James Alexander Hamilton wrote extensively about the issues connected to the US Civil War, including slavery, constitutionality, and preservation of the Union. The evolution of his thoughts on these topics helped me understand the mindset of Americans - or at least Northerners - of the early 19th century. From our modern point of view, it is easy to argue that the Civil War was a single-issue war, but, of course, the truth is much more complicated. 

My guest today has delved into the challenging task of discerning the attitudes and mindsets of a past generation in order to write their stories as accurately as possible. What did preservation of the Union mean to Northern soldiers? Author Richard Buxton digs into this question with some great insights.

Welcome, Richard!

~ Samantha

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Saving the Union

Guest Post by Richard Buxton

As a writer of historical fiction, I’m constantly fearful of misrepresenting the past. In practice, it’s impossible not to. The wonderful Hilary Mantel, in her 2017 Reith lectures reminded us that, ‘History is not the past, it’s the method we’ve evolved for organizing our ignorance of the past.’ Even where you have first-hand accounts, written at or close to the time, they all have their own spin. Hilary, never one for understatement, went on to say that history, ‘is the multiplication of the evidence of fallible and biased witnesses combined with incomplete accounts of actions not fully understood by the people who performed them.’

We might think of the American Civil War, the backdrop for my trilogy, as on the cusp of modern times; it’s end at Appomattox just shy of one-hundred and sixty years ago. There are very extensive army records, both official and unofficial, some photographic evidence, and lots of newspaper coverage. So getting most details right (the weather, the uniforms and equipment) should be achievable. Events tend to be presented subjectively, so are a little harder. How then to deal with a broadly held attitude or motivation?

One issue I struggled to understand is what Union meant to soldiers fighting for the North in the American Civil War, the Union being the collection of states then constituted. Today we just call it the U.S.A or the States. I played with it in the title for the trilogy, Shire’s Union; Shire fights for the Union but it also hints at his often-forlorn hopes for a future with Clara. But the idea of Union meant much more to the people at the time. It’s very evident that the long-standing irritant of slavery was the underlying cause of the war, but preservation of the Union was a far more widely cited motivation than abolition for the early volunteers in the Union Army. It was also the principal objective of the government. Lincoln famously said, ‘If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.’ This was written well over a year into the fighting. Only later would an end to slavery get equal billing with saving the Union. And those were the two great outcomes of the struggle: slavery was abolished and the Union was restored.

Image reference:
Library of Congress 2003674570;
Created/Published New York
by Currier & Ives, c1861

But what did Union mean to the soldiers of the North? It’s hard to get at, especially for someone who’s British, where we have our own – often conflicted – ideas of Union. When the young America partially dissolved and went to war with itself, it was only eighty-five years old. The very identity of America was bound up with the idea of Union, with a hard-won rejection of old European monarchies. The Union represented a new consensus about freedom. America’s frontier was a little way west of the Mississippi at the outbreak of war, ‘the states like multi-coloured fields reaching across a half-finished farm,’ as Shire thinks when tearing a page from his father’s atlas. States like Ohio, Illinois and Iowa, were on the frontier themselves just a few decades before. Many soldiers were first or second-generation immigrants, whose spoken language was other than English. Their own or their parents’ escape from the European experience was not so distant. Most believed that preserving a Union of states bound together by freedoms for the individual was worth battling and possibly dying for. It’s subtly different than fighting for your country. It’s fighting for an idea. An end to Union – disunion - meant backsliding towards autocracies and suffering that they believed they had left on the other side of the Atlantic.

Distilling any of this into a novel through the thoughts and actions of your characters is challenging to say the least, and is best done with a very light touch. Shire’s squad in the 125th Ohio all have their own reasons for fighting. One is out to revenge his parents’ deaths at the hands of pro-slavery bushwhackers, another is a furnace worker after the sign-up bounty. Shire himself primarily sees the army as a means to get south and closer to Clara. Mason, a part-Iroquois lawyer, is perhaps the most nobly motivated, fighting for equality for all and seeing the Union, flawed as it was, as freedom’s best chance.

