Author's Journal: Drafting Your Story

Exactly when you decide to venture a draft of your story no one can predict. Some people start at the end and work backwards. Others take the more traditional path and determine a beginning. It’s best to know your ending before you start. I knew my story was a ten year account of my character’s early career as an attorney. My story was about how such a young attorney became a congressman in such a short time.  It took a while for me to see how he made his living and acquired wealth. Almost immediately after arriving in NM he became the territory’s most successful lawyer. He had an engaging personality, was better and more recently educated. He learned the Spanish language so quickly most people were amazed. His most important asset, aside from these, was his mentors, men whose advice he sought and followed judiciously. He made friends easily and helped others who cooperated with him, partnering with several on various projects.

I wrote many drafts of my story. I can only laugh at the early attempts now. I had very little to follow since most stories of the West of this period are of the Indian wars and personal accounts of “gunslingers” and outlaws.

The greatest difficulty I had in writing my book was in merging all of the information I’d gathered. I finally hung chronologies of my central character’s personal life, the progress of the Maxwell Grant, progress of the Sangre de Cristo, the major political events of the Republican Party, the advance of the Maxwell Grant’s survey, the conflict between my character and each of his adversaries (Chaves’ surrogates), and a chain of events related to NM’s land grants on the wall. I then used cards to form a storyboard of scenes. Through these I established a draft that provided a reasonable continuum until I could begin to reduce the mass to the pattern of fiction. You may start with an outline, most writers do. My goal was perhaps too ambitious and thereby too complex, but it represents what I wanted to know.

Blackmore Collection

Studio portrait of a Native North American sitting on a chair, wearing ear ornaments, a peace medal(?), a cloth tunic, an embroidered sash, a blanket around his waist, and holding a hat.

Henry Connelly Governor of the New Mexico Territory

Henry Connelly (1800–1866) was Governor of the New Mexico Territory during the American Civil War. He was appointed by President Lincoln and served from September 4, 1861 until July 6, 1866. During his term, the territory broke into two, and then three parts due to the Civil War and administrative problems.

  
Early years

Connelly was born in Spencer County, Kentucky. In 1828, he received a medical degree from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He practiced medicine and ran a store in Liberty, Missouri from 1820 until 1824, when he traveled the Santa Fe Trail from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico with other merchants. During and following these years of travel and trading, he no longer practiced medicine, except in the case of an emergency. In 1828 he moved to Chihuahua, Mexico where he lived until 1848, continuing to make business journeys to Missouri and New Orleans. He married a Mexican woman there in 1838, with whom he had three children. Sometime in the 1840s he moved to Peralta about 17 miles south of the town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Connelly participated in negotiations between governor Manuel Armijo and James W. Magoffin in Santa Fe, prior to Kearny's 1846 bloodless Capture of Santa Fe during the Mexican-American War.

New Mexico military rule

In 1849, after the death of his first wife, Connelly married Delores Perea. Perea was the widow of Don Mariano Chaves, one of the governors of New Mexico while it was under the rule of Mexico. She was also the mother of Don Mariano's son, José Francisco Chaves,who served three terms in the United States House of Representatives as Delegate from the New Mexico Territory, 1865 to 1871.

By 1850, although there were strongly opposed political factions in New Mexico, most were united in opposing the military government. The governor, Col. John Munroe, convened a constitutional assembly in May, which ratified a state constitution by 6,771 votes to 39.The constitution was adopted on 20 June 1850, and state officers were elected.[4] Henry Connelly, who was absent from the territory at the time, was elected Governor and Manuel Alvarez Lieutenant-governor. However, Colonel Munroe forbade the assumption of civil power by the elected officials. On 9 September 1850 the U.S. Senate passed a compromise bill that included an act to organize a government for New Mexico as a territory, and this overrode the state legislature.

New Mexico state

Connelly was an associate in the incorporation of the New Mexican Railway Company in support for construction of a transcontinental railroad via the southern route through New Mexico in 1860. He was a main force behind the repeal of the New Mexico Slave Act in 1861. He was governor of New Mexico during the Civil War and General Sibley's New Mexico Campaign. During the Battle of Valverde, he was at Fort Craig, then moved the territorial capital from Santa Fe to Las Vegas, New Mexico prior to the Confederate occupation of Santa Fe.Connelly was in ill health during a large part of his administration. He was absent from office due to illness for about a half year between the fall 1862 and the spring of 1863, during which Secretary William F.M. Arny acted as Governor. He died of an opium overdose on Aug 12, 1866 in Santa Fe after leaving office, July 16, 1866

 

Author's Journal: Organizing Your Research

I recommend a three or four pronged attack on research organization. Yours may vary from mine somewhat because I save none of my research on the computer. You will need to keep many files: chronology files, character files, setting files, procedure files, cultural practices files, and many others. I have four filing drawers in two cabinets beside my desk. The rest of my files are in crates – four of them, in fact. Those eight file “drawers” represent one story. Two of those drawers are devoted to the operation of my computers and my printer, my professional contacts, and my writers’ organizations. I also keep some files on my submissions in these.

