What were Mercy Dogs? Mercy Dogs performed many important jobs. They carried first aid supplies, located the wounded, comforted the dying, killed varmints in the trenches, served on security detail, and warned of both gas attacks and incoming artillery. For the Allies, the dogs were trained by the French and British. Many wore vests with supplies for the wounded, and some were even fitted with gas masks. One dog became famous and highly decorated: Sergeant Stubby (1916-1926). He has many books written about him.

How many dogs were used? Sources vary on how many Mercy Dogs were actually employed in WWI, but all estimates are in the thousands, with some as high as 50,000 (30,000 by the Central Powers and 20,000 by the Allies). An estimated 7000 may have been killed in the line of duty. They served along with the men who fought and also gave their lives.

I can picture these Mercy Dogs taking their jobs seriously. I had a Golden Retriever who would brave a thunderstorm to retrieve the morning paper. We had a German Shepherd who intercepted another dog charging at my husband. One of our retrievers alerted my husband to a snake in the house when we lived in Florida. And our terrier keeps varmints out of our house.

The purpose of this article wasn’t to repeat what’s out there. It was just to let readers know that the story of how dogs were utilized in World War I is a testament to just how much they are our partners in whatever we’re doing. At least one Mercy Dog will have to play a part in my sequel. Stay tuned.

There are many interesting sources on Mercy Dogs. Here are only a couple.

The National World War I Museum: https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/dogs-wwi

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_dog

Sargeant Stubby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Stubby

Here are my dogs because I know that dog lovers like to see other people’s dogs.

Below: Choco and Lina

“Hovering above the earth, an aeronaut enjoyed the isolation afforded by a modern, lighter-than-air craft, a basket suspended under a bubble of silk spun by worms and filled with hydrogen gas. The balloon allowed its occupant to become a creature of the sky, leaving behind its humble beginnings to commune with the clouds…”

I describe how the clouds part, and the town of Virden is revealed. The wind carries the balloon along railroad tracks, and readers gain a high-level view of the town’s layout. A thunderhead builds in the south, while the balloon gradually loses altitude. A train approaches, and the aeronaut begins to see the passengers. Then the scene cuts to inside the train and the passengers arriving in Virden.

Initially, I began with the aeronaut scene to give readers an understanding of the town’s layout, but the scene became much more than that. It became a metaphor for what we do when we write or read historical fiction. We’re sitting in the present, trying to view the past, but we can do so only from a thousand feet or higher unless we have personal journals that reveal the interiorities of history’s participants. For the Battle of Virden, we have newspaper accounts, summary articles, and a few pages of Alexander Bradley’s memoir. I’ve read those, studied the 1894 and 1900 Sanborn maps of the town layout, and pored over the 1900 census, but those don’t tell the whole story. The newspaper pages contain snippets of what was happening in the town, yet they remain isolated pieces of information until they are placed in context and brought together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

I began my “descent” to ground level, Virden 1898, by reading microfilm images of The Virden Reporter, and I noticed how the Local News page contained brief items like this one: “Judge and Mrs. Balfour Cowen are having their residence in Virden fixed up a little preparatory to moving here from Carlinville. Their many Virden friends will welcome them back.” After reading months of issues and discovering hard copies of a second Virden newspaper, The Virden Record, and poring over it, these pieces of information began fitting together into a picture of the town during a historic event. I came to understand who the people were and what was going on in their lives. Nell Furry married Judge Herbert Cowen [son of Balfour] at the Furry home because the Presbyterian church was being renovated. Almira Henderson married Howard T. Willson and had the wedding of the season. A woman discovered a tarantula in the bananas at Lorton’s grocery store. (Imagine how shocked an Illinois woman would be to see a tarantula crawl out of bananas!) Band concerts were held every Saturday night, and I know what was played. As September waned and October approached, hundreds of out-of-town coal miners began arriving in Virden to support the Virden miners. All of these events are facts reported in the town’s two newspapers.

What isn’t reported is what was going on in the heads and hearts of the residents. The lived experience of being in Virden, Illinois, in 1898 is the ground level, and it had to be imagined. By placing imagined people—including their hopes and fears—within this context, I wanted to touch readers’ hearts and affect a broader audience than if I had simply written a summary of what was already known.

I wrote the Battle of Virden as historical fiction so readers would experience this historical event, understand what the miners were fighting for, and perhaps gain an appreciation for similar struggles that are still being fought today. Yes, I had to invent details that I didn’t know, but as long as I kept the details consistent with what is known about Virden in 1898, they help readers imagine these lives removed from us today by more than one hundred and twenty-five years. Readers descend to ground level from the thousand-foot view, if only briefly. At the end of the novel, the aeronaut makes another appearance and rises out of 1898 and the town of Virden, Illinois, as we readers do when we turn the last page.

