Patriots – Salina B Baker

Interview With The Archangel

Today, we are thrilled to introduce someone whom we have been trying to speak to for quite some time, Archangel Colm Bohannon. It is an unprecedented occasion to meet an archangel here on Earth and one who fought in the American Revolution. To soothe his impatience, we have provided rum and agreed to refrain from asking him about his youngest archangel brother, Lucifer.

Me: Hello, Mr. Bohannon. Thank you for joining us today.

Colm: I don’t understand the human purpose of apologies or gratitude, so get on with it.

Me: Please, oh, I guess you don’t understand the purpose of polite requests either. What is that silver and green light surrounding you?

Colm: The green light is the color of my angelic spirit. All angels have a spiritual color through which we see one another. The silver light is our halo.

Me: Why are you possessing a human vessel?

Colm: I will tell you that story when it is time.

Me: Alright, then tell us about your celestial family.

Colm: (Drinks rum). Must I?

Me:

Colm: (Heaves a sigh). My father, God, and my archangel brothers see me as an abomination, but if you insist. I am the fifth archangel of seven. My celestial name is Sariel. My four older brothers are Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel. My two younger brothers are Ezekiel and Lucifer. However, I am a brother to all angels who our father created.

Me: Why did God create the archangels?

Colm: We were created to be the most powerful beings in the universe besides our father. We each had certain divinities that changed over time as our heavenly orientations changed. When God created the children of man, we were tasked with being preceptors and beholders of those things which mankind does not understand.

(Drinks more rum) I was once the archangel of Divine Visions. That was at a time when the children of man were unaware of their creator. It was my task to make them aware. I had no idea how to conjure divine visions. It had never been done before. This was thousands and thousands of years before what the children of man consider The Calling of Abraham. I had no guidance and no example and in my attempt, my power killed many of them before I realized what was happening.

Me: But there is more isn’t there?

Colm: (Flutters his wings) Later, I was considered the angel of death, because at one time, I escorted human souls to Heaven after they died. That was before Lucifer fell, and the archangels became God’s warriors against Hell’s demons. After Lucifer fell and God created reapers, my divinity changed. I escorted souls to their egress when the body died, summoned reapers, and told them where God wanted them to take souls instead of doing it myself. God assigned a brotherhood of eight angels to me so I could teach them the same. Then, I was entrusted to shepherd the Grigori angels, the Watchers Angels, but they learned human lust, acted on that lust, and I did nothing to stop them because I didn’t know by what means, short of destroying them.

Me: Who are the angels who belong to your brotherhood?

Colm: Their human vessels’ names are Fergus Driscoll, Seamus Cullen, Brandon O’Flynn, Ian Keogh, Liam Kavanagh, Michael Bohannon, and Patrick Cullen.

Me: Why does your father and older brothers see you as an abomination?

Colm: It is a long story that began millenniums ago. Three of my brotherhood, Ian, Michael, and Seamus learned lust from the Grigori angels and created what was forbidden— the Nephilim, the children of human women and angels. The rest of us tried to stop them. We were all found guilty and banished from Heaven.

Me: You were all willing to accept punishment?

Colm: Aye. We’re a brotherhood who love each other.

Me: Where did you go after you were banished?

Colm: In his anger over what we had done, God created demons from his wrath to kill us. He also summoned the Flood of Noah to kill the Nephilim living with their mothers on Earth.

Me: Oh my. Is that when you came here?

Colm: (Flashes his eyes) No. We raced through the universe in a desperate attempt to elude our executioners. I tried to protect my brotherhood because I was the only one of us with the power to destroy not only a demon, but the demons’ leader.

Me: Did I just see silver light flash in your eyes?

Colm: Aye. It’s my way of tempering you.

Me: Was I out of line with my questioning?

Colm: Not yet. It was just a warning. All the archangels were created with the ability just as we were endowed with the ability to destroy using our golden radiance that is a part of our spirit.

Me: Thank you for…uh…I have been dually warned. May I ask about your journey to Earth?

Colm: A company of eight Irish men died fighting the Normans in Wexford, Ireland on the night of May 1, 1169. They were defending their cog, the LE ‘Eithne. They drown when it sank. We took their human vessels to confuse the demons and give us time to rest.

Me: Therefore, you don’t possess a living human.

Colm: Angels can’t possess the living. Our spiritual power and immortality is too great for them to contain.

Me: Did the ruse work?

Colm: By 1314, the demons’ leader realized what we had done. He and his army of demonic spirits went to Scotland to the scene of the Battle of Bannockburn where the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, clashed with the English king, Edward II. There were many human vessels to be had as the soldiers died on the battlefield. The demon leader possessed the body of an English knight, Sir Henry de Bohun, a man Robert the Bruce killed in the battle. Wearing their new vessels, Henry and his army continued their ruthless pursuit. By 1575, we were tiring again.

Me: I noticed that one of your angels has the same last name as you—Bohannon.

Colm: The company of dead Irish men were led by the man Colm Bohannon. Michael was Colm’s little brother. The same for Seamus Cullen. He also had a little brother among the dead, Patrick Cullen. The human link between us and them still remains. It is our palimpsests, shadows of memories that belonged to the souls of our human vessels showing through to the present. They can be frightening and impossible to control. Fergus and Ian, however, don’t possess a palimpsest.

Me: Where did you go to rest in 1575?

Colm: We took a ship from England to Virginia in America. We found sanctuary in a place over the Appalachian Mountains that was later called Burkes Garden. We were there for two hundred years before we began to suspect that the demons were in Boston, Massachusetts.