You might consider that the case for the Union is made easier by exposing the argument for succession made by the new Confederacy: the smaller collection of states who decided to begin and then fight a long war to preserve and extend slavery. Against that lowest of benchmarks, it’s not too hard to see why people would fight for the other side. Common humanity isn’t exclusive to our century. Ultimately, after Lincoln made his emancipation proclamation in the middle of the war, the case for the Union and for abolition were effectively merged. Winning the war would deliver both.

I was researching in Tennessee the day of the Brexit vote, the UKs decision to leave the European Union. The day before, I’d been reading firsthand accounts from the 1860s in the archives of the East Tennessee History Museum in Knoxville.  Disunion – secession – came in via democracy. Each southern state voted to depart, leaving American patriots, notably in Eastern Tennessee, high and dry, forcing them to leave a Union they fervently believed in. What came after was horrific. Outside the killing of a generation on the battlefields, at home there was imprisonment, murder and fratricide. The grief and the strife lasted for decades. Even today, over a hundred and sixty years later, you can still easily find echoes of the war.

As I sat in Eastern Tennessee, the day after the vote, reading the voices from America’s time of disunion, the parallels with the problems in Europe were frightening: a Union arguing over its own imperfections, hotheads on both sides exaggerating dire consequences, freedoms of the individual clashing with economic imperatives. Different sorts of Union often only come about after schism: the United States after the war of independence, the League of Nations after World War I, the European Union has its roots in the ashes of World War II. Sadly, disunion is rarely any less painful.

Ultimately, people don’t read historical fiction to brush up on constitutional matters. We read it to empathise with the characters, their struggles and triumphs, to enjoy the odyssey and the climax. Perhaps, above all, to be transported to another time. To achieve the latter, a writer is obliged to strive to see their characters’ world through their hearts and minds and try to understand the wider questions and motivations of their age.

Shire's Union Trilogy

Shire leaves his home and his life in Victorian England for the sake of a childhood promise, a promise that pulls him into the bleeding heart of the American Civil War. Lost in the bloody battlefields of the West, he discovers a second home for his loyalty.

Clara believes she has escaped from a predictable future of obligation and privilege, but her new life in the Appalachian Hills of Tennessee is decaying around her. In the mansion of Comrie, long hidden secrets are being slowly exhumed by a war that creeps ever closer.

The Shire’s Union trilogy is at once an outsider’s odyssey through the battle for Tennessee, a touching story of impossible love, and a portrait of America at war with itself. Self-interest and conflict, betrayal and passion, all fuse into a fateful climax.

Written by award winning author Richard Buxton, the Shire’s Union trilogy begins with Whirligig, is continued in The Copper Road, and concludes with Tigers in Blue.

Read Shire's Union Trilogy through Amazon or Amazon UK!

Connect with Richard Buxton

Richard lives with his family in the South Downs, Sussex, England. He completed an MA in Creative Writing at Chichester University in 2014. He has an abiding relationship with America, having studied at Syracuse University, New York State, in the late eighties. He travels extensively for research, especially in Tennessee, Georgia and Ohio, and is rarely happier than when setting off from a motel to spend the day wandering a battlefield or imagining the past close beside the churning wheel of a paddle steamer.

Richard’s short stories have won the Exeter Story Prize, the Bedford International Writing Competition and the Nivalis Short Story Award. His first novel, Whirligig (2017) was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award. It was followed by The Copper Road (2020) and the Shire’s Union trilogy was completed by Tigers in Blue (2023). To learn more about Richard’s writing visit www.richardbuxton.net.

Connect with Richard on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Book Bub, Amazon Author Page, and Goodreads.

I'm pleased to welcome Kinley Bryan as my guest today. She shares insight into the roles of women during the American Civil War, a subject I find interesting because James A Hamilton's daughters participated in some of the work described. James was in his seventies at the time, but he still served as an advisor to President Lincoln and Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase. The Hamilton women had long been involved in charitable work, so they naturally answered the call for help when war broke out between the states. Before I get carried away talking about the Hamiltons, I will turn it over to Kinley!

