People often ask me where I get the ideas for my characters. Usually, when I’m half asleep or walking the dog, they just appear on the periphery of my mind. I see them fully formed, wearing clothes from whatever time period they live. Sometimes they are talking sometimes engaged in some activity.
This time however, the heroine of my newest novel, A Place In Your Heart, was inspired by a woman I came across in my research of the Civil War. Her name was Mary Bickerdyke.

At the beginning of the Civil War, troops at the hospital in Cairo, Illinois were dying from disease and poor treatment in a place where medical supplies were either poor or nonexistent. The doctor in charge of the hospital, Dr. Benjamin Woodard, made a plea for help to the members of the Brick Congregational Church in Galesburg. The congregation decided to send Mary Ann Bickerdyke to help.

Mary Ann was a tall, broad shouldered, plain looking woman who never flinched from any job.

She was born on July 19, 1817 in Knox County, Ohio, to Hiram and Annie Ball. About a year and a half later, Annie died and Mary Ann was sent to live with her mother’s parents in Richland County.

At some point in her life she graduated from a local Cincinnati school which taught botanic medicine.

In 1847, at the age of 30, she married Robert Bickerdyke a widower with small children. Shortly before her husband’s death she became well known in the town as a Botanic Physician. Though she was a kind, honest woman, she was quite outspoken.

Mary Ann arrived at the military hospital in June of 1861. The hospital overflowed with sick. Hundreds of men lay in tents waiting for space inside the hospital.
Only one or two men lay on cots, the rest lay on straw pallets covered with a blanket or an overcoat, so close together there was no room to step between them. The dirt floor was covered with human excrement, and flies swarmed over the sick men. The men lay only in shirts and underwear which were covered with filth, vomit, and stale sweat.

Mrs. Bickerdyke grabbed a bar of lye soap from one of the many boxes she brought. She scoured the insides of barrels and used them as tubs to bathe each man. She directed the volunteers and assistants to shave the beards and cut the hair of the men to rid them of lice. She ordered the patients clothing to be burned along with all the straw. Other volunteers were put to work shoveling out the dirt floors of the tents until they’d dug to an uncontaminated level.
Once the patients were bathed and dressed in clean clothing and back in the tents with fresh sheets, she passed out the food she’d brought. She filled pails with lime and brought them to the tents to be used as latrines.

She wasn’t supposed to go into the wards at all, but that made no difference to her, she went anyway.

Supplies from the Sanitary Commission were sent to her personally and stored at the hospital. It didn’t take long for her to realize the whiskey intended for the patients was going to the doctor’s lounge for the benefit of the chief surgeon and his friends. Other food was being sold by the chief nurse and many of the assistants were eating the fruit sent by the Sanitary Commission for the patients.

Mrs. Bickerdyke went to the chief surgeon and told him the supplies were being stolen. He ordered her out of the hospital. She told him, “Doctor, I’m here to stay as long as the men need me. You put me out one door and I’ll come in another. If you bar the doors, I’ll come in a window. If anybody goes from here it will be you. I’m going straight to Gen. Grant. We’ll see who gets put out of here.”

One day she went into a ward where the ward master, a young lieutenant, was talking to his friends. His uniform blouse was open exposing his shirt. Mrs. Bickerdyke approached him, pulled open his blouse, and turned down the neck of the shirt revealing the inked initials NWSC for the Northwest Sanitary Commission.

A strong woman, Mrs. Bickerdyke threw the young lieutenant to the floor, sat on his stomach and removed the shirt, which she held up to the cheers of the patients. She then checked his trousers and found them to be his own. That wasn’t true of his slippers and socks. Barefoot and shirtless the officer completed his rounds that night, then applied for duty with a regiment headed for the battlefield. He was never seen again.

To stop the assistants from eating the fruit intended for the patients, she stewed a pot of peaches and told the cooks and men hanging around the kitchen not to touch it. When she returned, found the kitchen staff groaning and holding their stomachs.

She told them she’d added a dose of tartar emetic to the peaches and if they didn’t stop eating food meant for the patients, the next time she would add rat poison.

I fell in love with this woman who the men called Mother Bickerdyke, and the idea of Gracie McBride was born.

