Enter to win. This month enter to win a copy of
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon:
Women Soldiers and Patriots of the Western Frontier.
Susan Shelby Magoffin gazed around the small, white-plastered room in Santa Fe and wondered if she might die there. No one seemed sure where the Mexican army was, or how soon a battle might commence. But there was no doubt about the danger to herself and her husband now that her brother-in-law had been taken by the Mexicans as a spy. As she had since the start of her honeymoon journey, Susan recorded the day’s events in her journal.
December 1846, Tuesday 1st. News comes in very ugly today. An Englishman from Chihuahua, direct, says that the three traders, Dr. Conley, Mr. McMannus and brother James, who went on ahead to Chihuahua have been taken prisoners, the two former lodged in the calboza [jail] while Brother James is on trial for his life.
The messenger who brought the ominous news had gone, but the impact of the latest information from Chihuahua still reverberated like an alarm bell. The fate of everyone associated with James Magoffin was in the balance. What if her own dear, husband, Samuel, left her behind to ride to his brother’s aid? They had been married less than a year, and despite their strange honeymoon, she could not bear to be parted from the man she called mi alma, my soul.
She would insist on going, too, she thought. After traveling thousands of miles across wild and dangerous terrain and through the lands of unfriendly Native Americans on her prairie honeymoon, she had proved her courage to herself and her husband. She had survived the hazardous 2,000-mile-journey despite raging storms, wild beasts, hostile tribes, outlaws, and the awful, waterless desert they had traversed a few weeks before.
To learn more about Susan Shelby Magoffin and other women soldiers and patriots of the Western Frontier read She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.