~ Samantha

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Women in the Civil War

Guest Post by Kinley Bryan

As both a reader and writer of historical fiction, I’m always interested in women’s experiences of historical events. My latest novel, The Lost Women of Mill Street, offers a look at the American Civil War from the perspective of southern female mill workers. It’s one perspective of many, for women took on myriad new roles during the war. In the North, women of all races and social classes contributed to the Union war effort by organizing sanitary fairs and working as nurses. They also served as spies and—though forbidden—combatants. And some southern Unionist women courageously helped Union soldiers in times of danger.

Sanitary Fairs

Soon after the start of the war, women began organizing soldiers’ aid societies. In June 1861 the United States Sanitary Commission was formed under the authority of the government, although it was privately funded. Women and girls throughout the North knitted socks, sewed shirts, and collected money to support the USSC. Women also organized sanitary fairs in cities throughout the North to raise money for the sanitary commission. These fairs featured art, parades, dances, museums, merchandise sales, and auctions, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Nursing

Before the war, few female nurses publicly practiced medicine. In the first couple months of fighting, both the Union and Confederate armies preferred having men serve as nurses, believing women did not belong in hospitals. However, the armies were soon overwhelmed with wounded soldiers and those in charge reconsidered their views. 

In June 1861, Dorothea Dix was appointed Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army and led the recruitment of women to serve in the nursing corps. According to the Army Heritage Foundation, roughly 3,300 women served as nurses for the Union Army during the war, overcoming their male colleagues’ objections “through appeals to national pride, patriotic duty, and through hard work and dedicated service to the sick and wounded soldiers that filled the nation’s hospitals.”

Southern Unionists

The South was not unified in its view on secession. In Women of the War by Frank Moore, published in 1866, the author recounts the experiences of a number of women from seceded states who courageously helped the Union Army. In one instance, two Tennessee women in the dark of night waved lanterns at an approaching Union Army train; after the train slowed to a stop, the women warned them that Confederate guerillas had destroyed the railroad bridge up ahead.

Moore also describes how, in 1862, a Kentucky woman whose husband fought for the Union was home alone when eleven Confederate soldiers raided her property. As they relaxed by the fireplace, she stole their muskets, shot and killed one who tried to get them back, and the next morning marched the rest at gunpoint to a nearby Union camp.

Spies and Combatants

Though women were barred from military service, there were some who, disguising themselves as men, served in the Union Army. Others served as spies. Harriet Tubman, the formerly enslaved woman known for leading hundreds of people to freedom on the Underground Railroad, was also a Union spy. Having volunteered for the Union as a cook and nurse, she was recruited by Union officers to establish a network of spies behind enemy lines. Disguised as a field hand, Tubman led scouting and spying missions and reported valuable intelligence to Union officers. At the same time, she continued to help enslaved people flee to freedom.

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The Lost Women of Mill Street

1864: As Sherman’s army marches toward Atlanta, a cotton mill commandeered by the Confederacy lies in its path. Inside the mill, Clara Douglas weaves cloth and watches over her sister Kitty, waiting for the day her fiancé returns from the West.

When Sherman’s troops destroy the mill, Clara’s plans to start a new life in Nebraska are threatened. Branded as traitors by the Federals, Clara, Kitty, and countless others are exiled to a desolate refugee prison hundreds of miles from home.

Cut off from all they've ever known, Clara clings to hope while grappling with doubts about her fiancé’s ambitions and the unsettling truths surrounding his absence. As the days pass, the sisters find themselves thrust onto the foreign streets of Cincinnati, a city teeming with uncertainty and hostility. She must summon reserves of courage, ingenuity, and strength she didn’t know she had if they are to survive in an unfamiliar, unwelcoming land.

Inspired by true events of the Civil War, The Lost Women of Mill Street is a vividly drawn novel about the bonds of sisterhood, the strength of women, and the repercussions of war on individual lives.

Get your copy of The Lost Women of Mill Street!

Connect with Kinley Bryan

Kinley Bryan's debut novel, Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury, inspired by the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 and her own family history, won the 2022 Publishers Weekly Selfies Award for adult fiction. An Ohio native, she lives in South Carolina with her husband and three children. The Lost Women of Mill Street is her second novel.

Connect with Kinley on her website, Twitter(X), Facebook, Instagram, Book Bub, Amazon Author Page, and Goodreads.  