The Stethoscope Invented

19th Century Stethoscope with bell-shaped end.

My current work-in-progress is a novel which takes place during the Civil War. The heroine is a nurse and the hero a doctor. It occurred to me as the hero examined a patient, that I’d never seen pictures of a Civil War surgeon using a stethoscope. So, off I went on a research quest to learn when the stethoscope was invented.

Before the 1800’s if a physician needed to hear a patient’s lungs, heart, or bowels he merely placed his ear against the patient’s body. I can’t imagine how awkward this was for both the doctor and the patient. For women, it meant having a doctor lay his head between their breasts and some ladies refused to allow it. Although this method was somewhat effective, it was difficult for the doctor to hear everything, or pinpoint from where an unusual sound might have originated.  The ear often missed important clues, which could have helped them diagnose an illness.



Stethoscope-early wooded

The word stethoscope comes from the Greek word, stethos (chest) and the word, scopes (examination), and was invented in 1816 by Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781-1826), a physician at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris. He’d been too embarrassed to press his ear against the large bosom of a female patient and instead rolled up a sheaf of paper like an ear-trumpet, in order to listen. 

Excited by how loud and clear the sounds were, he created the wooden aural stethoscope. Laënnec was skilled with a lathe and made his first stethoscope  from a turned piece of wood about 12 inches long with a 3/8 inch hollow bore. The doctor placed the smaller end against his patient’s chest and listened through the larger funnel shaped, opposite end.

In 1851 an Irish physician, Arthur Leared made the device bi-aural.

Stethoscope-early bi-aural

George Cammann wrote a major treatise on diagnosis by auscultation, which was made possible by the bi-aural stethoscope. He refined the stethoscope for commercialization in 1852.

I’m not certain how many Civil War surgeons had stethoscopes, but I decided my brilliant doctor carried one in the pocket of his frock coat.

Sources:

Wilbur M.D., C. Keith, Civil War Medicine 1861-1865, The Global Pequot Press, 1998

ADC, American Diagnostic Corporation, http://adctoday.com/learning-center/about-stethoscopes/history-stethoscope

The Virtual EMS Museum http://www.emsmuseum.org/virtual-museum/by_era/articles/398118-1816-The-Stethoscope

Fractional Currency

With the Civil War looming on the horizon, the economy of the United States grew more uncertain. People began hoarding silver and gold coins. Others sent their coins to Canada to sell for scrap which had risen to become more valuable than the coins were worth. At that time the country’s only mint was in Philadelphia and the ability to keep enough coins in the market place had been a growing problem since the mint started making coins in 1793.

Used with permission from private collection.

By1862 small coins had nearly disappeared. People were either unable to get change back for their purchases or they were forced to buy things they didn’t really want. Banks and merchants created their own promissory notes and tokens of metal or wood. But the public didn’t like promissory notes or wooden nickels. The value at one business didn’t always equal the same value at another.

The use of postage stamps was thought to be the answer, but the stamps were easily soiled and torn. If they got wet they would stick together. A special brass case with a thin mica face was designed to hold and protect each stamp. Merchants put their advertising on the back side of the case and this worked well for a time.

Used with permission from private collection.

However a dispute between the Post Office and the Treasury Department soon followed, and stamps intended for use as money grew too scarce to meet demand.

In July 1862 General F.E. Spinner, Treasurer of the United States took blank paper, on which government securities were printed, and cut it into small uniform sizes. He then pasted a few of the stamps onto the cut pieces of treasury paper. The first production of these stamp papers bore the name “Postal Currency” across the top. The small bills measured 2½ to 5 inches across and were issued in denominations of three, five, ten, twenty-five, and fifty cents. Each denomination featured the same presidential portraits as those found on the regular postage stamps.

In March of 1863 and in all issues afterward, the papers were stamped “Fractional Currency.” They featured busts of Washington, Lincoln, Liberty, and Columbia, and the Secretaries of the Treasury, Fessenden, Spinner, Walker, and Crawford. Eleven different papers were used to prevent counterfeiting.

Used with permission from private collection.

These notes of Fractional Currency became the legal tender for amounts up to one dollar and were to be used to alleviate the coin shortage.

