Rev War and living history | Author Suzanne Adair

Regulated for Murder Summer Solstice Deep Discount

Posted on June 20, 2014 by suzanneadairJune 22, 2014

For ten years, an execution hid murder. Then Michael Stoddard came to town.

Bearing a dispatch from his commander in coastal Wilmington, North Carolina, redcoat Lieutenant Michael Stoddard arrives in Hillsborough in February 1781 in civilian garb. He expects to hand a letter to a courier working for Lord Cornwallis, then ride back to Wilmington the next day. Instead, Michael is greeted by the courier’s freshly murdered corpse, a chilling trail of clues leading back to an execution ten years earlier, and a sheriff with a fondness for framing innocents—and plans to deliver Michael up to his nemesis, a psychopathic British officer.

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The eBook version of Regulated for Murder, award-winning fourth novel in my historical crime fiction series, is on sale today and Saturday for 99 cents in Kindle, Nook, and Apple iBooks formats. Enjoy!

A big thanks to the folks at eReader News Today!

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Boston History Lives On The Freedom Trail

Posted on June 17, 2014 by suzanneadairJune 17, 2014

Relevant History welcomes Denise D. Price, creator of The Freedom Trail Pop-Up Book. Having seen twenty countries on five continents, Denise has a certified case of wanderlust. Inspiring a love of history, architecture, and world culture, her travels have been a major influence on how she views the world, reacts, interacts, designs and breathes. Denise was introduced to the paper arts over twenty years ago at a summer arts intensive. Her passion for the paper was stoked and has burned ever since. Holding an MBA in International Business, she combines her astuteness for business and her eye for detail to create marketable and interesting art. For more information, check her web site, and look for her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Established in 1951, The Freedom Trail® is a 2.5-mile footpath running through Boston, Massachusetts. The trail highlights sixteen nationally significant historic sites that tell the story of Boston’s role in the American Revolution. It includes sites like Old North Church (ever famous for hosting the two lanterns that spurred Paul Revere on his midnight ride), Bunker Hill Monument, Granary Burying Ground (where you’ll find such illustrious figures as Samuel Adams and the five victims the Boston Massacre), and Faneuil Hall. The trail, demarcated by a red trail line (sometimes painted and sometimes inlaid in brick on walkways), now attracts more than four million visitors annually.

It originated in 1951, a tumultuous time in the United States. The Korean War was ongoing, McCarthyism was emerging, and racial tensions were riding high. In Boston, the idea for The Freedom Trail was born as a way to preserve and promote the part of our history that is most unifying, our fight for liberty and justice. Through a series of charged newspaper columns, illustrious journalist Bill Scofield proposed organizing the numerous landmarks as a way to keep Boston tied to its patriotic past.

After reading the columns and finding subsequent public support for the project, then-mayor John Hynes took on the task of creating the footpath. Though many of the sixteen official historical sites located on The Freedom Trail had been operating as independent museums for decades, Mayor Hynes put together a committee of concerned citizens, business people, and other city leaders to create the network that became the official trail.

By 1954, The Freedom Trail (rejected names included Puritan Path and Liberty Loop) had more than 40,000 annual visitors. The telltale red path line appeared in 1958.

The Freedom Trail as Inspiration
In 2010 I was one of the millions of Freedom Trail visitors. It was clear to me that there is no other place in the United States where you can take in the rich history of America’s Revolution than in Boston. I was captivated. I wanted something special to take home and share with family in Denver. I needed to share with them the beauty of the trail.

I began searching for a pop-up book. For years pop up books have been my souvenir of choice. More than a t-shirt or a mug that simply says, “I’ve been to this place,” a pop-up book is a way to share and relive the experience after the fact. They capture architecture, art, history, and culture in a way that no other printed material can, 3-D! They are educational as well as sentimental and fun to share with family and friends.

But I never did find such a book on my trip, and I left Boston disappointed. However, I didn’t give up my quest. Through extensive online research I found there were no pop-up books about Boston’s historic sites except Fenway Park. When I moved to neighboring Cambridge, MA later that year, I decided to create one. And what better way to share the city than to share the story of The Freedom Trail?