Good morning, dear readers! I've invited Sheridan Brown to the blog today to introduce her new book, The Viola Factor. This biographical fiction novel takes place in the turbulent period after America's Civil War. This is also a great addition to our celebration of women's history, shining a spotlight on Viola Knapp Ruffner.

Welcome, Sheridan!

~ Samantha

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The Viola Factor

Guest Post by Sheridan Brown

The Viola Factor takes place at a time when the country faced division and growth after the American Civil War. Viola Knapp Ruffner (1812-1903) struggled with what was just and fair, becoming a little-known confidant for a young black scholar from Virginia. But Viola was much more than a teacher; she was a mother, wife, game-changer, and friend. With her mother's dying wish, a young woman alone, she left her New England roots. This is a story of trauma and love in the South while battling for justice and the rightful education of the enslaved and once enslaved. African American leader Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) called her his friend and model for life.

The Viola Factor is in many ways a journey of life done in baby steps, tentatively stumbling, until a galloping stride is achieved. Viola Knapp wears different shoes on different days. Heavy, mud-trekking boots to allow for aggressive steps, and daintier shoes for more rhythmic and assertive ones. She was a diligent daughter, an outspoken protector, and a progressive teacher.

Like many women in her situation, alone at seventeen, Viola must realize her own principles to fulfill her future goals. With every stride, Viola Knapp Ruffner marches around surprises, over potholes, and dodges folly after folly on her journey to be fulfilled. After ambling in one direction, plodding along in another, and wandering to find herself, a sudden halt pushes her forward until a factor of fate places her in the path of a newly freed slave with a desire to read and penchant to lead. After years of post-traumatic stress and mental uncoupling, she finds herself a woman who followed her mother's dying wish to fight for what is fair and just.

Get your copy of The Viola Factor!

Connect with Sheridan

Sheridan Brown holds advanced degrees in school leadership and is a certified teacher, principal, and educational leader. The arts have always been a central force in her life, since performing in piano recitals, school band, plays, and singing in choirs her whole life. 

Ms. Brown was born in Tennessee and raised in small towns of southwest Virginia. She practiced her profession in Virginia, Massachusetts, and Florida. Upon retirement, she began volunteering, painting, writing, researching, and traveling with her husband, attorney John Crawford. She has one son, Tony Hume. She is GiGi to Aiden and Lucy. She has returned to the Blue Ridge to live and explore.

Connect with her on Facebook, YouTube,

LinkedIn, Instagram, Amazon Author Page, Goodreads, Tiktok, and Threads. 

If you've read anything about America's Civil War, you know that medical care of the mid-19th century left a lot to be desired, especially as resources ran low. Author Michael Ross is here today to help us celebrate Women's History Month and share how Phoebe Pember selflessly served the wounded and strove for better care at Chimborazo Hospital through this turbulent time.

Welcome, Michael!

~ Samantha

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Civil War Hospital Matron Phoebe Pember

Guest Post by Michael Ross

Phoebe Pember (August 18, 1823 – March 4, 1913) was a South Carolina widow who became the head matron at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond.

Phoebe was born into a wealthy and prominent South Carolina Jewish family, the fourth of seven children. Her father was Jacob Clavius, a successful merchant, and her mother a well regarded actress. She had a private tutor, and learned the feminine arts of the time as she grew up. One can only speculate as to why she married late at 33, but later life might suggest her strength of character deterred suitors. She was no delicate flower.

Eventually, Phoebe did marry Thomas Pember, a Gentile from Boston, two years her senior in 1856. Thomas didn’t last long. He contracted tuberculosis and died July 9, 1861 in Aiken, SC. Phoebe became a childless widow at 38. Her parents fled south to Georgia, hoping to escape the ravages of war. Phoebe went with them, but fidgeted, restless, her reserves of energy unused. Her father expected her to sew, attend parties, and play the pianoforte. Such pursuits were profoundly boring to Phoebe, who longed to be useful. She had a great friend, the wife of the Confederate Secretary of War, Mary Pope Randolph. Randolph offered her a position as matron at the Chimborazo Hospital, and Phoebe jumped at the chance. There were ninety hospital wards, forty beds each.