But the public hated the currency. The papers were stuffed into the pockets of soldiers along with their jackknife, cartridges, tobacco, and other small items. The notes became ragged and frequently had to be exchanged. Because they resembled the little papers soaked in vinegar used to treat sore legs, they became known as Shinplasters.

By 1875 the government made them redeemable for coin and the last issue of Fractional Currency came in 1876.

Sources:

McCutcheon, Mark, The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800’s, Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati, OH, 1993

Foster-Harris, William, The Look of the Old West, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2007

Rollins, Philip Ashton, The Cowboy his Characteristics, His Equipment, and His Part in the Development of the West, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2007

http://www.fractionalcurrency.net/

http://www.myfractionalnotes.com/home.html

http://www.civilwar-online.com/2011/09/september-24-1861-shinplaster-currency.html

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=shinplaster&searchmode=none

 

Knights, Cowboys, and Spurs

Imagine it’s 1874 and you’re standing outside the mercantile looking through the front window. You hear the slow measured stride of boot heels against the board walk accompanied by the soft chink of spurs. Horses and wagons passing in the street can be ignored, but that subtle metallic rustle draws your attention. The sound quietly announces the approach of a man of importance, a man with confidence. You can’t help but turn your head.

A cowboy’s spurs were used not only to give gait cues to his horse or help him stay on the back of a bucking horse, they eased the loneliness as he moved about a solitary camp. When he walked around town they gave him a sense of worth which has carried forward through time from the days of medieval knights.

In my new novel, A Tarnished Knight, the first thing the heroine notices about Ryder MacKenzie’s are his spurs, in particular, the buttons which had been forged in the shape of small hearts.

Early western spurs had two buttons at the front of the u-shaped heel band. The spur leather or strap, which was cut to fit over the curve of the wearer’s instep, attached to the button at the front of the heel band. This strap came in two pieces, the long piece, or tongue, and the short piece with the buckle. On the tongue side of the strap where it connected to the button on the outside of the foot, there was often a decorative metal concho or rosette. The buckle was worn on the inside of the foot to prevent it from catching on brush. Spur leathers varied in width and were plain or stamped with intricate designs.

The second strap, or tie down strap, attached to the second button and went under the arch of the boot just in front of the heel. Sometimes heel chains would be permanently attached to the spur and would take the place of this second strap. These chains created a soft chinking noise as the cowboy walked. This second strap or chain could also be left off, leaving the spur to be held in place by the upper strap alone.

To add to the noise of the chains, some cowboys attached two small metal pieces called janglers or jingle-bobs, which were shaped like pears or bell clappers, and clinked against the rowels.

At the back center of the heel band was the shank of the spur. The shank of a western spur, usually about two inches long, curved downward. Some allowed the rowel to roll along the ground while the curve of others raised the rowel up. In front of the rowel, on top of the shank was a small, turned up hook or chap guard, which kept the leather from catching in the rowel.

Rowels were usually not more than three inches in diameter, with most two inches or less. Their shape varied from the blunt-tipped, five point star to an eighteen point sunburst.

Cowboys and vaqueros from the Southwest, Texas and California, wore spurs that had larger rowels (in the early days up to 6" and sharp), than the Northern cowboy, whose spurs were plainer than the more ornate spurs worn in California and the Southwest. Texas style spurs were heavy with the heel band about an inch wide. They were usually plain or lightly engraved. The fancier, more ornate spurs didn’t come into fashion until after the 1880’s.

At the time my story, a good pair of hand-forged spurs would have probably cost my hero ten dollars or more.    

Sources-

Foster-Harris, William, The Look of the Old West—A Fully Illustrated Guide, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2007

Moulton, Candy, The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West from 1840-1900, Writers Digest Books, 1999

Rollins, Philip Ashton, The Cowboy—His Characteristics, His Equipment, and His Part in the Development of the West, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2007

Conductors--Masters of the Train

Western History/Genealogy Dept.
Denver Public Library

In my coming-soon, historical western novel, A Tarnished Knight, the hero travels on a few trains during his quest to capture the heroine. On each trip, Ryder manages to have a run-in with the conductor.

While the various conductors in my story are minor characters, the actual conductors who rode the trains from one end of the country to the other were vital to the efficiency of the railroad.

