As I’ve written before, I plan to set my next historical novel in Oregon in 1864. I’ve had the idea for this next book since I began writing Lead Me Home, which I first drafted in 2008 (it wasn’t published until 2015). Soon, it will be time to start writing that next book in the series. But not yet.
I’ve spent time over the last several months researching, and the plot is beginning to develop in my head. I am fleshing out my earlier idea for the book—that kernel only gave me a few pivotal scenes. I’ve been making notes about my characters and some possible turning points in the book. Still, I have a lot more to do before I will be ready to write.
The protagonist in this book will be a sixteen-year-old boy. I want him to join a military unit in Oregon during the Civil War. At this point, I’m leaning toward having him join the Owyhee Expedition led by Lieutenant Colonel C. S. Drew, of the First Oregon Cavalry. Why? Because I’ve found a very detailed report on that expedition authored by Lt. Col. Drew, which shows where the expedition traveled day by day during 1864. Using that report to show my characters’ movements will give me the verisimilitude I seek in writing historical fiction.
Oregon was far removed from the Civil War geographically, but the events of the War impacted Oregonians nonetheless. But Oregon—a state by 1864—was still the frontier, and parts of it were unexplored. The purpose of the Owyhee Expedition was to provide reconnaissance of Eastern Oregon. Drew was supposed to evaluate relations between whites and Native Americans in an unsurveyed portion of Oregon and recommend whether the Army should staff additional outposts to protect immigrants.
Lt. Col. Drew led his forces from Fort Klamath around Lake Klamath, through the Rogue River Valley, south to the Sierra Nevadas, and east along the Snake River to Fort Boise. They left Fort Klamath in late June 1864 and returned there in mid-October.
Lt. Col. Drew reported in detail on the terrain, flora, and fauna they encountered. I know enough about `the country around Klamath Lake to visualize his descriptions. Here is what he said about the territory in the first part of their journey:
“The country between Fort Klamath and the ford of Williamson’s river is covered with a fine forest of yellow and sugar pine with now and then a white or red fir, and occasionally a good sized cedar. Cottonwood, or rather aspen, is frequent around the glades and along the smaller streams. There are also small forests and thickets of a species of pine having as yet no popular name, and are seemingly peculiar to the Cascade Mountains. Fort Klamath is built in a beautiful grove of them, and they cover the summit of the Cascade Mountains along the northern base of Mount McLaughlin where the road crosses between Fort Klamath and Jacksonville.”
https://ia800906.us.archive.org/9/items/officialreportof00unitrich/officialreportof00unitrich.pdf
(Mount McLaughlin is visible from Lake o’ the Woods, which I visited as a small child.)
Detailed contemporary descriptions such as these make writing historical fiction much easier.
The report concludes with Drew’s recommendations on where future military forts should be located, as well as on better routes for future emigrants to Oregon. The Owyhee Expedition found mountain passes that cut off approximately 300 miles from the previous southern route into Oregon.
I’m not sure yet that the timeline of the Owyhee Expedition will work with my plot, but I think I can fit my fictional incidents into the facts of Drew’s journey. I may have to find reasons for my protagonist to join the expedition late or leave it early, but I will try to develop his character arc through what he experiences in the military with Lt. Col. Drew.
When has a written description written long ago caught your fancy, whether it was in a factual or fictional book?