Almost from the beginning, Phoebe was at odds with her male colleagues. She was appalled by the abuse of hospital alcohol supplies, consumed by doctors, male nurses, and orderlies while on duty. She lobbied to be put in charge of the entire alcohol supply for the hospital, prompting complaints to superiors in the Richmond hierarchy.

During her tenure, almost 76,000 Confederate soldiers were tended. She did not practice medicine herself, lacking the training, but her skills as an administrator made sure that medical staff had the supplies needed to do their job. She also personally read for, wrote for, cared for, and otherwise helped as many wounded men as possible, up to 15,000 under her direct care during the course of the war. She got a fair amount of flak for being female, but never let it bother her. She relates one conflict with a powerful man, William Carrington, head of the Confederate Medical Dept.:

“He advanced towards the [whiskey] barrel, and so did I, only being in the inside, I interposed between him and the object of contention. The fierce temper blazed up in his face, and catching me roughly by the shoulder, he called me a name that a decent woman seldom hears and even a wicked one resents. But I had a little friend, which usually reposed quietly on the shelf, but had been removed to my pocket in the last twenty-four hours, more from a sense of protection than from any idea that it would be called into active service; so before he had time to push me one inch from my position, or to see what kind of ally was in my hand, that sharp click, a sound so significant and so different from any other, struck upon his ear, and sent him back amidst his friends, pale and shaken.

‘You had better leave,’ I said composedly (for I felt in my feminine soul that although I was near enough to pinch his nose, that I had missed him), ‘for if one bullet is lost, there are five more ready, and the room is too small for even a woman to miss six times.’” – National Museum of Civil War Medicine, Kristin Brill, and A Southern Woman’s Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, Phoebe Pember

One Confederate observer said of Phoebe that she possessed “the will of steel under a suave refinement.”

On one occasion, as she was visiting some newly arrived soldiers who had been wounded in a recent battle, one of them called for her attention. At first glance, it could be seen that he was very weak and would probably soon pass away. She stepped to his side to see what she could do for him in his final moments:

“He shook his head in negative to all offers of food or drink or suggestions of softer pillows and lighter covering.

‘I want Perry,’ was his only wish.

On inquiry I found that Perry was the friend and companion who marched by his side in the field and slept next to him in camp, but of whose whereabouts I was ignorant. Armed with a requisition from our surgeon, I sought him among the sick and wounded at all the other hospitals. I found him at Camp Jackson, put him in my ambulance, and on arrival at my own hospital found my patient had dropped asleep. A bed was brought and placed at his side, and Perry, only slightly wounded, laid upon it.”

…when the young soldier awoke, he was overjoyed to see his old friend, and got to spend the last few minutes of his life with his army buddy at his side, thanks to the quick and selfless work of Phoebe Pember.

Another time, there was a young man who had suffered a badly broken bone in his upper thigh, but he was healing and expected to make a recovery. One night, he rolled over in bed and screamed.

Phoebe came running and found that a bone splinter had poked out through his skin, and the wound was jetting blood (apparently an artery had been severed). Phoebe immediately pressed on the wound with her finger and was able to cut off the flow of blood until a surgeon arrived.

Unfortunately, when the surgeon arrived, he found that he could not locate the severed artery, and finally told Phoebe that there was no hope. She was left to break the news to the wounded man. This task was very difficult for her, but finally:

“It was done at last and the verdict received patiently and courageously, some directions given by which his mother would be informed of his death, and then he turned his questioning eyes upon my face.

‘How long can I live?’

‘Only as long as I keep my finger upon this artery.’ A pause ensued. God alone knew what thoughts hurried through that heart and brain, called so unexpectedly from all earthly hopes and ties. He broke the silence at last.

‘You can let go.’

But I could not. Not if my own life had trembled in the balance. Hot tears rushed to my eyes, a surging sound to my ears, and a deathly coldness to my lips. The pang of obeying him was spared me, and for the first and last time during the trials that surrounded me for four years, I fainted away.”