Me: May I see your wings?

Colm: (Rises slowly and unfurls his imperial silver wings that touch the floor, the ceiling, and sweep over my face and body. Silver crystals rain down from them like glittering hail and gather on the floor and against the walls.)

Me: (I feel my breath leave my body and restrain my urge to fall to my knees in reverence.)

Colm: (Furls his wings into a volute and they disappear.)

Me: (I’ve forgotten my next question.) Oh yes. How did you begin fighting for the Patriots in the American Revolution?

Colm: We suspected that the demon leader had possessed a general in the British army. We went to Boston to warn the Sons of Liberty—John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren of the possibility. We felt it our duty to protect them if that was the case especially if war broke out between the colonies and Great Britain. Our suspicions were correct. The demon was possessing General Henry Hereford who arrived in Boston from London soon after we did in January 1775. War broke out four months later in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

Me: Tell me about some of your human friends.

Colm: We call them the children of man, by the way as we are called the sons of God. Jeremiah Killam is our closest friend who we met in Burkes Garden when he was only five years old. Dr. Joseph Warren, a leading Son of Liberty, taught me what it meant to love a child of man unconditionally. What happened to him and my failure to protect him and stop it is my greatest shame. Of course, there is also Abe Rowlinson who was among the patriots firing on the British when they were retreating from Concord to Boston.

Me: I have been told you had General George Washington’s ear. Is this true?

Colm: I don’t know if I had his ear. He and I became very close and constantly conferred during the war.

Me: Did you or some of your angels hold rank in the Continental Army?

Colm: I refused rank, but Fergus Driscoll achieved the rank of major general. Brandon O’Flynn rose to a colonel in the artillery corps under General Henry Knox, and Ian Keogh was commissioned a lieutenant, also under Knox.

Me: Were the children of man afraid of you at first?

Colm: Yes and no. They had never seen angels on Earth. Many of them mistook me for God. Later, as the war wore on and they became used to our presence, we were considered the gift of Providence to the American cause for independence.

Me: Tell us more about the angels in your brotherhood and their role in their Heavenly duties and the war itself.

Colm: They are soothers and beholders. They fulfilled that divinity throughout the war. The rest of our time with the children of man, and the hardships we endured as angels unaccustomed to the noise of human society and emotions, is written. You will have to read the narrative in the series of books called Angels and Patriots. There you will find the words that describe our time among you and the lessons we learned from you.

Me: One last question. How did you elude the demons?

Colm: You will have to read the books, but I will tell you that demons were not the only hounds God unleashed upon us.

Me: Thank you for your time today. Perhaps one day you will learn the purpose of gratitude.

Colm: I don’t think so. However, there is one last thing to consider. Human emotions can change everything. Angelic emotions can destroy the world.

Rebels, Heroes, Patriots, and Legends. The multiple award winning Angels and Patriots saga is the mutual pursuit of liberty, the meaning of loyalty, and the virtue of the ultimate sacrifice during the American Revolution.

- Angels and Patriots Book One: Sons of Liberty, Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill
- Angels and Patriots Book Two: The Cause of 1776
- Angels and Patriots Book Three: The Year of the Hangman
- Angels and Patriots Book Four: The Hand of Providence and The Brotherhood’s Sword

*Amazon US: Series Available in paperback, Kindle eBook or Kindle Unlimited. Angels & Patriots Book Series

*Amazon UK: Series Available in paperback, Kindle eBook or Kindle Unlimited. Angels & Patriots Book Series

Independent Press Award, Historical Fiction, Winner
Independent Press Award, Military Fiction, Distinguished Favorite
Shelf UnBound Best Indie Book, Notable
National Indie Excellence® Awards, Military Fiction, Finalist
American Fiction Awards, Fantasy and Military Fiction, Finalist
New York City Big Book Awards, Military Fiction, Winner
New York City Big Book Awards, Historical Fiction, Distinguished Favorite

2019 New York City Big Book Awards, Military Fiction, Winner
2019 Shelf Unbound, Top 100 Notable Indie Book
2020 Independent Press Award, Military Fiction, Winner
2021 American Fiction Awards, Historical Fantasy, Finalist

2020 Shelf Unbound Top 100 Notable Indie
2021 Independent Press Award, Military Fiction, Distinguished Favorite

Angels and Patriots Book One has been honored!

I’m thrilled to share that my historical fantasy novel Angels and Patriots Book One has won it’s seventh and eighth award! New York City Big Book Awards honored my novel as winner of the Military Fiction category and distinguished favorite in the Historical Fiction category.

Military Fiction

Historical Fiction

Military Fiction Historical Fiction

I couldn’t have achieved this accomplishment without the editing skills, graphic design, and guidance from the ladies at Author’s Assistant. Thank you.

Nor could I have accomplished this without the incredible patience of my husband, John. He spent countless days and weeks alone while I conducted extensive research on the events that ignited and occurred during the first days of the Revolutionary War, patriots, loyalists, politics, colonial life, Founding Fathers and Mothers, the British army, and religious references to the fallen angels who created the forbidden Nephilim, not to mention the hundreds of hours it took to write the novel.

John patiently allowed me to take him to Boston and Roxbury for a seven day pilgrimage honoring the life of patriot, Son of Liberty, and Founding Father, Dr. Joseph Warren; who is an important character. Without Joseph’s courage, fortitude, and popularity, the Revolutionary War may never have begun. Among Joseph’s many accomplishments, he is the young physician who sent Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride to warn the Massachusetts countryside that the British were on the move from Boston.

Lastly, I would like to thank Dr. