Women soldiers in the Civil War had an easier time hiding their identities than you might think, according to DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook’s fascinating book, “They Fought Like Demons.” Soldiers spent the majority of the war outdoors — in tents or on the march. They rarely had an opportunity to bathe or even… Continue reading How women soldiers avoided detection
Category: Researching Historical Fiction
Best-kept secret of the Civil War
I don’t profess to know everything about the Civil War by any stretch of the imagination, but I think I have a pretty good grasp of the basics. However, “They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War” by DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook blew me away. Until I read the book,… Continue reading Best-kept secret of the Civil War
When you want things to go bump in the night…
... they rarely do. I found that out on my first ghost hunt last night (Friday the 13th) at historic Paxton Manor in Leesburg, Va. The 32-room house, built for Rachel and Charles Paxton in 1872, featured many decorative interior details such as silver hardware and elaborate plasterwork. The exterior reflects the influence of Second… Continue reading When you want things to go bump in the night…
Unearthing Wyatt Earp’s revolver
A gun that once belonged to Wyatt Earp sold for $35,000 at an auction held by the city of Harrisburg, Pa., in July. The label on the gun’s grip reads: "To Wyatt Earp, Welcome From the Citizens Committee of Nome." Wyatt moved to Nome, Alaska, in 1897 at the height of a gold rush. While… Continue reading Unearthing Wyatt Earp’s revolver
The original Las Vegas
When I was researching the Doc Holliday artifacts auctioned off in Harrisburg, Pa., I was dismayed that the auction house’s website erroneously refers to Las Vegas, Nevada, as the last place Doc Holliday practiced dentistry. It was Las Vegas, New Mexico, as any student of Western history would know and as the letter accompanying his… Continue reading The original Las Vegas
Of dental chairs, frock coats and the hearts of women
Harrisburg, Pa., recently auctioned off about 8,000 historical artifacts that former Mayor Stephen Reed had collected for a Wild West museum that never happened. The auction netted the city $2.7 million, which sounds good except that Reed reportedly spent $8.3 million buying the stuff. Allen Barra, writing in the October issue of True West magazine,… Continue reading Of dental chairs, frock coats and the hearts of women
Going west for a cure
More from Sheila M. Rothman’s “Living in the Shadow of Death”: In the early 1800s, tuberculosis was often romanticized as spiritually uplifting, ennobling even. Therefore, men with TB often went on strenuous journeys to the West Indies or the American South as part of a religious quest; they used their suffering to get closer to… Continue reading Going west for a cure
Doc Holliday’s incessant cough
It’s hard to believe now, but in the first half of the 19th century, tuberculosis—or consumption, as it was known until the 1880s—was responsible for one in five deaths, making it America’s deadliest disease. It was widely believed to be hereditary (like insanity), in part because multiple family members across generations died of the disease.… Continue reading Doc Holliday’s incessant cough
Bill Cheng: Letting history seep into the writer
I caught an NPR interview with debut novelist Bill Cheng, who’s written a book called “Southern Cross the Dog” about a boy who survives the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Cheng lives in New York City and has never been to Mississippi. Of course, he also didn’t live through that devastating event, but that should… Continue reading Bill Cheng: Letting history seep into the writer
A pawn’s-eye view of the Second Battle of Manassas
I know there are people who go to battlefields to get a sense of the grand, strategic sweep of the thing, to study tactics and imagine armies arrayed like chess pieces across the fields and hills. But I am much more interested in the individual soldier’s experience. The guides at Manassas National Battlefield Park are… Continue reading A pawn’s-eye view of the Second Battle of Manassas
History in your own backyard
I live on the East Coast, which makes visits to historic sites in the West a bit of a challenge. For my novel, I researched classic one-room schoolhouses to help me get a better sense of the kind of education a young woman might have had in the Midwest in the 1860s to about 1870… Continue reading History in your own backyard
Writing Can Be Hazardous to Your Personal Life
I was going through my notes on the O.K. Corral gunfight one day when my boyfriend and I got into a conversation about space exploration. He was talking about artificial intelligence and how a thousand years from now, we won’t be organic beings but some sort of consciousness in silicon. I was having trouble focusing… Continue reading Writing Can Be Hazardous to Your Personal Life
Terri J. Huck 