Making History Pop Off the Page
The research phase of the book was extensive. I spent hours at each site examining architectural detail, talking to staff, volunteer guides, and other trail scholars about minute details of the buildings, restoration efforts, and hidden spaces within each site. Some of my favorite discoveries were the views of The Common atop Park Street Church, the mechanical workings of the historic clock on the Old South Meeting House, the one-ton Paul Revere Bell of King’s Chapel, and the crypt at Old North Church.

After the research was done, the paper-engineering and illustrating began. With notes, photos, and a love of the trail to guide me, I began the painstaking work of cutting, folding, pasting, drawing, and writing. The finished book includes sixteen architecturally and historically accurate pop-ups as well as hand-drawn illustrations and a succinct written history of the trail and its landmarks. In 2013, after three years of work, editing, fixing, and paper-cuts, the book was finished. I’m working now, to self-publish and produce a limited run of 5,000 books. I hope they’ll be used in homes, libraries, classrooms, and book collections from coast to coast. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to The Freedom Trail Scholars Program, a non-profit dedicated to bringing interactive history education into greater-Boston area classrooms.

The book is now available for pre-order ($45) on Kickstarter.com, where you’ll find more information on the book and fantastic Freedom Trail rewards, including private and behind the scenes tours. If I am funded, I will be able to obtain the final color dummy book from the assembly house. After any edits are completed, the book will go to press. Once printed, the book will be hand-assembled, piece-by-piece, and glued together. When the inside is complete, it will be mounted into the hard cover binding, boxed and shipped to Boston, where, with the help of The Freedom Trail® Foundation, The Freedom Trail® Pop Up book will be available to the public.

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A big thanks to Denise Price. She has created a limited-edition set of note cards featuring original illustrations of the five historic Freedom Trail weather vanes (shown with watermark), and she’ll give away a set of these note cards to three people who contribute a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery for the cards is available within the United States only.

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Understating the Costs of War

Posted on April 5, 2014 by suzanneadairApril 5, 2014

Throughout history, reports about the costs of war in terms of human lives have focused on dead and injured combatants. Commanding officers reported on the numbers of their men killed in battle, those who died afterwards as a result of their injuries, and those who were permanently injured. Pictures like this one depicting a mass grave from World War I show up in high school history books. They reinforce an erroneous assumption that the costs of war have revolved around people enlisted in regular units and militias.

War doesn’t affect only combatants. Casualty reports omit or trivialize the devastation war brings to civilians. Because the physiological and psychological damage to these people hasn’t been reported, it hasn’t been quantified. Thus the cost of human warfare throughout history has been greatly understated.

Examples of military actions with costs that haven’t been quantified
The business of soldiers is combat. Historically, civilian contractors have traveled with military units to provide goods and services not covered by soldiers: goods such as tobacco, and services such as blacksmithing. Because “camp followers” often traveled with the baggage train, which was loaded with supplies, numerous accounts of battles report the accidental involvement of these civilians in actual combat. Although many of them were armed, they often proved to be a trivial challenge to trained combatants. My book Camp Follower fictionalizes this scenario at the Revolutionary War Battle of the Cowpens, 17 January 1781, in South Carolina.

Wives of soldiers have often followed the drum alongside their husbands, bringing their children with them. These civilians have landed in horrific danger. During the American Revolution, the 1 September 1777 issue of The New-York Gazette and the Weekly Mercury reported such an incident. During Sullivan’s attack on Staten Island, 22 August, loyalist commander Lt. Col. Edward Vaughan Dongan was retreating with some of his men, along with his wife and children. Discipline among Sullivan’s Continental soldiers collapsed to plundering. They chased down Dongan’s wife, and her three-year-old son witnessed her rape by Continental soldiers. Meanwhile, Dongan himself was killed. Traumatized by his mother’s rape and father’s death, the young boy died.

