The Fort at Monument Station & Capt. John B. Conyngham by Zina Abbott

 

This post could also be sub-titled “Just when you think you’ve finished your research, you discover there is more.”

While applying my proofreading edits – not writing or self-editing –my proofreader corrected the name of one of my characters, originally spelled, Capt. Conynham. Puzzled, I went back to my only online source from the very limited online sources I found for Fort Monument. I had spelled the name the same way it was in the single article in which I found the name of the fort commander at the time of my story, Mail Order Penelope.

All right. I love research. Even though I had only 24 hours until I MUST upload my manuscript to Amazon or suffer dire consequences, I was game.

I went back online and looked up the surname as my proofreader spelled it. I came across Captain John Butler Conyngham. The article which clarified that he was the Conyngham associated with the fort did not focus on the fort or the military man in charge. It seems, while Capt. Conyngham was stationed by Monument Rocks, he and Mr. Minor discovered a prehistoric fossil. Said fossil, a type Tylosaurus proriger, was the first found in that part of western Kansas. He turned it over to Professor Louis Agassiz during the latter’s August 1868 visit to the region.

  

Later on in the article about the fossil, I found a short biography of Capt. Conyngham and a few details about Fort Monument I did not have before. In addition, I was able to capture a better image of the Monument Station that housed the fort.

Drawing by Pvt. J. Stadler, 5th Infantry (stationed at Fort Wallace)

 

I had seen this image before in a print book. I knew about the wooden above-ground building with its cook shack off to the side. This building served the stage company employees and passengers as well as being the headquarters for Fort Monument.

I knew about the two dugout buildings – such structures were common on the Kansas frontier during that era – but this was the first source that specified the two buildings were used as barracks for the company of soldiers from the 38th Infantry that were stationed there, not for the stagecoach and Army livestock and feed. Based on information about other stations on the Smoky Hill Trail, I though those structures were underground corrals and a storage barn for hay and forage. In other stations along this line, tunnels led to underground corrals and feed storage.

My book was already read and proofread, yet I got this vital detail wrong. REWRITE !

I put the infantrymen inside the dugouts with the windows. I came up with dugout corrals and feed storage caverns similar to what was described for other stations. Like some stations built close to the banks of the Smoky Hill River, in my story, the corral for livestock was dug into the riverbank. Whether this was the case, I don’t know. The details might be available out there somewhere, but I did not find them as part of my research.

Monument Rocks National Natural Landmark, Kansas ctsy Art Davis

Fort Monument was also known as Fort Pyramid because of the nearby rock formation which reminded many of the Pyramids in Egypt. It was established as a stagecoach station for the Butterfield Overland Despatch in 1865. Because of the increased attacks by the hostile Native American tribes – mostly Cheyenne, but also Arapaho and Sioux – who resented the arrival of white men settling on their buffalo hunting grounds, the Army sent military support to many stations. This was in addition to Fort Ellsworth (later Fort Harker), Fort Fletcher (later Fort Hays), and Fort Wallace on the Smoky Hill Trail in Kansas. Some stations had between five to ten soldiers assigned for protection and to provide escort. Others, like Monument, had a company or more of men assigned.

 During the three years of its existence as a military post (1865-1868), several commanding officers and their men were sent to Fort Monument. Shortly before the time of my story in October 1867, Lieutenant David Ezekiel brought to Fort Monument Company I of the 38th Infantry, one of two “colored” infantry regiments comprised of black soldiers that were formed after the close of the American Civil War. Lt. Ezekiel was replaced by Capt. John B. Conyngham as commanding officer, but Lt. Ezekiel stayed as the second in command. Once the Union Pacific Railway-Eastern Division reached the Monument Rocks area, its tracks were laid several miles to the north. Since Fort Monument was charged with protecting railroad crews and the stagecoach stopped serving Monument Station once Monument became the “End of Track,” Capt. Conyngham moved his entire command thirty-five miles to the north-northwest to what became known as the town of Monument.

The 38th Infantry had several companies also assigned to Fort Hays. The photo below of what is labeled the Hays City Overland Stage Kansas City shows an escort of members of the 38th Infantry riding on top as escort.

Black soldiers of the 38th Infantry at Hays City station riding escort

A bit about John B. Conyngham, much of it taken from the

25th Anniversary publication

of the Yale College Class of 1846 published in 1871

and from Find-a-Grave:

 

He was born on September 29, 1827, at Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.  He studied law three years at Wilkes Barre, and opened an office there.  In Dec., 1851, he removed to St. Louis to practice law. 