Since my story takes place in 1874, I’d like to share a bit of the research I uncovered in order to write these interactions between the conductors and my hero, Ryder MacKenzie.

Known as “masters,” “captains,” or “chiefs” of the train, the conductor was responsible for the entire train, passengers and crew. He was also in charge during any emergency. These maritime references came from the 1830’s during the earliest days of the railroad when the first conductors had been captains on steamboats and coastal packets.

At the time of my novel, he would have worn a pocket watch on a chain which he would check constantly as it was his duty to make sure the train was on time. This would be railroad time, for each railroad line ran on its own time schedule, because prior to 1883 time hadn’t yet been standardized.

Not only did the conductor decide what time the train left the station, he decided when it was safe to leave the station and signaled the engineer when to start or stop moving the train.

In the early 1870’s the conductor probably would have worn a long, double-breasted frock coat and had a distinguished beard or moustache. On a western train he would probably be wearing a soft, dark, slouch hat. If not, he’d have had on a straight-sided pillbox type hat with a leather bill and a stiff band which ran around the base of what was referred to as a trainman’s cap. This band had a brass plate marked, “Conductor.”

Smithsonian Inst., Photo by Richard Strauss

His shirt would have a stiff, turned down collar and a bow tie with the ends tucked under.

In addition to his watch, each conductor carried a ticket punch to cancel the stub of the passenger’s ticket as well as the half of the ticket he kept. Each conductor’s punch made a different shaped hole. This way if there were any questions the conductor who cancelled the ticket could be identified.



Smithsonian Inst., Photo by Richard Strauss
Dated 1860's or 1870's

He kept these ticket stubs in a locked case with some cash for when, in an emergency, a passenger needed to purchase a ticket from him. Once the fares were collected he began his accounting.

Not only was he responsible for all the passengers’ needs, the conductor was accountable to the railroad for an accurate record of ticket income, consignment notes and shipping documents. He also kept a log of the trip.

He made sure any cargo or additional cars were picked up and dropped off. He opened and closed doors, and carried out any running repairs. There were no radios, so all signals to the engineer and fireman had to be clearly communicated.

In the early days of the railroad, collisions and derailments were common so railroad companies quickly developed a rule book with a set of standards and procedures for each member of the crew. As the conductor was responsible for the safety of the train he made sure all safety rules and practices were followed. He also had to be alert to signals and switch positions or other conditions which might affect the safe movement of the train, such as weight, rain, or ice on the tracks which would cause the wheels to slide or affect braking. He had to know what to do in the case of unscheduled stops or delays in departing stations, as there were other trains following.

His every day decisions and his capability in dealing with unique situations were based on his own skills, intuition, and judgment. The train was his responsibility and he took great pride in his ability to keep it running efficiently.

A Tarnished Knight—Coming Soon from The Wild Rose Press

Sources:

Foster-Harris, William, The Look of the Old West, A Fully Illustrated Guide, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc, 2007

American History on the Move

http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_9_5.html

What Time Is It?

Railroad Time-What Time Is It?

In the old TV and movie westerns I grew up with, the conductor of the train carried a nice big watch attached to a chain. He would pull it out at various times and check it, reassuring everyone that the train was right on time. But what time was it?

Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul RR, 1874

As I typed my upcoming novel, A Tarnished Knight, the heroine, Victoria, who was fleeing her abusive husband and the bounty hunter chasing her, asked the station master what time the train left town. As I searched railroad time tables and checked the distances between stations, I discovered that during the year my novel takes place there was no  standardized measure of time.

Each community marked their local time when the sun was at its highest--noon. Some towns rang a bell, or fired a gun, and others dropped a large ball from a centrally located mast. The jeweler in town would set your watch for you, but in a town with more than one jeweler, that time might vary between jewelers by several minutes.

Before the railroad began transporting people across the country, it didn’t matter that a town a hundred miles east or west would have noon a few minutes before or after. Time was as different as the towns the train passed through.



Seth T DD railroad wall clock

So each railroad began keeping its own time table. This was usually based on the time at either its headquarters or most the important terminals. A train station in a large city might have five or six different clocks, one for each railroad running out of that station, with each railroad running on its own time. A train traveling east to west would use several different ‘noons.’ The railroad in my story, the Union Pacific, had six different time settings.  
 