This story demonstrates once more how deeply Phoebe Pember cared for those who came into her care, but that is not the only thing that made her a successful matron at Chimborazo…

At the end, as the battle neared Richmond, many of the surgeons deserted the hospital for the front. Phoebe was moved by the cries of the wounded. Countermanding the orders of her superiors, who insisted the wounded be taken elsewhere, Phoebe received them. She heeded the cry of a soldier who said, “For God’s sake, take them in or kill them.”

After the surrender of Richmond, her duties did not end. There were still wounded to attend to, and they needed relief from pain. Laudanum and other anesthetics were not to be found, but a thirty gallon barrel of whiskey was delivered. Phoebe again resorted to her pistol to defend it, as others assumed all authority was gone, and a mere woman was of no consequence.

“Undaunted, Mr. Wilson headed for the barrel himself, but Phoebe stepped in his way. Wilson swore at her, and grabbing her arm, moved to throw her out of his way. Suddenly, he heard the distinctive sound of a pistol being cocked.”

Phoebe stayed for about six months after the conclusion of the war, tending the wounded. The Union took over the hospital, using it for their own wounded. Phoebe returned home to Marietta, Georgia. She traveled widely, speaking on the evils of war. She died of breast cancer in Pittsburgh, Pa. in 1913.

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Catch up on the rest of my celebration of Women's History Month! 

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That Dickinson Girl

 

My dear readers know that I am a fan of novels that spotlight the lives of historical women, so I am happy to introduce my guest to you today. Joan Koster is here to share an excerpt from her new book, That Dickinson Girl.

Welcome, Joan!

~ Samantha

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That Dickinson Girl: An Excerpt

Guest Post by Joan Koster

Julia eyed the intruder. Half a head shorter, more girl than woman, she wore a drab dress under a plain cloak. No ribbon or jewel relieved the narrow white collar. No ruffle or crinoline spoiled the fall of the skirt. Her upright stance and the quality of cloth reeked of the morality and righteousness Julia knew all too well. A Quaker, for sure.

Their eyes met. She glimpsed a smooth cheek and long, dark lashes, a wide, smiling mouth, and a square chin partially hidden beneath black curls cut so short that she could see the girl’s neck peeking above the stiff collar, pink as the dawn-tinted clouds. She wanted to rest her palm on that vulnerable bit of skin, pull her close, and steal her warmth. 

Julia pressed the pendant she hid beneath her dress, the sting of cold metal against her racing heart suitable punishment for her wayward thoughts. 

The stranger lifted her skirt and gave a sideways bow like an actress at the Arch Theater. “Anna Dickinson, at your service.” She swung her attention to Gracie. “And who is this who wants to become a doctor?” 

Julia twisted her fingers in the faded ribbon of her bonnet and stifled the impulse to drag Gracie away. Her independent sister would hate that. Besides, it didn’t matter; Little Miss Quaker would be gone as soon as she heard their last name. Every member of the Society of Friends knew the sordid tale of the man who’d stolen money from Arch Street Meeting.

Her sister stuck out her hand. “Gracie Pennington.” 

Julia waited for the girl’s smile to fade and that oh-so-respectable personage to flee. 

Instead, the Quaker wrapped both hands around Gracie’s and smiled. A do-gooder then, set on some charitable work for a ragged schoolgirl with aspirations beyond her station in life. Julia knew where that would end. 

She stepped closer. “And I’m Julia. Julia Pennington.” 

“Ah yes, the vigilant older sister. Don’t worry; I won’t steal her.” She tapped Gracie on the nose. “So, what’s stopping you from pursuing an illustrious medical career?”

Gracie toyed with the unraveling fringe of the shawl. “We’ve no money—” 

“Is that all?” the girl said. “A mere pebble in your road, my child. If you truly want something, you’ll find a way, no matter how many pebbles and rocks they throw at you. We make our own chances in life. Takes hard work, though. A medical degree requires a mind sharper than a milliner’s needle.”

Pebbles? Julia scrutinized the thick weave of the girl’s woolen cloak and the toe of the polished half-boot poking out from under her skirts. Little Miss Quaker had to be younger than Julia’s own nineteen years. What experience did this privileged girl have ducking pebbles or piercing cloth with a needle? 

She yanked on the interloper’s sleeve. “Gracie’s top of her class. She doesn’t need a busy-body do-gooder sticking her nose into something she doesn’t know beans about. She’s not your child. She’s my sister. I take care of her.”