I also have two sets of book shelves and I use sticky notes to indicate pages containing important information – which I label. My books fall into two primary categories: books related to my story and those on technique.

Aside from all this, I have two large boxes which contain copies of old newspapers of my period and place. I use sticky notes on these as well since my story is a political and business story which progresses chronologically. I label these by topic and date and fasten them together in six month periods. They represent the 10 years of my story. They all come from microfilm I’ve had to copy. I can thank these papers for knowing the comings and goings of nearly all of the primary characters of my story.

Raven Reviews Interviews Beth Rogers Regarding YANKEE GOLD

Elizabeth Rogers wrote the book, Yankee Gold, a historical fiction novel focusing on the Civil War.  I became infatuated with the Civil War somewhere between Harriet Tubman and Gone With the Wind.  This book has such a different perspective on the Civil War, I had to stop Beth Rogers and talk to her about it. The interview below captures some key questions I thought you might also be interested in:

1. How did you choose the title?

The fact that the Union mined for gold and silver during the Civil War and for at least two years afterward is the motivation for my protagonist to go to New Mexico.

2. A novel doesn’t usually reveal the true names of characters. Why have you identified your protagonist and named him a Civil War spy?

Because Steve Elkins never admitted he served either side in the Civil War. The story begins in New Mexico a little over a year before the war ended. Little has been told of this important era in New Mexico. Around four thousand Texas Confederates invaded New Mexico in 1861. They were met by four thousand New Mexican and Colorado Volunteers in the winter of 1861-1862. The Confederates were defeated and forced out of New Mexico by the summer of 1862. The fight was for the southwestern gold fields. Once Elkins arrived in New Mexico at the end of 1863 he became the leading attorney in the territory. He was so controversial that someone had to tackle why his story has been avoided. His personal history as a spy, the Union’s role in gold mining with private investors, and the government’s tolerance of Indian debt slavery were all issues the government preferred the public wouldn’t know.

3. How much of the story is true?

The events of the story are true. I placed them on time lines and eventually merged the time lines. My character, Elkins, served in the official capacities portrayed. I had to jump to several conclusions in the story, but the facts which followed made those conclusions reasonable. Naturally, when dialogue can’t be verified, the story must be labeled a novel. I can’t know that closely what these people thought or their entire motivations.

4. How did you get interested in this story?

My family came to West Virginia where Steve Elkins made his home in his later years. We were complete strangers and we settled in the town named for him. My father was born in Cuba of American parents and Cuba was his home until he left college. He was curious about Elkins’ mysterious New Mexico past and encouraged my research of it.

5. How long did it take for you to write Yankee Gold?

The research took twenty years. I taught myself to write at the same time I chased down the story. It went through countless drafts. In the beginning I wrote one other book, a murder mystery, which took nine months. I also wrote a monograph for the New Mexico Historical Review on Elkins as president of New Mexico’s first bank early in my research.

6. What did you find most interesting in your character?

Steve Elkins was first and foremost an abolitionist. He was a Republican, but clearly had the backbone to act independently and follow his own conscience. It was interesting to see how this worked out in the story.

7. Was it difficult to write from a male point of view?

At first it was. That’s why I wrote another book in nine months from a female POV first. However, when I saw how the events of Yankee Gold reflected such a male-oriented society, the story became far easier to portray.

8. When did you decide to become an author?

It was when I was somewhere between eight and ten years old. My father and I speculated on this story often, given the few facts we could obtain. Almost immediately solving the questions which arose became an obsession for me.

9. How did you research the novel?

I first looked for every possible bit of evidence of what Elkins did during the Civil War in Missouri. I traveled to New Mexico and stayed with a relative.  I arranged to meet with several experts on this period of New Mexico’s history. I followed their advice and branched out into the various issues of Elkins’ career in this decade. I copied microfilm on the Bosque Redondo and the official records of the War of the Rebellion. I copied the records of Elkins’ service as

U. S. Attorney. I finally copied the Santa Fe newspapers for the entire decade. I bought all the books possible on the period and compared the material against the newspaper accounts. I found the first scene in a diary account of the daughter of the man who was Elkins’ mentor. That wasn’t until 2003. Information available from the internet grew enormously during the period I researched the story. The research was intensive and bore a lot of fruit.  