I just finished reading Sophronia Scott’s Wild, Beautiful, and Free, a historical fiction novel set before and during the Civil War. I’ve read history books, academic articles, and newspaper accounts of that time period, but those are not going to make me experience the life of an enslaved person. For someone like me, a white woman living in the twenty-first century, a novel like this one helps put my feet on the ground and into the skin of an enslaved mulatto woman, seeking freedom in the 1860s. Sophronia Scott accomplished that in Wild, Beautiful, and Free.

In Morning of a Crescent Moon, I hope that readers gain insight into what living in Virden, Illinois, was like in 1898, what the coal miners were fighting for, and what counted as a victory. The forces that miners resisted then remain active today. By better understanding the struggles in 1898 and how their victories were won, we can continue the fight for basic labor rights here, at ground level, in the twenty-first century.

This post is also available on my website: https://njschrock.com/2026/01/13/why-historical-fiction/

Since the publication of Morning of a Crescent Moon in January, I’ve been inundated by scam offers. I’m hoping if I document some of what I’ve experienced, maybe it will help other writers avoid these scams. They were new to me. My first novel, Incense Rising, was published in 2018, and I didn’t see anything like what I’m experiencing now. Artificial intelligence has greatly facilitated these bad actors’ scams.

The Characteristics

Not long after the novel was published, I began receiving emails outlining opportunities to promote my book. At first, some of these “opportunities” sounded really interesting, but as I dug into their validity, I realized they’re not real. Here are some of the characteristics of the scam offers I’ve been getting.

· A book club would like to feature my book. They don’t say this right away, but eventually they need to defray the cost of running the club, so I need to make a donation. They frequently have a Meetup page, but there’s not much on it.

· An editor at a well-known publisher is impressed with my book and wants to know if I have an agent. If I say I don’t, then they recommend one. The email address may be very close to that of the publisher or the agent, but it is not exact. The last one I received appeared to be from Penguin Random House, except for a hyphen in pen-quin. The Penguin Random House people confirmed the email was fraudulent. See part of their letter to me, below.

· A radio podcaster would like to interview me, but when I look up his podcasts, I don’t see that he has interviewed other authors, and his email is from a Gmail account. I asked that he verify who he was and send links to his podcasts where he interviewed authors. I received a nice reply saying he “completely understands” my concern (a phrase frequently used in scam emails). He said other nice things but did not provide links to his other author interviews.

· Most of these unsolicited emails are coming from Gmail, Yahoo, or similar accounts, but not all. As noted above, some email addresses come close to looking authentic.

· Most of the names of the “people” contacting me have a common, English-sounding name: Bennett, Stone, Martin…..

· The scammers praise my novel, say how much they enjoyed it, and frequently tell me at some length what my book is about. I suppose they want to convince me they read it, but I know what it’s about. I wrote it! The summary was likely generated by AI based on my reviews. They claim my novel needs more visibility, and they can help me with that for a fee.

How to Combat the Frauds

Ignoring these suspected scam emails doesn’t work well because they then send me a second email, asking if the first one was lost. I say I’m not interested, and then they may reply asking why, at which point I label it spam. I’m not going to help them make their scam more credible, and I have a marketing person associated with my publisher helping me.

Here is part of a letter I received from Penguin Random House when I asked for verification of a scam email. It contains links to many useful resources for writers who want to become more aware of scams.

“We understand that this is an upsetting situation. Unfortunately, we often hear from individuals, mostly self-published authors, who have been targeted by professional criminals impersonating or purporting to be literary agents, editors, and PRH employees. In addition to the information on this PRH combatting fraud page, here are some resources you might be interested in:

• An article from our website that breaks down what a legitimate publishing process looks like and provides resources: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/articles/how-can-i-get-published/

• A “Publishing/Marketing/Fake Literary Agency Scam List” from the third-party blog Writer Beware. This list is substantiated by multiple reports and complaints from writers as well as research, and documentation in Writer Beware’s possession: https://writerbeware.blog/scam-archive/

• A Writer Beware article that details how to recognize impersonation and other types of scams: https://writerbeware.blog/2024/03/15/the-impersonation-list/

• The Authors Guild’s publishing scam alert page: https://authorsguild.org/resource/publishing-scam-alerts/

• A January 2025 press release about the capture of three individuals that were charged with defrauding elderly authors of almost $44 million by convincing the victims that publishers and filmmakers wanted to turn their books into blockbusters — but only if they paid some fees first (read the full press release here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/three-indicted-and-internet-domain-seized-44-million-nationwide-book-publishing-scam

• A Hollywood Reporter article about sophisticated publishing scams targeting authors: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/ai-scams-authors-booktok-publishing-1236547192/

• A NYT article about publishing scams targeting authors: Writers Are Being Targeted by Scams. This Reporter Knows the Feeling. - The New York Times “

I hope some of my fellow authors find this information useful. I wasn’t prepared or forewarned before my novel was published in January. I’m a lot smarter about scams now.

N. J. Schrock

Author email: contact@njschrock.com

Website:

https://njschrock.com/

June 2026