The girl ran a finger down the frayed collar of Gracie’s too-small coat. “Well then, that is a shame. Makes me want to weep, seeing ambition denied”—the corners of her mouth turned up—“by beans.” 

Want to keep reading?

Get your copy of That Dickinson Girl!

Connect with the Author

When she is not writing in her studio by the sea, Joan Koster lives with her historian husband

and a coon cat named Cleo in an 1860s farmhouse stacked to the ceiling with books. In a life full of adventures, she has scaled mountains, chased sheep, and been abandoned on an island for longer than she wants to remember.

An award-winning author who loves mentoring writers, Joan blends her love of history, and romance,

into historical novels about women who shouldn’t be forgotten and into romantic thrillers under the pen name, Zara West. She is the author of the award-winning romantic suspense series The Skin Quartet  and the top-selling Write for Success series.

Joan blogs at JoanKoster.com, Women Words and Wisdom, American Civil War Voice, Zara West  Romance, and Zara West’s Journal and teaches numerous online writing courses.

Social Media Links: Website, Amazon Author Page, Newsletter Sign Up, BookBub, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

 

The Civil War is one of the most popularly studied and written about eras of American history. However, we often still miss out on the full picture, as my guest today points out. Dane Pizzuti Krogman has written about an aspect of the Civil War that you may not have considered before.

Welcome, Dane!

~ Samantha

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The Civil War: A Native American Perspective

Guest Post by Dane Pizzuti Krogman

Most historical novels or textbooks about the American Civil war are told from the perspective of the so-called great leaders. Seldom do we find books that give us a perspective from the common man’s point of view.

My fiction novel is based on the participant's point of view. For this, I had to study the diaries, newspapers, and letters written at the time to get to the truth that would draw in reluctant readers who are usually put off by the tales recorded years later by the generals and the leaders who rallied the common folk on.

I have focused on the rivers in my story because these were the highways that fed the troops to their locations and were typically the boundaries over which the war was fought.

The Restive rivers of Mendota

Minnesota becomes the central location for my characters because it was here in this small village of Mendota that the great Sioux uprising took place at the same time the Civil War was being fought in the East and South. Most people have never heard of the uprising nor have they ever heard of the mass execution carried out by general Sibley which was ultimately approved by President Lincoln.

Chief Little Crow Of the Santee Sioux

We were never taught this in school. It was a thing to be swept under the rug and forgotten. But in recent times with more awareness of the critical part Native Americans played in the development of the nation these things have come to light. The high school which I attended which was named after General Sibley just this past week had voted to change its name as people have become aware of the shameful role Sibley played during the war. The new name is now Two Rivers High School. So once again the mighty rivers of the land are brought into perspective in their importance during the conflict.

The world’s largest mass hanging. 38 Sioux warriors, 1862

The war became an international focus as Europe looked on to see the outcome and the economic effect it would play in the future. Outdated Napoleonic tactics were still being used against new weapons such as the rifled cannon and rifled musket. Up until the American Civil War, the smoothbore musket was the weapon of use for the infantry, hence marching into battle in a regulated line where men faced each other less than 50 yards apart was the only way to break through an enemy line. With the new British Enfield and US Springfield which had machined interchangeable parts and a rifled barrel one shot could take out not only the first row of soldiers, but it could pass through into the 2nd and 3rd row. This along with the introduction of repeating rifles set up the battlefield for horrific slaughter and contributed to the need for trenches and trench fighting. The war became a prelude as to what the first world would be.

Supplies and soldiers were transported by rail and boat. The US navy grew from 3 battleships in 1861 to over 1000 ships in its fleet by 1865. The first ironclad ships were introduced and changed the course of naval warfare. Riverine warfare was first introduced in 1863 and the tactics learned then were repeated in the Philippines and Vietnam years later. Not only were the rivers important for the military but they were also the lifeblood of the native Americans. Without an interstate highway system or a fully developed rail system, the waterways became omnipresent.