MORE ABOUT BETH…
Beth Rogers was born in New York City and lived in West Virginia for over twenty years. Her career includes writing at Living magazine in New York, teaching in Virginia and West Virginia, selling and brokering real estate in North Carolina, and as a federal clerk and courtroom deputy in Richmond, Virginia. She has been published in the New Mexico Historical Review. She is a member of the Virginia Historical Society and is active in several Virginia writers’ clubs.

Click here for more about Yankee Gold.

William F. M. Arny: Secretary of New Mexico Territory, 1862-1867

In this rich portrait, made in a Washington studio, Arny characteristically wears an Indian blanket over his suit.

Arny was one of the best of the Indian agents. A friend of Lincoln, he was appointed to succeed Kit Carson as agent to the Utes and Jacarilla Apaches in 1860. He famously attended an 1861 reception at the White House dressed as a Mountain Man, and pleaded the cause of his charges. In 1862 he was appointed Territorial Secretary for New Mexico, and he served in various capacities until 1875.

The Territorial Secretary was the 3rd most powerful official in NM. The congressman would be first and the governor second. 

The Territorial Secretary served as governor when the governor was out of the territory. He also presided over the legislature. The legislature was predominantly Republican as was Arny and Elkins. It served NM to be Republican during the war because their agriculture and stock fed the 6 or seven forts within their boundaries. Fort Union, in addition to its soldiers, employed maybe 2000 civilians. 

Governor Connnelly (the first governor of the territory in Yankee Gold) and Governor Mitchell were both absent from the territory several times when Secretary Arny served as governor. Elkins takes advantage of that fact when he challenges Mitchell for removing him from office after an absence.

Author's Journal: Online Resources

There are reliable and documentable sources on the web, if you are willing to purchase them. I can’t speak personally for these because I have been fortunate to live in a major city, a capital city of a state with excellent historical resources available locally.

Microsoft Encarta Reference Library XP 2003 appears to have received a four star rating. Its current price is about $98. It is an online encyclopedia.

The Questia website is designed to help students write research papers. Its promotion page states that “it will help you create professor-approved citations and bibliographies.” You can save highlights, notes, and bookmarks. Its layout provides convenient project organization folders. It boasts six million books and articles, 70,000 full text online books, and 1700 reliable sources. The site offers a free tour and a free one-day trial. I didn’t investigate the pricing of its service.

Lastly, there is a way to use the resources of the Library of Congress online. I haven’t done this myself because I have made several trips to Washington to use the Library of Congress which requires you to get a pass. Naturally, books can’t be checked out there, so you must be prepared to copy your materials, which can be costly. The use of their online resources would be advisable. When all else fails, I would say they are the library of the last resort.

I should also add that the New York Public Library can help you find the source for almost any missing fact or event. Their phone number is: 912-275-6975.

The next two posts on this topic deal with organization of your sources, an extremely important part of your research. As your topic broadens you will have to arrange your work so that you can find materials which fit the circumstances of your plot and characters, your setting, the events peculiar to your time period, and the issues involved. Different time periods will demand a variety of source material.

Thomas B. Catron

Yankee Gold is a myth buster, tearing down the theory of the Santa Fe Ring as a conspiracy to steal land grants & resell them at inflated prices. After Elkins left NM he left his law partner, Tom Catron in charge. However, Catron did not control the bank, although he borrowed from it when he could - and liberally.

Catron knew the most about land grants and was a canny lawyer in court. The law partnership was shared with Elkins' other best friend whom he recruited from Missouri, Henry Waldo. Waldo, at Elkins' recommendation, became Supreme Court Chief Justice in 1878 (I believe.) Waldo was a Democrat and Elkins and Catron Republicans. Elkins was the only one who had served the Union.

Tom Catron's biography by William Keleher (written 1942) has several interesting references:

On page 135 a chapter begins about Tom's marriage.  A letter from 1867 came from Sallie Elkins to Tom at that time. Tom apparently had sent her a letter asking if she approved of a woman named "Bettie". Her answer was " . . . . to prevent you from taking any hasty steps in this matter, I have not received a line from her, have you, if so & you think courtesy demands an answer, be very careful, write a formal letter do not intimate your feelings - do not commit yourself. I know Mr. Catron that you are honest and conscientious & I would not willingly have your affections trifled with. Bettie, I know to be a heartless coquette - perfectly heartless, & for the friendship existing between you and Steve and that I feel for you myself I warn you to beware." A few lines later she says, " . . . . I know more than you probably think I do."

