Waking up to the reality of war

Fellow Civil War novelist Blythe Forcey Toussaint has written an interesting post about Picnicking at the Battle of Bull Run. When the North and South clashed at the first major battle of the Civil War on 21 July 1861, civilians from nearby Washington, DC, came out with picnic baskets to watch the "fun". Instead they saw thousands of men die and their own army get trounced. They fled back home in panic.

It took some time for Americans to wake up to the realities of war. At Missouri's first battle, the Battle of Boonville, a rebel picket who saw the Union troops advancing rode back to Confederate lines and shouted, "They're coming, boys. They were shooting at me back there!"

Well, yeah. What did you expect them to do?

For Missourians, the big wake-up call was the Battle of Wilson's Creek, where both sides got decimated and the Union lost its first general in combat. In my Civil War novel, there's a minor character who lost his leg at that battle. He lost his romantic attitudes to war along with it.

My novel is to a great extent about two men losing the last of their innocence. Despite having been a bushwhacker for some time, Jimmy Rawlins fought honorably until he wound up under the control of Bloody Bill Anderson, a real-life villain who shot civilians and took scalps. Union militia captain Richard Addison never feels fully involved in the war until he faces off against Bloody Bill in an attempt to save Jimmy from becoming something far worse than a mere rebel. The book follows these two in their downward spiral, the same downward spiral so many others had to deal with in that conflict. in the end, though, they do find a way out, although I hope it's in a way that the readers don't see coming.

Finding a Wild West rarity in Oxford

If you've been following me on Gadling, you know I'm in Oxford at the moment. I'm busy working on my next book for Osprey Publishing, which is about the fateful raid on Northfield, Minnesota, by Jesse James and his gang in 1876.

You'd think I'd be feeling a bit out of touch with the Wild West here among the dreaming spires, and you'd be right except that I've found an extremely rare book on the Northfield robbery at Oxford University's Bodleian Library. Titled The Northfield Tragedy, it's the first account written about the robbery, penned by a journalist who arrived on the scene hours after the smoke cleared. He was among the first to interview the citizens who fought off the robbers, and he followed along with the posses as they hunted down the James-Younger gang.

This book is almost impossible to find in the United States. Only four copies are known to exist, none of which are in Missouri, where I'm based when I'm in the country. Most modern books about the James-Younger gang don't cite this important source. The reason the Bodleian has a copy is because it was reprinted by the English Westerners Society. The Bodleian being a copyright library, they had a copy. I would have never heard of it if I hadn't been browsing Jesse James books in the Bodleian. So here I am reading a Wild West rarity in the most English of cities!

Civil War Photo Friday: Union camp in Missouri

Despite the Union defeat at Wilson's Creek on 10 August 1861, the North was still firmly in control of much of Missouri. St. Louis, Columbia, and Kansas City were all in Union hands, although the retreat from Springfield after the battle was a serious blow.

General John Fremont commanded the Western Department, which included Missouri, and this image shows his huge camp near the state capital of Jefferson City. The city, along with the Missouri River, were captured in the first battle in the state, the Battle of Boonville. Controlling the Missouri river cut the state in half, making it very difficult for rebels north of the river to join the main Confederate armies to the south. In fact, there would be few major operations north of the river at any time during the war.

The Confederates only briefly occupied central Missouri. After Wilson's Creek, General Price's army marched up to the Missouri river town of Lexington and took it, but soon had to retreat south in the face of superior forces. Price came back again in 1864 and marched through the entire state. That campaign is the setting of my Civil War novel, A Fine Likeness. As is reflected in the novel, by this time virtually all of Missouri was controlled by the Union, but rebel guerrillas called bushwhackers prowled the countryside. They'd never get near big camps like this one, though!

Civil War in Missouri: Battle of Wilson's Creek

This painting by the famous Civil War illustrator Kurz and Allison, courtesy Wikimedia Commons, was done c1893. It's not entirely accurate but it looks nice.

On this day 150 years ago, a major battle was fought at Wilsons' Creek southwest of Springfield. This battle has been covered in numerous places and two excellent blogs, Civil War Daily Gazette and Seven Score and Ten, posted on it today. There's no need to rehash their good coverage, so I'll talk instead about the psychological effect of the battle and its place in my Civil War novel.

This was the first major battle west of the Mississippi. While skirmishing had been going on since Bleeding Kansas started in 1854, and there had been a few small battles such as at Carthage and Athens, the fight at Wilson's Creek was something else entirely. About 5,500 Union troops fought about 12,000 Confederates. Each side lost well over a thousand men killed, wounded, or missing. The two armies were literally decimated. It was a major wake-up call to everyone in Missouri that the war had come to their state with a vengeance.