As his death shows, a casualty of war doesn’t always have to be a person who is physically injured or killed in a military action. Furthermore, even civilians in their homes or places of business can be traumatized by warfare. Revolutionary Reminiscences from the “Cape Fear Sketches” documents an eyewitness account from the North Carolina backcountry during the first week of April 1781. Here’s what a patriot man saw when he entered Alexander Rouse’s tavern right after the departure of redcoats who’d gunned down several of his comrades within:

Upon entering the house what a scene presented itself! The floor covered with dead bodies & almost swimming in blood, & battered brains smoking on the walls; In the fire place sat shivering over a few coals, an aged woman surrounded by several small children, who were clinging to her body, petrified with terror. We spoke to her, but she knew us not, tho familiar acquaintences; staring wildly around, and uttering a few incoherent sentences, she pointed at the dead bodies; reason had left its throne.

Unlike the Dongans’ story, we don’t know the names of the woman and children who witnessed “the Rouse House Massacre.” Most of the time, civilian casualties of war go unnamed. So when I fictionalized this aggression in my book A Hostage to Heritage, I personalized these people by giving them names.

Civilians who are exposed to combat demonstrate the kinds of immediate psychological traumas detailed in this account. Lasting psychological damage is another cost of war, even more difficult to quantify than the loss of life or visible physiological injury.

In the 18th century, with no psychologists and few sedatives, do you suppose the civilians who survived the attack on the baggage train at Cowpens, or Mrs. Dongan on Staten Island, or the woman and children at Rouse’s Tavern ever ceased having post-traumatic stress disorder? What do you think were the costs to their society? And what are the costs to society today from similar activity in war-torn countries all over the world?

#PTSD in civilians during the #AmRev http://bit.ly/1fVzAoH #history via @Suzanne_Adair

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What Lord Cornwallis Really Thought of Patriot Women

Posted on March 14, 2014 by suzanneadairFebruary 24, 2018

While His Majesty’s army was in North America trying to subdue the insurrection, one of Lord Cornwallis’s officers acknowledged the courage and resourcefulness of those American women who weren’t the King’s Friends when he said to His Lordship: “We may destroy all the men in America, and we shall still have all we can do to defeat the women.” Possibly the officer was thinking of those women who had put suppliers out of business by exercising their choice not to buy cloth and tea. He may even have been thinking of women-organized tea parties, such as the one in Edenton, North Carolina. Women in Britain didn’t have the latitude to organize such protests.

Toward the end of the American Revolution, Cornwallis spent a lot of time in the southern colonies. There his impression of patriot women couldn’t help but receive constant reinforcement that his officer’s statement had been on the mark. Here are a few of the women who may have influenced his opinion.

At her home in the backcountry of Georgia, Nancy Morgan Hart was menaced by six loyalists, who ordered her to cook for them. They helped themselves to her food and liquor, and while they were inattentive, she stole their muskets. Caught in the act, she shot at least two of the men who tried to recover their weapons. She then took the rest captive. When her husband and several neighbors arrived, she insisted that the loyalists be hanged. It’s difficult to distinguish fact from folklore in her story. But in 1912, workers building a railroad near the cabin found six men’s skeletons buried neatly, side by side. The necks of several had been broken, as in a hanging.

Kate Moore Barry served as a scout for the patriots in the South Carolina backcountry. Her activities helped General Daniel Morgan defeat Crown forces commanded by Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of the Cowpens. One day she heard gunfire from loyalist forces at a neighboring homestead. She tied her infant to a bedpost and rode her horse to warn patriots. Her home, Walnut Grove Plantation, has been restored and is open to visitors. In October, visitors are treated to an annual battle reenactment there.

Loyalist David Fanning trapped patriot militia leader Philip Alston and his men—as well as Alston’s wife, Temperance, and their children—in their house in backcountry North Carolina. The two forces then opened fire on each other. When musket balls penetrated the house, Temperance Smith Alston supposedly shoved her kids up a brick chimney to shield them. Fanning threatened to set fire to the house. Temperance emerged in the hail of musket balls waving a flag of truce. She negotiated so well that her husband and his men were paroled instead of imprisoned. “The House in the Horseshoe” is open to visitors, and there’s an annual battle reenactment in August.

Did Lord Cornwallis, like his officer, recognize a formidable foe in patriot women? There is no record of Cornwallis having disagreed with the officer. What do you think?