These railroad times were posted at the stations and in the timetable booklets. To help alleviate this confusion between local time and railroad time, newspapers as well as each railroad, posted timetables converting the railroad time to local time. For each nine miles traveled, east or west, your watch lost or gained about a minute.

Another hindrance to the schedule was that trains didn’t stop at every depot along the way. However, in front of these stations was a metal pole with a large red metal ball at the top. If there was a ‘high ball,’ the engineer rode right through, but if there was a ‘low ball’ that meant the train needed to stop. Delays like this further confused an already chaotic system.

The problem was finally solved in 1883 with the standardization of time zones. England, Scotland and Wales had already standardized to Greenwich Mean Time in 1848. The need for change was taken up here in the U.S., but it wasn't until October 1883 that the railroads finally agreed to the General Time Convention and adopted the five time zones we know today.

Now when the conductor checked his watch railroad time was the same time as every watch and clock in every town.

 

Sources:

Foster-Harris, William, The Look of the Old West, Skyhorse Publishing, 2007

Cooper, Bruce Clement, Consultant Editor, The Classic Western American Railroad Routes, Chartwell Books, Inc., 2010

www.wired.com/science/discovers/news/2008/11/dayintech_1118      FREMO  (Friendship Association of European Model Railroaders)

Cross Country in a Concord Coach

Mark Twain called the stage coach, “an imposing cradle on wheels.”  Some passengers felt seasick. 

California Co.'s stage leaving Virginia City for California 1866

This strange rocking motion was the result of a major design improvement which did away with the steel springs of earlier coaches and suspended the body of the coach on thoroughbraces, heavy lengths of rawhide straps, mounted on steel stanchions.  

Instead of passengers feelings each neck jarring, vertical jolt, thoroughbraces produced a steady rocking motion.  The old springs were also hard on the horses.  Every time the stage hit a rock or hole, the vibration would travel through the traces to the animals’ shoulders and necks. 

And while these newly designed coaches were built in many places, none could compare to the quality of the coach manufactured by Abbott and Downing & Co., in Concord, NH.

A typical western Concord coach was about five feet wide and eight feet long. They were heavier than the eastern coaches weighing about 3,000 lbs. with a load capacity of 4,000 lbs. Only the finest woods were used and the company was especially careful not to use screws or bolts on the wheels, which were usually the first thing to break. The outside of the coach was painted red and gold, and yellow then sanded and varnished to a high shine. Floral and vine designs decorated the coach and a landscape was painted on the door.  On the door panel or above it was printed the stage’s destination. The name of the stage company and the stage’s number were printed on the panel under the driver’s seat.

Passengers entered the coach through one of two side doors, beneath which hung steel step plates. The seat cushions were made of coiled steel springs, stuffed with horsehair and covered with brown calf leather. There were three rows of seats, each big enough for three people.  Two seats faced forward and one faced backward. Those passengers in the backward facing seat had to interlock their legs with the passengers in the middle seat. Victorian ladies of course frowned on this practice. If extra seating was needed, three people could ride on the roof, which was covered with heavy, painted waterproof duck cloth. On rare occasions twenty to twenty-three passengers were squeezed on board.

Some coaches had glass in the windows, but glass didn’t last long in the west. Otherwise there were canvas curtains which were held by leather straps when rolled up, or secured with eye and turn-buttons when rolled down. Inside the coach were tug straps the passengers next to the windows could hang on to when the going grew rough.

Most stage coaches traveled none stop, and were equipped with outside lanterns.

Their average speed was five to six miles per hour. Every ten to twenty miles the stage would stop at a swing station where a fresh team, already harnessed, quickly replaced the tired horses. Every fifty miles or so, the stage stopped at a home station.  For a dollar, passengers could purchase simple meal of crackers, potatoes, hardtack, beans, jerky and black coffee. A new driver took over the next leg of the journey. After three hundred miles the passengers and their luggage was transferred to another coach.

In an article  entitled, Hints for Plains Travelers,  which appeared in the Omaha Herald  in 1877, the author listed several suggestions to help make stage travel more pleasant, though most people were unaware or didn’t care about such courtesy.