 

When the American Civil War broke out, he "enlisted as a private at the first call for three months' volunteers in the 8th Penn. Regiment, and was chosen 2nd Lieutenant of his company."  At the close of the three months, he re-entered the Army for three years as Major of the 52nd Pennsylvania Volunteers; was afterwards promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and then to Colonel, which office he held when mustered out with his regiment, July, 1865.

He was wounded in a night attack on the fortifications in Charleston harbor, taken prisoner, and confined a number of months in the prison camps at Charleston, Macon, and Columbia." 

He was present at the College Commencement, 1865, and soon after went to Montana.  Having returned, he "entered the regular Army with the rank of Captain in full, and the brevet of Lieutenant Colonel."  He was the commanding officer of Fort Monument between 1867 and 1868 when the fort was abandoned. Near the beginning of 1871, while stationed at Fort Clark, in Texas, he suffered from apoplexy, followed by Bright's Disease of the kidney.  He lived to reach Wilkes Barre, where he died May, 28, 1871 at the age of forty-four. He never married.

I hope you enjoy reading Mail Order Penelope which is currently on preorder and will be released this coming Friday, August 14th. In particular, I hope you enjoy how I portrayed Capt. Conyngham, Lt. Ezekiel, and fictional members of the 38th Infantry in my scenes that take place at Monument Station / Fort Monument. PLEASE CLICK HERE for the book description.

Please click on the book titles for Mail Order Roslyn and Mail Order Lorena, my other two novels I wrote as part of the Widows, Brides and Secret Babies series.

 

 Sources:

http://oceansofkansas.com/Cope1869b.html

http://www.godeke.org/History/Founders_Conyngham.htm

https://kshs.org/p/the-military-post-as-a-factor-in-the-frontier-defense-of-kansas/12525

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/fort-monument-kansas/#:~:text=Fort%20Monument%2C%20Kansas%20was%20originally%20a%20Butterfield%20stage,station%20was%20sometimes%20referred%20to%20as%20Antelope%20Station.

Trails of the Smoky Hill by Wayne C. Lee and Howard C. Raynesford; Caxton Press; Caldwell, Idaho: 2008

 

Traveling with a Nursing Baby by Zina Abbott

Traveling with a nursing baby.

Been there, done that. Sitting in a fairly private automobile with family who are used to seeing nurse the newest baby is not bad. However, even though my grandchildren think this took place in the dark ages, relatively, it was not so long ago.

How about women crossing the trail in a covered wagon? The nice thing about nursing a baby, the baby's food was easily portable. Almost all women did it, so it was no big thing to look through the dust or the rain behind or ahead of you and see a woman with her baby to her breast. Or, if a woman was particularly modest about the whole affair, she could climb in the back of the covered wagon and endure the bounce of the wooden wheels against the bumpy, rutted trail and the heat caused by the sun beating down on the canvas cover and feed her little one in privacy.

In my current book from the Widows, Brides & Secret Babies series, Mail Order Roslyn, I have a heroine who is a nursing mother. She travels by stagecoach, not in a private automobile or with the available privacy found with a family wagon in a wagon train. (Railroad travel in the coach section was not overly private, either.)

All of what I wrote regarding nursing a baby required no research on my part. Once again, I've been there, done that. Even though the "baby" of my six babies I breastfed is forty years old, I remember...

As part of the plot, Roslyn leaves her two-month-old baby behind with her cousin while she meets a prospective husband who wrote he did not want a wife who had children. Roslyn's aunt is the one who sets this marriage up, and ignores the small detail that Roslyn has a baby. The reasoning is, once her husband grows fond of her, of course, he'll allow her to send for her baby. Set in 1866, canned milk is available, Roslyn can leave little Emmy behind for a month, then send for her later. So, even though it means going through the misery of having her breasts dry up, her baby can be fed--or so she thinks. 

As soon as Roslyn Welsh closed the hotel room door behind her, she turned and flopped against it, using the hard surface to support her back. She pressed both forearms against her nipples to stop the flow of milk. She squeezed her eyes shut and bent over, willing the let-down sensation to stop. How long before my milk finally dries up? It’s already been two days. After several seconds, she stood up and brushed aside the once royal blue Zouave jacket her aunt had dyed black. She inspected the front of her shirtwaist and heaved a sigh of relief. No wet spots. The folded muslin pads she had stuffed into the front of her corset were holding. She poked the side of one breast with her forefinger. Rock hard. 

While she is in the process of meeting this man, Roslyn gets a big surprise.

