And Next?

Post (C) Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

Image (C) Doris McCraw

As I ponder what I am going to write in this monthly post, my mind runs through all the research and reading I have been doing. I just finished the Patrick K. O'Donnell book: "The Unvanquished" and have Mosby's Rangers and Jessie Scouts' exploits during the Civil War and beyond swirling around in my mind. 

Add that to the research on the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, an offshoot of the Spanish-American War, for another story I'm working on, and my mind is swirling with reading about the violent history of our country. 

To balance this history, I'm continuing to work on early Women Doctors before 1900 and have added women artists and mountaineers in the West during that same period. It does provide a good balance. I confess that when studying and sharing history, I aim for balance. It is not easy to share history in a way that is engaging while keeping moral and modern sentiment out of the equation. No matter how hard I try, the information is still filtered through my life experiences. 

Photo (C) Doris McCraw

There is also a paper on the statuary, mausoleums, and headstones in Evergreen Cemetery, all of which seem to tie together in my mind.

When we read a book, fiction or non-fiction, we get out of it what we see through our own personal filters. To me, that is why the stories we share as writers are important. We never know when a sentence we've written will make a difference in someone's life. For that reason alone, we need to keep sharing our stories. The reader who needs to read what we've written will find it one way or another. This I do believe, for I've seen it happen, even if the author has passed on.

For those who may wonder, I'm getting ready to read "Man on Fire" about Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a mentor to Helen (Hunt) Jackson, Emily Dickinson, and commander of an all-Black unit in the American Civil War, among other activities. 

Until Next Time - Keep Telling Your Stories

Doris

On This Day in the Old West: February 14

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today, let’s talk Old West technology. In 1837, Samuel Morse filed for a US patent for his electrical telegraph line and in 1838, he sent his first public demonstration of the device over two miles of line in New Jersey. From there, the telegraph spread out across the East Coast, taking decades to become indispensable to Americans. It was the 1850s, however, before the Wild West was connected to the rest of the country. California began using telegraph lines before this date, but the first time the West was hooked up to the East was on Valentine’s Day, 1854, when Marshall, Texas was connected to the Louisiana line.

The Texas and Red River Company opened its first office on that day, offering patrons connections with New Orleans via Shreveport and with Alexandria, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi. Lines were strung treetop to treetop, and in many instances, telegraph operators closed their office and rode along the lines to make repairs when the wind swaying the branches broke the wires. Later that year, Houston, Galveston, and other Texas towns were literally brought online. By 1870, there was an estimated 1,500 miles of telegraph line in Texas. Expansion was rapid up to 1890 as the transcontinental railroads laid wire across the state. By 1943, the Western Union Telegraph Company, which began operating in Texas in 1866, was the only telegraph company still operating in that state. They closed the Marshall telegraph office—the oldest in Texas--in1972.

But how does a telegraph work? Let’s talk science. A telegraph transmits electrical signals from a battery through its wires, from a transmitter to a receiver. The wires form a series circuit, where all components are connected end-to-end to form a single path for current flow. The knob on the telegraph key acts as a switch. When the switch is pushed down, it makes contact with the base and closes the circuit. Electrical current can then flow to the receiver. When the knob is released, it opens the switch and breaks the circuit. The receiver contains an electromagnet. When that receives a pulse of electricity, it moves an armature  that makes a click or that is connected to an ink roller. The ink roller marks a strip of paper.

These marks are not in English, however, or any other human language. They are in Morse Code, named after its inventor, Samuel Morse. The letters and numbers in this code are represented by combinations of long and short signals of sound (or you can transmit the code with light flashes as well). The short sounds and flashes are called dots, and the longer ones are dashes. The more commonly used letters are given the shorter patterns. For example, ‘E’ is the most commonly used letter in the alphabet, so its sound is one dot. The letter ‘J,” one used less often, is coded as dot dash dash dash (. - - - ). Telegraph operators became so skilled at deciphering this code that the better ones could translate 45 words per minute!

Your characters would certainly have communicated via the telegraph, one way or another. Perhaps they themselves sent or received a message, or perhaps they read a newspaper whose articles were supplied by a telegraph. Just be mindful of the dates for the Old West towns and territories to be hooked up to this system.

In case you should need it for your manuscript, here is the Morse code, with dots represented by a full stop and dashes by a hyphen.

A . -                          J . - - -                     S . . .                        2 . . - - -

B - . . .                    K - . -                       T -                              3 . . . - -

C - . - .                    L . - . .                     U . . -                       4. . . . . –

D - . .                       M - -                         V . . . -                     5. . . . . .

E .                              N - .                          W . – -                     6 - . . . . 

‘F . . - .                   O - - -                      X - . . -                    7. - - . . .

G - - .                      P . - - .                    Y - . - -                    8 - - - . .

H . . . .                    Q - - . -                   Z - - . .                     9 - - - - .

I . .                             R . - .                       1 . - - - -                 0 - - - - -

J.E.S. Hays
www.jeshays.com
www.facebook.com/JESHaysBooks