In A Fine Likeness, Jimmy and his friends, who have never seen a real battle and instead fight as bushwhackers, talk to a Confederate veteran who lost his leg. Doug, the veteran, tells them about what it was like to be at the Battle of Oak Hills, as the rebels called it.

"I joined up when Price was camped down at Cowskin Prairie in the autumn of ‘61, way down near the Arkansas line. You should have seen it, thousands of Missourians all gathered together. Half of us didn’t have guns. I saw men join up with nothing more than a knife tucked in their boot, but we were ready for anything. I had a musket, so that got me in the thick of it when the time came.”

“And it got pretty thick, from what I hear,” Hugh said.

“Sure did. We headed out with our whole army to take back Missouri, along with a bunch of Arkansans, Texans, and Louisianans. Those Texans all had fine horses and knives as long as your forearm. Good guns, too. The night before the Yanks attacked we camped down by Wilson’s Creek, with Oak Hill just to the north of us.”

“That the one everybody calls Bloody Hill?” Jimmy asked.

“The same. Good reason for it too. Early the next morning I went to fetch water down at the creek while my friends cooked up breakfast, and all of a sudden a whole mob of men came running through our camp.”

“Federals?” the Kid asked.

“No,” Doug smiled, looking embarrassed, “our own side. Lyon and his Federals hit our north camp, and sent them running all the way into our main one. That’s how we first knew he was coming. Don’t seem more than a minute later cannon started booming to the north and south. They had us surrounded, Lyon and his men running up Oak Hill while that Dutchman General Sigel came at us from the other side.”

“I heard the Louisiana regiment made short work of him,” Hugh laughed.

“That they did, but I didn’t see it. I ran to my own regiment and got orders to head up Oak Hill and push Lyon off of it. That hill towered over our camp, and if he kept it, he’d have himself a turkey shoot. We already had enough Yankee shells landing in our tents to keep it pretty hot. That hill was absolutely covered in scrub, though. Couldn’t see more than fifty feet.”

“Just our kind of fighting,” the Kid said.

“Good for bushwhacking,” Doug said, “but hard going when you’re in a proper battle. Half the time I couldn’t even see the Yankees; I was just shooting at the smoke from their muskets. I could see General Price, though. He rode a big white horse up and down our line, encouraging us and waving his hat over his head. We begged him to get back, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

“He’s the bravest general Missouri has,” Albert declared.

“Darned right, but I got to hand it to Lyon, he rode right out in front too. Even went after Price once. I think he wanted to challenge him to a duel, but his staff pulled him back. Well, like I said we were all hiding in the brush, taking potshots at one another, when Price ordered us forward. We scrambled up that hill and got peppered with bullets, then scrambled right back down again. Then the Federals charged and we gave them a dose of the same medicine. Just seesawed like that all morning. Price got wounded in the side, I saw the blood with my own eyes, but he kept right on riding up and down our lines to encourage us. Then Lyon fell, and the Louisianans joined us after wrecking Sigel’s force. Now we had our whole army up there and the Feds didn’t have a prayer of holding it.”

“They ain’t going to hold Missouri neither!” Morgan shouted. “Not with Price and the cavaliers of the brush ganging up on them.”

“Sure won’t,” Doug said. “We had them and we knew it. They knew it too, and started moving back. We got all eager and rushed forward, and I’m afraid I got too far ahead and a bullet hit me square in the leg bone.”

“That’s a real shame, brother, but you did your duty,” Jimmy said softly, thinking of the graze that militia captain gave him.

An inch to the right and I’d be missing an arm, Jimmy thought, and shivered.

“I don’t mind so much,” Doug slumped a little in his chair. “It’s too bad I couldn’t have seen the end of the battle, though, and kept fighting with Price. I’d be marching into Missouri right now.”

“But you were there. Nobody can take that from you,” Jimmy said.

And I’m here, helping Price win the war, Jimmy thought with pride.

“Yeah, I was there,” Doug said, his eyes growing distant. “Don’t remember much of the rest of it. Next thing I knew I was being dragged down the hill. I blacked out and woke up when the surgeon started sawing off my leg. Went out of my head with fever for a week after that. And now I just sit and carve canes and yokes to sell. Can’t do no farming, can’t do much of nothing.”

Guest Post: Wil Morgan. . .Lumberjack

I live deep in the tall pines of Northern Minnesota where I spend my winters writing. One of the main characters in my books is an old lumberjack named Wil Morgan. Wil and I were close friends. He was a little older than me, almost 60 years. He could cut trees, cuss, run a team of horses, cuss, shoot guns, cuss and spit tobacco. Did I mention that he cussed some?