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Women’s History Month 2014: Bourgeoise Women in Revolutionary America

Posted on March 1, 2014 by suzanneadairMarch 30, 2015

The main characters in my Mysteries of the American Revolution trilogy are bourgeoise women. These women of middle and lower class also figure prominently in my Michael Stoddard American Revolution thrillers series. Fiction writers don’t often choose this point of view. Let’s face it. Being middle class isn’t glamorous during war. There are no banquets, balls, glittering gowns, or elaborate wigs. So why do I give readers a look at the lives of women who weren’t in the upper tier of society?

Different lives
Here’s the kicker. Almost never do we hear the voices of women in regard to this war. Mostly we hear the voices of men: soldiers, merchants, lawyers, etc. And if we do hear from women, it’s upper-class women such as Abigail Adams and Martha Washington.

But the gentry led lives that were different in many ways from the lives of their bourgeoise sisters. One place we really see that distinction was in army camps. During the time that an army wasn’t on the move, the female relatives of senior officers came to camp and organized dances and soirees. If these women opted to travel with the army, many could afford to spend the night sheltered in local homes, especially if they were pregnant.

The women we don’t hear about
In contrast, when bourgeois men joined an army, their women shouldered the burden of maintaining the family farm or business. To keep from starving, they might work in excess of twelve hours a day—which helps explain why we have comparatively few letters and journals from them. If these women followed their menfolk into the army—whether the men were soldiers or civilian contractors—the women risked privation. When food was scarce, they might be forced to serve in the hospital, or cook, or launder or mend soldiers’ clothing for miniscule wages. They birthed their babies in tents. They slept in the cold with their men.

For Americans, the Revolution is shrouded in myths. Many of those myths paint a picture that downplays the horrors of war. But give voice to women from middle- and lower-class Revolutionary America, and you’ll hear them talk about the war in a way that’s very different from the stories told by men or upper-class women. What they say dispels myths and burrows down to the truths of humanity and the lessons of history.

Sure, the exciting lives of the Rockefellers and Kardashians of American history make for fun reading. But considering that most Americans today aren’t from the upper tier of society, it’s the stories of middle-class women during the Revolution that address us directly.

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How to Push a Loyalist’s Buttons

Posted on February 19, 2014 by suzanneadairFebruary 21, 2018

On 19 February 1781, the advance guards of Lord Cornwallis’s army of nearly two thousand soldiers rode into the town of Hillsborough, North Carolina, built near the Eno River. Cornwallis’s occupation of the town continued into the next day. His men had covered a lot of ground on a wintry Carolina campaign and—after Cornwallis had tried to lighten his load by burning the baggage—given chase (in futility) to patriot general Nathanael Greene’s army all the way to the Dan River. British uniforms were showing wear. Soldiers were tired and hungry. So the stay in Hillsborough was to provide R&R for the men and refurbish the army.

Cornwallis arrived in good spirits. He was under the impression that the North Carolina backcountry, including Hillsborough, was crawling with loyalists who merely awaited his word before they stepped forward proudly to fight for the King. (Regulated for Murder describes the political climate in Hillsborough less than a week before the occupation.) Yes, there were plenty of loyalists in North Carolina. But five years earlier, on 27 February 1776, the cause of the King’s Friends had suffered a paralyzing blow. Scottish Highlanders, fighting on behalf of exiled royal Governor Josiah Martin, were roundly defeated by patriots at Moores Creek Bridge. Patriots then took control of North Carolina. Loyalists had to keep their heads down to survive.

On 20 February 1781, Cornwallis issued a proclamation from Hillsborough. It invited all the disgruntled loyalists to bring their weapons and meet at the royal standard his troops had erected in town, where they would receive instructions about how to subdue the patriots. He said nothing about sticking around to back up the loyalists’ efforts.

Cornwallis pushed just about every button he could on those who were loyal to the King. He asked them to out themselves to enemies, abandon their families to the wrath of patriots, and assume the entire burden of fighting an opponent who was, at the time, better organized. Loyalists recognized that Cornwallis’s proclamation was a bum deal. After they’d suffered at the hands of patriots for years, Cornwallis confirmed their fears that the Crown really didn’t understand the challenges faced by its loyal American subjects. The proclamation disillusioned and angered loyalists, distanced them from the Crown’s efforts.