          The words caught in her throat and her eyes widened as she heard the sound of a baby’s cry. Emmy? No, it could not be her baby, but her body did not know the difference. She could feel the milk in her breasts let down.

            Roslyn spun a quarter turn to face the street. Interlacing her fingers, she clasped her hands together as she brought them to her lips, hoping the movement hid her real purpose which was to press her forearms against her nipples to stop the flow of milk.

            Roslyn turned her head to the right to look in the direction from which the sound of the baby’s cries came.

            On the boardwalk the next block over, a woman dressed in black from the top of her bonnet to the bottom hem of her skirt approached with a quick walk.

            Roslyn would know that silhouette anywhere. In her arms, Penelope, five months pregnant with her own child, held an infant wrapped in a familiar-looking, white knit blanket. What are they doing here? Panic surged up within her. Penelope is going to ruin everything. Without concern for what any of the men standing in front of the hotel saw or thought, Roslyn bounded off the side of the boardwalk into the cross-street as she ran toward her cousin and daughter.

            While Roslyn was still in the middle of the road, Penelope called out to her.

            “Roslyn, you need to take your baby. Emmy needs you.”

          Roslyn felt her entire body stiffen, and a surge of anger welled up within her. She cared not a whit if people in town witnessed her face red with annoyance. As Penelope joined her and she reached for her baby, she leaned forward and hissed at her cousin. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to wait a month for me to let you know it was all right to bring her to me.”

            ... “I had to bring her, Roslyn. Emmy isn’t eating well at all, and she cries all the time. The canned milk doesn’t agree with her.”

The way I was originally taught to breastfeed, at least in the daytime when I was not lying on my side in the bed, was to unbutton my blouse or dress from the top and breastfeed with what I always called the "let it all hang out" method.

 

By about the second or third child, I learned it was easier and a lot more modest to either wear a knit shirt or unbutton the blouse from the bottom. By keeping my upper body covered, and positioning the clothing hem just above the baby's mouth on my nipple, the baby's head hid my breast from view and baby's body covered my otherwise exposed midriff.

Once again, public transportation is not a private place, but when a nursing mother is traveling with baby, and baby is hungry, baby doesn't care about mother's modesty concerns. 

Later in my book, I have Roslyn in a tense, busy situation during a short stop at a stagecoach station at the same time Emmy wants to be fed. At times like that, a mother will put the needs of her baby first, no matter what. Here's a snippet from a scene I had fun writing:

            Hugging her tight against her chest, Roslyn climbed inside the coach. The only passenger remaining there was the soldier injured at the station. His eyes widened as Roslyn untied her fabric belt and tugged up the tail of her shirt. “Soldier, if you’ve never seen a woman nurse a baby before, you’re about to get an education. This child can’t wait any longer.” She reached beneath the shirt and loosened the camisole, then she positioned Emmy so she could latch on. She knew Emmy’s head and body blocked her breast so she was not exposed, but there was no disguising the nasal nursing noises.

Ah, yes, the nasal, snorting, gasping nursing noises. Many a nursing mother intent upon being discreet, will  position her clothing to keep herself covered and toss a blanket over her shoulder as if keeping the light out of a sleeping baby's eyes.  She may think she is disguising that she is breastfeeding the baby. Then, everyone around her stops talking. At that point, the noises a baby makes when it is nursing fills the room. It becomes very obvious to everyone what is going on. (Like I said--been there, done that.)

Back in the day, breastfeeding a child was the best option for keeping a baby alive and healthy. If a woman was unable (or unwilling) to breastfeed her own, she needed to find a wet nurse who could feed her child for her. Goat's milk or the milk of other animals might be an alternative. (Cow's milk was too hard for most younger babies to digest well).

Regardless of the practical and health aspects of nursing a baby, after having done so with my own six, I know there are other benefits. The closeness and bonding that takes place is difficult to duplicate, and takes effort on the part of those who are unable or decide not to breastfeed their own. Just be grateful that, if you choose to travel with a nursing baby, it is so much easier today than it was in the past.

Mail Order Roslyn is now available for purchase as an ebook on Amazon. I will be working on the print versions of my three most recent books starting the end of this week. 

(Speaking of previous books, does anyone recognize my hero named Elam Stewart in Mail Order Roslyn? He was a minor character in my previous book, Hannah's Handkerchief. It was one of those cases where I developed a character out of the blue in order to flesh out a scene, and I fell in love with him. He needed his own happily ever after.)

To find the book description and purchase link for Mail Order Roslyn, PLEASE CLICK HERE.