The war was fought to end slavery. Although it did put an end to slavery it also brought the beginning of the enslavement of the Natives. The reservations that the natives were confined to were and to this day are still classified as internment camps. This is confusing and shameful. If one looks at a map of the United States one sees that most of the names of places- lakes rivers, trees, plants, and animals all have Native American names. Mendota itself means the meeting of two rivers. Minnehaha, the small creek that empties into the Mississippi from Minneapolis means “laughing water.” And the list goes on and on.

Mendota and the Restive Rivers of the Indian and Civil Wars 1861-65

The Simmons Family Saga

This is the fictional story set in Mendota, Minnesota of the Simmons family who are faced with the consequences of the Dakota Sioux Uprising of 1862 that swept across the state as well as the Civil War.

The father, Dan enlists in the 1st regiment of Minnesota volunteers as a teamster. His two sons, who are both underage join the 2nd Regiment. John, aged 16 becomes a bugler and William, aged 15 becomes a drummer. Their sister, Sara is left behind with their mother, Louise to fend for themselves. Dan is sent east to fight with the Army of the Potomac while his sons are sent to the western theater to serve in the army of the Cumberland. Back in Mendota, their neighbor and close friend, Colonel Henry Sibley is ordered to stay in the state to control the Indian uprising.

Dan will see action up through the battle of Antietam. He will later find himself in the hospital in Washington DC where he befriends a comrade also from the 1st Regiment. His sons barely miss the action at Shiloh but after, are engaged in all the major battles in the West. While they are passing through Louisville, William falls for a young woman, Mary who works as a hospital nurse. Back in Mendota, Sara befriends a young Chippewa native boy while her mother struggles with the breakup of her family. After Colonel Sibley defeats the Sioux, he is promoted to General and ordered to round up all the Dakota and push resettle them in the Dakotas.

This leads to the punitive expeditions that he and General Sully will command up until 1864. William is captured at the battle up Missionary Ridge and then sent to the prison camp at Belle Isle, VA. and then onto Andersonville. GA. John receives a 30 day furlough and returns to Mendota before he re-enlists. Louise and Sara wait for the war’s end so the family can be reunited, but events may not turn out as anticipated.

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Connect with Dane

Dane Pizzuti Krogman was educated in the fine arts at the University of Minnesota, receiving BFA and MFA degrees. He also specialized in Asian art history, with a concentration in textile and surface design. After graduation, he worked as a freelance designer creating fashion samples for women’s athletic wear. He eventually relocated to California and taught at Cal-Poly Pomona in the Environmental Design program then moved on to work as a pictorial artist for outdoor advertising.

Moving back to the Twin Cities in 1981 he formed a scenic design company call Artdemo which in 10 years did over 1000 designs and productions for sets, props, and special effects for television commercials and feature films. In the early 90’s he relocated to Charleston, SC to work as a spec writer for feature film scripts. Six of his screenplays have won major writing awards and two of these have been optioned for production.

During this time he also taught scene design at the College of Charleston. This position led to an adjunct teaching position at Virginia Commonwealth University where he taught art direction for filmmakers. In 1998 he took a full time teaching position at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where he taught art direction, life drawing, set construction, and Asian film studies, eventually becoming chairman of the department.

The common thread through all of this has been his passion for Japanese design, art, and fashion. He has lived in Kyoto, Japan for the past 20 summers studying Japanese kimono and obi design of the Heian and Edo periods. In 2002 he won the Grand Prize for the best graphic novel at the Hiroshima manga competition. His graphic novel Skeleton Boy was selected for inclusion into the Hiroshima peace memorial library in 2007.

He was most recently an adjunct faculty member in the Graduate Program in Digital Filmmaking at Stony Brook Southampton. He is also an award-winning screenwriter. His screenplay, The Schooner was produced as the Australian film, AUSTRALIA in 2008. He has other award-winning films that have been optioned for production or are in production.

As a Civil War historian he has worked as a technical advisor for the films, Dances with Wolves, Gettysburg, and Glory. He currently has one Civil War novel in pre-publication; MENDOTA, AND THE RESTIVE RIVERS OF THE CIVIL AND INDIAN WARS 1861- 65.

He also works part-time as a crew member on a Grand-Am Rolex series race team. The team won the national championship in 2008.