Legends abound about incidents that occurred during the Hillsborough occupation. One popular legend describes patriot sharpshooters hiding near the Eno River and picking off redcoats who tried to fetch water. But it’s a fact and no legend that Cornwallis didn’t receive the warm welcome he’d expected from Hillsborough’s residents. The clueless general was miffed that there were so few takers on his grand offer. He and his army left Hillsborough on 26 February to chase Nathanael Greene’s ghost. They found him just a few weeks later, at Guilford Courthouse.

Not all British officers misunderstood the loyalists’ plight and failed to provide them with the support they needed. On the coast, Major James Henry Craig and the 82nd Regiment had occupied the town of Wilmington, North Carolina at the end of January. Throughout most of 1781, the regiment remained in Wilmington. Craig earned the trust of loyalists where Cornwallis had failed. And loyalists flocked to Wilmington to bolster the redcoats’ power, thus turning North Carolina into a huge headache for the Continental Army that year.

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My Revolutionary Valentine

Posted on February 14, 2014 by suzanneadairFebruary 14, 2014

While writing the first draft of Regulated for Murder, I realized that the climax of the book, where stakes were highest for my main character, Michael Stoddard, fell on 14 February 1781. My first thought was, “Valentine’s Day!” My next thought was, “Would Michael and his contemporaries have linked Valentine’s Day with romantic love during the American Revolution?” If so, I wanted to use Valentine’s Day to impart a chilling, kinky twist on the climax of Regulated for Murder.

Research showed me that commercialization of the holiday didn’t happen until the 19th century, when mass-produced Valentines became available. But it’s amazing how long ago people celebrated Valentine’s Day in association with romantic love. Would you believe as far back as the Middle Ages and Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales)?

It turns out that on Valentine’s Day in Revolutionary America, lovers would have expressed their amorous feelings to each other—possibly with the help of gifts like flowers, sweets, or homemade Valentines. Gifts. Hmm. How fortunate for me and my twisted imagination.

Happy Valentine’s Day! If you celebrate the holiday, how will you do it today, and what will the highlights be for you?

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North Carolina’s Courageous Surrender

Posted on January 28, 2014 by suzanneadairFebruary 21, 2018

On 28 January 1781, two hundred civilian men marched out of Wilmington, North Carolina and greeted the advance of redcoats of the 82nd Regiment by laying down their weapons and surrendering. Major James Henry Craig, commander of the 82nd, hadn’t agreed to the articles of capitulation that two town leaders presented to him the night before. By his reckoning, if Wilmington’s civilians expected to prevent plunder, they had to obey his rules.

Major Craig initiated the occupation of Wilmington with the act of paroling the two hundred civilians. When word of the surrender and paroles reached patriot leaders elsewhere, many responded with disbelief, ridicule, and anger. Wilmington was an important port and one of the largest towns in North Carolina. In essence, North Carolina had surrendered to the redcoats.

The image of 18th-century Americans acquiescing to the occupation of their town by redcoats doesn’t sit well with many modern Americans citizens. History classes in the public school system leave students with myth-like impressions that the average civilian didn’t give up without a fight (“Red Dawn” anyone?); that those fighting civilians often won against trained British regulars; and if civilians didn’t fight, it meant they were cowards. Based on impressions like those, 21st-century Americans can make erroneous assumptions about the American Revolution. Several years ago, the editor of a traditional press rejected my first Michael Stoddard novel because she was certain the townsfolk of Wilmington wouldn’t have surrendered quietly.

So let’s look at why the townsfolk surrendered quietly on 28 January 1781.

In 1775, patriots in North Carolina ousted the state’s last royal governor, Josiah Martin. Martin fled, and from a British ship anchored off the coast, he continued to direct North Carolina’s loyalists. He encouraged Scottish loyalists to take up their broadswords for the King the following February at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge. However patriots won that battle.

