoncito due to his small stature and outsized courage, he led a flanking party over Glorieta Mesa, on the south side of the pass. Chivington's intention was to outflank the Confederate Army so that he could attack its rear while Colonel John Slough attacked from the front. However, he overshot his objective.When he looked down on the supply wagons, Chivington realized that he had a unique opportunity. Changing his plans, he had his men then climb down the steep bluff and capture the Confederate guard. They spiked the cannon and burned the Texan supply train. He also ordered that all the Confederate’s draft mules and horses be bayoneted. An etching of the burning of the Confederate supply train, with Confederates fleeing toward Santa Fe. If you look closely, you can see a line of Union Soldiers on the left, climbing away from the flames. ​When the Confederate Army, fighting at Pigeon's Ranch, learned the fate of their supply train, the battle ceased. The Confederates began the slow process of withdrawing, first to Santa Fe, then down the Rio Grande to Texas. Johnson later testified that after the battle, he was forced to transport sick and wounded Texans back to Santa Fe. For the Johnson family, the invasion proved an economic disaster. They returned to find that Confederate soldiers had looted the house and ranch. They had taken a barrel of whiskey, ten bags of flour, 20 bushels of corn, sugar, molasses, soap, his clothing, and even his canned oysters. They had burned his furniture and fences as firewood. His house and the stagecoach station had nothing left to them but their bare walls. Johnson filed a claim against the U.S. government for $4,075, but there is no record that his claim was ever paid. Luckily, he had the foresight to drive his cattle into the hills, so he had not lost everything. Eventually, the Johnsons recovered and got back to the business of operating their stage stop and cantina on the old Santa Fe Trail. He acquired wagons and ran a freight service that hauled goods to and from Fort Union on the edge of the plains. In late 1869, he moved his family to Trinidad, Colorado, just north of Raton Pass. Soon, Johnson hauled ties for the advancing Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. In early 1879, Johnson was attacked and killed by highwaymen at a river crossing just east of Springer. His body was never found, and although the culprits were captured and brought before a federal judge in Santa Fe, the trial record has been lost and it is unknown what happened to the highwaymen. ​ The historic Johnson’s Ranch building lasted nearly 90 years longer than its owner. The building which had been a stage station on the historic Santa Fe trail and sheltered a Confederate Army for a few days was bulldozed in 1967 to make room for Interstate 25, that connects Denver to El Paso. Johnson's Ranch is one of the settings for Jennifer Bohnhoff's historical novel The Worst Enemy, which is book 3 in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, a trilogy of Civil War Novels published by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing. The first is Where Duty Calls.  ​Mrs. Bohnhoff lives in the mountains of central New Mexico. From her north-facing windows she can see Santa Fe and the mountains through which Glorieta Pass travels.