Catron didn't marry until he was 37. In 1867, when the letter was sent, he was 27 years old and Steve and Sallie had been married only one year. The letter is practically the only personal letter found in his papers for that period of years.

On page 137 Keleher mentions a dinner party held in Washington by the Elkins' when Tom Catron was in the city. (This was during the period that Elkins served in the Senate from WV. It provides an insight into Catron's naivete relative to social graces. Mrs. Elkins invited Catron to the dinner and answered his inquiry as to what to wear, telling him to come 'just as you like.' He did and found himself the only man in street clothes (not pressed and a boiled shirt) instead of a dress suit. (By the way, Catron's wife, Julia, spent most of their married years in Europe 'seeing to their son's education.' Catron apparently accepted the arrangement w/o complaining.

José Francisco Chaves

José Francisco Chaves, one of the most eminent New Mexicans of his time, became a powerful political personality in his county and an acknowledged leader of the Republican Party.

In 1859 while Chaves was serving as a soldier in a military expedition against the Navajos, he was elected to the territorial legislative assembly, but was able to serve for only part of the term. In 1861 at the onset of the Civil War, Chaves received a presidential commission with the rank of major. He served in the First New Mexico Infantry and later was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel for "gallant and meritorious service."

After Chaves was honorably discharged from military service in 1865, he took up the study of law and was admitted to the bar. That same year he also was elected Territorial Delegate to Congress, defeating his first cousin, Francisco Perea. In 1867 Chaves contested the election of C.P. Clever as U.S. Delegate to Congress. The House Committee on Elections found the election had been fraudulent and seated Chaves.

On March 3, 1871 Chaves delivered a passionate speech on the New Mexico Enabling Act, which would grant statehood to New Mexico. He argued that a territorial government was incompatible with the principles of a republican system. Despite his impassioned plea, however, the bill did not pass the House.

Chaves used the floor of the House to argue in favor of the Indian appropriation bill, which would compensate New Mexicans for damages caused by Indians. He argued that according to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the people of New Mexico possessed certain rights equal to, if not superior to, those of Indians, and when Indians committed depredations upon the non-Indian citizens of New Mexico, reimbursement for those depredations should be made by the Federal Government.

He was defeated in his effort to be reelected to a fourth term in Congress, but he continued his involvement in New Mexico's politics. He served as district attorney for the Second Judicial District for two years. In 1875 he was elected to the New Mexico Territorial Legislative Council and was reelected to every succeeding legislature until his death. He was appointed superintendent of Public Instruction in 1901, and also was named New Mexico Historian in 1903. On November 26, 1904 Chaves was assassinated at Pinos Wells, New Mexico; his assassin was never found.

U. S. Civil War Debt 8

Charles Beaubien

In 1864 the most successful of the northern Mexico trappers and traders was Charles Beaubien, or Carlos as he was known after leaving Illinois for the far west. Beaubien had been a great friend of former Mexican provincial governor, Manuel Armijo. He had several children and would leave a land grant of substantial size to his heirs. Governor Armijo, under Mexican rule, had broad powers over his province and one of them was to grant large tracts of land to productive and influential people. The land was usually given to each man to induce settlement. Some few land grants of the province were given to communities who had emigrated from southern Mexico provinces. A few were granted to peaceful Pueblo Indians. Armijo was replaced by the American governor, Charles Bent, after the Mexican War. But meanwhile, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo insured these early land barons that they could keep their enormous grants. The treaty had been made between Armijo and James McGoffin, a Missouri merchant.

During the early Civil War years Governor William Gilpin of Colorado arranged with Carlos Beaubien to purchase one of his two huge land grants in the southern Colorado Arkansas Valley area. That land grant was known as the Sangre de Cristo. It encompassed a mountainous area in the Sangre de Cristo mountain chain. The other land grant in Beaubien’s possession was in north-eastern New Mexico, very close to the Sangre de Cristo. It was known as the Beaubien Miranda Grant. Beaubien, with Armijo’s secretary, Guadalupe Miranda, were in possession of it, but Miranda had conceded or sold out his interest before Beaubien died. Neither of these grants had been surveyed and “registered” in the manner of American legal ownership. They were simply so vast that the undertaking was deemed too difficult and expensive. However, in 1860 the Beaubien-Miranda, and a few other large grants (usually 250,000 to 500,000 acres) were recognized by Congress as properly owned by these men.

Photo Gallery: Virginia The Festival of The Book

Photo Gallery

A Native American Overlooks the Transcontinental Railroad, Nevada about 1868

Join Me At The Festival of the Book on Saturday, March 23 in Charlottesville

Look for me at the Virginia Writers Club's table where I'll be volunteering, then selling my book, YANKEE GOLD. 
Time: 9 - 5.