“Don’t smoke a strong pipe inside especially in the morning, spit on the leeward side of the coach… Don’t swear, nor lop over on your neighbor when sleeping… Don’t ask how far it is to the next station until you get there… Don’t discuss politics or religion, nor point out places on the road where horrible murders have been committed, if delicate women are among the passengers… Don’t grease your hair before starting or dust will stick there in sufficient quantities to make a respectable ‘tater’ patch…”

 

In my newest novel, A Tarnished Knight, Ryder and Victoria spend a couple of days traveling on just such a coach. The reality of stage travel I discovered during my research was a bit different than the stage coaches pictured in the TV westerns I grew up with. Is the reality much different that what you thought?
 

 

He made her fall in love with him, then he took it all away.

www.kathyotten.com
 

Sources: Boyd, Eva Jolene, That Old Overland Stagecoaching, Woodware Publishing, Inc., 1993

               Foster-Harris, William, The Look of the Old West A Fully Illustrated Guide,  Skyhorse Publishing, 2007                   

Stage Drivers of the Old West

Welcome to my new blog.

I am a writer of Historical Romance. As I explore the past I hope to share with you the bits of information I seek out or stumble upon as I research my novels and short stories. In my newly completed novel, A Tarnished Knight, Ryder and Victoria travel on a stage coach. Here is a bit of history on the drivers of those classic western icons.

 

Reinsmen and Jehus—Stage Drivers of the Old West

Nameless and usually the first to be shot in almost every western movie and novel, the Overland stage coach driver sat high on the box seat of his Concord coach and sent his team racing across the country, up and down mountains.  Day and night, he battled heat, cold, rain, bandits and Indians in his effort to get his passengers safely to their destinations--all for the sum of forty to seventy dollars a month, plus board.

 These tough and daring men came from all kinds of backgrounds.  They were known as reinsmen,  whips, and  Jehus.  The name Jehu came from II Kings 9:20.  “…and the driving is like the driving of Jehu… for he driveth furiously.” On a whole, they were shy, cheerful and polite men.

An excellent cross country time for a stage coach was 150 miles a day, or 6 miles an hour. The stage ran day and night with brief stops every 10-12 miles to change the horses or mules. These stations were known as ‘swing stations’ and in less than ten minutes the stage was underway again.

Each driver had a route of approximately fifty miles. At the beginning and end of his route was a station known as the ‘home station,’ (where passengers could also pay a dollar for a meal).  From there another driver continued the route while the first stayed  to rest up, until the return run when he would then retrace his route.  

In a six horse team the distance from the tip of the leader’s nose to the rear wheels of the Concord coach was some 50 feet. From front to rear each pair of animals was referred to as leaders, swings, and wheelers.  Off meant the right side, the near side was the left.

The driver sat with his hands in his lap. The reins for the leaders were held between the index and middle fingers; those for the swings, between the middle and third fingers; and the wheelers, between the third and little fingers.  The driver would gather each line by drawing with the fingers and let the reins out by separating his fingers just enough for the ribbons to slide through.

The whip was grasped between the thumb and forefinger with the butt cupped against the heel of the thumb and the stock held parallel to the lines. It was used mainly to intimidate wheelers.

Made of hickory, about five feet long with an eleven or twelve foot buckskin lash, the driver’s whip was a very personal thing, and he would often have it engraved or embossed with silver or gold. They never let their whip out of their sight or loaned it to even their closest friends.

Drivers never wore gloves unless they were made out of silk or the finest buckskin, even in the bitter cold.  They would risk frostbite rather than lose their ability to feel the reins.

Making a turn involved a combination of reining, slight braking, and voice.  Driver’s preferred the teams to be hitched loosely so the horses could perform individually.  A top driver could hold the wheelers steady while the leaders made the turn. The brake was not fully applied as it was better to keep the wheels rolling so they wouldn’t slide. Good coach horses knew their names and understood the driver’s tone of voice.

Drivers enjoyed showing off their skill and as they approached town, the might urge their team into a full gallop. Then as the neared the hotel, apply the brake and bring their team to stop right at the hotel steps.

 

www.kathyotten.com
Another Waltz
He made her fall in love with him, then he took it all away.