In the town where I grew up, there was a boarding house not far from my home. The lumberjacks didn’t work in the summer and most of them holed up in boarding houses until the snow came again. It was a pretty quiet existence for them, at least until it got on toward dark. Then someone would start a campfire out behind the boarding house.

One by one the old lumberjacks would shuffle downstairs and out the back door. They’d sit down and just watch the fire. It must have seemed more natural for them, having a campfire.

Every once in a while, one of them would break out a jug of cheap fire water and pass it around.

As the whiskey started to loosen their tongues and bring back memories, the stories went around from one man to the next. Each story was outdone by the next and I’m convinced that the old adage “The first liar don’t stand a chance” originated right there. I was never sure which stories were true but after hearing them over and over for a few years, it didn’t matter much.

The years went by with me attending as many lumberjack campfires as possible. In the spring, I’d see a little wisp of smoke from up the hill and I’d know that my friends were back.
When I turned eleven, Wil Morgan didn’t come back. He’d been killed that winter by a widder-maker. I later learned that a tree limb fell on him.

I learned a lot from old Wil, like how to spit, how to shoot and how to cuss and some other important stuff too. Sometimes I really miss my old friend but ya know, if I try real hard, sometimes I can still hear his gravely voice from across the fire, laughing and carrying on, just like he did sixty years ago.

Today I write stories about old Wil Morgan, remembering the things he told me so many years ago. I have a website, and a blog that keep me pretty busy. I have a good friend in Australia who does all of my formatting and cover design. Please take a look at his work at Covers Are Us. My books are all available on Amazon Kindle in digital format:

1. The River Calls
2. A River of Seasons
3. River Chase
4. Brothers by Fire
5. To Waltz with a White Horse

Most sincere thanks to Sean for allowing me to talk about my books.

Very Best Regards,
Ron Shepherd
Northern Minnesota

The Civil War heats up in the Trans-Mississippi

The Civil War Sesquicentennial is well underway, and with the notable exception of the Battle of Bull Run, many of the biggest anniversaries have been west of the Mississippi. I've already discussed the first Confederate invasion of the North all the way over in New Mexico Territory, and this past week has seen several 150th anniversaries in the Trans-Mississippi.

On 31 July 1861, a state convention in Missouri elected Hamilton Gamble as provisional governor of the state. The actual governor, Claiborne Jackson, was in the southwest of the state after his rebel forces got defeated at the Battle of Boonville back on June 17. This was one of the first battles of the war and the first really significant one, since it gave the Union control of the Missouri River and central Missouri. For the rest of the war Missouri would have two governors and two state governments. The Confederate government was based first in Arkansas, then Marshall, Texas, after the Union took much of Arkansas.

On August 1, Confederate Colonel John Baylor, who had taken Mesilla in the southeastern corner of New Mexico Territory, declared all of that territory south of the 34th parallel to be the Confederate Territory of Arizona. He declared himself governor. The name Arizona, of course, later became used for a state, but in the former western half of New Mexico Territory, not the northern half. During the war the rebels never really controlled their new territory except for one brief and ill-fated foray in 1862. More on that at a later time!

Meanwhile back in Missouri, Union and Confederate forces were gearing up for a showdown in the southwestern portion of the state. Skirmishes at Dug Springs on August 2 and Curran on August 3 were both minor rebel defeats. The armies were sizing each other up for the epic Battle of Wilson's Creek On August 10. I'll be talking more about that when the date rolls around.

My next Civil War history book gets a cover

My second Civil War history book will be released by Osprey Publishing in October. Ride Around Missouri: Shelby's Great Raid 1863 covers one of the most daring cavalry raids of the Civil War, in which J.O. Shelby led his famous Iron Brigade on an epic ride around Missouri, capturing Union forts, burning supplies, cutting telegraph wire, and causing chaos deep behind Union lines.

I've seen the page proofs and the art and layout team have done a splendid job as usual.

This will be my tenth published book, or eleventh if A Fine Likeness comes out first. While the action in my novel takes place in 1864, Shelby does get mentioned since he was part of General Price's 1864 invasion. Jimmy and his crew of bushwhackers are busy causing trouble in support of Price's invasion, while Union Captain Richard Addison is working on an ulcer worrying about Price coming through his territory. Book two of the House Divided series has one of Shelby's raiders as a protagonist and the famous rebel general appears in one scene.

I love meshing my history and fiction this way. It's also a good way to save time on research!