Virginia Festival of the Book  brings together writers and readers to promote and celebrate books, reading, literacy, and literary culture.

As the largest gathering of authors, writers, and readers in the Commonwealth, and, indeed, the Mid-Atlantic region, the Book Festival has become an integral part of the community and is presented in a unique partnership of contributors that includes the VFH, foundations, corporations, bookstores, schools, libraries, area businesses and organizations, and committed individuals. This partnership results in programs in a wide range of topics set among a variety of venues throughout the City of Charlottesville, County of Albemarle, and the University of Virginia.

Along with the staff, almost every aspect of the Festival is organized and generated by Festival Committees consisting of community volunteers who generously contribute their time and energy. Programs range from traditional author readings and book signings to a StoryFest day of children's authors and storybook characters; from a panel on how to publish a novel to a discussion on running a book club; from a workshop on book-binding to a discussion on freelancer's rights. All programs are open to the public;
with the exception of a few ticketed events, programs are free of charge.

  http://www.vabook.org/site13/about/mission.html

U. S. Civil War Debt 7

Lucien B. Maxwell, courtesy Philmont Museum

Immediately prior to Carlos Beaubien’s 1864 death, former Colorado Governor Gilpin paid the balance of the amount he owed Beaubien and signed papers which made him the new owner of the Sangre de Cristo Grant. The ownership came with a price: he would owe the U. S. a tidy sum of money which represented taxes that had accrued over some years. He must pay the lien within five years or lose the land to the government. Taxes were also due on the Beaubien-Miranda Grant, it was though an even larger tract than the Sangre de Cristo. There had been an uprising over the prior claim of Charles Bent, New Mexico’s first governor, when he made a claim for the Beaubien-Miranda. The governor, his son, his son’s friend, and two other men were killed when Pueblo Indians and local residents resisted the land claim.

Eventually, Lucien Maxwell, another of the early trapper-traders of the area, a well known guide and scout for American survey and mineral searching parties, married Luz Beaubien, bought out the claims of other Beaubien family members and assumed control of the grant. The grant was generally thought to encompass nearly two million acres. Maxwell’s family and his friend, Kit Carson, had occupied the grant for about five years when Beaubien died. Although at least another dozen land grants existed in New Mexico, this one was known to be the largest. It was not in the vicinity of the Rio Grande River, like most of the productive farm lands, but in eastern New Mexico along the Vermejo and Cimarron Creeks.

These two land grants, the Sangre de Cristo and the Maxwell Grants, would soon become the objects of interest to wealthy British investors. However, the land, or at least most of it, was valued at only about 35 cents per acre due to their isolation and lack of water. Irrigation was still in a primitive state and transportation was limited to wagon trains.  One gauge by which the value of land can be understood is that a good living was considered to be $500 a year for a professional person. There was a great deal of uncertainty about how soon railroads could be constructed at the end of the Civil War.

U. S. Civil War Debt 6

Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado, 1898.

During the American Civil War Europe was busy building a railway through Europe and U. S. investment interests were involved. By the end of the Civil War the Dutch banking firm of Wertheim & Gompertz was induced to invest in New Mexico’s Maxwell Land Grant. The American civil engineer, William Jackson Palmer had conducted a survey relative to several routes proposed for the transcontinental railroad. Palmer, a former Union General, was chosen to supervise the Kansas Pacific railroad route through the west and he favored the route which crossed the Maxwell Grant.

When Lucien Maxwell solidified his claims to the former Beaubien-Miranda grant and opened several successful mines, Wertheim & Gompertz, a large Dutch bank, agreed to finance the sale and further development of the grant under English ownership. Shortly thereafter, the transcontinental railroad route changed and the mines’ successes became complicated. The problems included Homestead Act settlers’ claims, confirmation of the grant’s survey, and lack of adequate water for current mining operations. The European bank began to look for a better prospect.

 At the same time the Maxwell Grant was sold (1870) to an English syndicate brokered by Colorado banker, Jerome Chaffee, the Denver Pacific Railroad was contracted to William Palmer to complete the Kansas Pacific (as the Denver Pacific) and join the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads.

General Palmer, in order to fulfill the promise of a railroad to the southwest, secretly proposed the construction of a route from Denver through the Arkansas Valley and New Mexico, eventually to El Paso and southern California. Investors had to be found and he was contracted to complete the Kansas Pacific. Others were dedicated to making the southwestern route a reality: one of them ex-Colorado Governor John Evans. Evans set about making land purchases along a proposed route for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.