For the next five years, patriots controlled North Carolina. By January 1781, they’d grown somewhat complacent. Most of the fighting in the war was elsewhere. Wilmington was defended by two batteries and a militia unit commanded by Colonel Henry Young. Never mind that the militia didn’t have enough complete stands of arms to issue every man.

Thus the patriots dismissed the first report that the British were headed for Wilmington. The 82nd Regiment was only a few days away by the time patriot officials realized the invasion was genuine. By then, it was too late to defend Wilmington. Too late, even, for an orderly evacuation.

William Hooper (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) and other patriot leaders fled. Some left with little more than the clothing they wore. Some, like Hooper, were forced to leave their families in Wilmington, subject to Major Craig’s mercy. Colonel Young and fifty patriot militiamen, outnumbered and lacking weapons, also fled at the request of townsfolk. Backed against the wall, the town’s civilian leaders gambled that Major Craig, finding no combatants or rebel leaders in Wilmington, would spare the town and its inhabitants.

It was a gamble that paid off for most of the year. The 82nd Regiment occupied Wilmington through November 1781, allowing most residents to go about their daily businesses and live in their homes while Major Craig used the town as a base from which the 82nd Regiment and its loyalist allies launched numerous aggressions along the coast and into the interior of North Carolina.

It takes a certain amount of courage to surrender to an enemy like the 82nd Regiment. What courage the civilians of Wilmington must have had.

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The Fussy Librarian Spotlights Regulated for Murder

Posted on January 6, 2014 by suzanneadairJanuary 6, 2014

The first book of Michael Stoddard’s series, Regulated for Murder, is spotlighted in today’s book recommendations over at The Fussy Librarian. Regulated for Murder, on Suspense Magazine‘s “Best of 2011” list, continues to receive outstanding reviews. The latest reader to post a five-star review for the book on Amazon wrote, “When a book makes me stay up late at night to get to the end and have it solved it has to be a good read.” Regulated for Murder is available for Kindle, Nook, iTunes, and Kobo and in trade paperback format.

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New Year’s Celebrations Among the Redcoats and Their Allies

Posted on January 1, 2014 by suzanneadairJanuary 4, 2014

What were New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day like among the British and their allies during the American Revolution? Diaries and letters from the 18th century indicate that these holidays, celebrated today with parties and fireworks, were just another time of duty for most soldiers of the Crown forces during the Revolution. But there were always exceptions.

Scottish officer John Peebles sounds like he knew how to have a good time:

1st January 1777—A Happy New Year to all my friends, may those that are far asunder meet in good time & enjoy those pleasures that are best suited to ye mind.

1st Janry. 1782—May this year be propitious to our wishes my dear little woman [Peebles’ wife], bring us together in peace, love, & safety. Having engaged our Neighbours over the way to dine with us, we had a very good dinner, plenty of wine, with mirth & good humour, till some were fou [crazy drunk] & then we parted about midnight.

(From John Peebles’ American War: The Diary of a Scottish Grenadier, 1776–1782)

The Germans didn’t need to be on dry land to cheer in the New Year:

The 1st [January 1779]—Again a year is past and truly the first on the stormy, unfriendly sea. Captain Pentzel treated with good Madeira wine, which enabled us to toast the New Year properly. On this New Year’s Day we were as comfortable as one can be on the ocean. We conversed and discussed our distant homeland.

(From Eighteenth Century America: A Hessian Report on the People, the Land, the War as Noted in the Diary of Chaplain Philipp Waldeck, 1776–1780)

And here are the good wishes sent from the Black Pioneers, a provincial unit, to their boss, Sir Henry Clinton:

N York, 1st Jany. 1781—We some of your Excellency’s old Company of Black Pioneers, beg leave to Address your Excellency wishing you a happy new Year and the greatest Success in all your Public and Private undertakings…

(University of Michigan, William L. Clements Library, Sir Henry Clinton Papers, Volume 138, item 10.)

How did you celebrate the New Year last night? I went to a Tibetan Buddhist Dorje Khadro ceremony and threw black sesame seeds representing my negative actions in 2013 into a raging fire.

Many thanks to Bob Vogler and Todd Braisted on the Yahoo RevList. A Happy New Year to all my readers. Best wishes for your good fortune and prosperity in 2014.

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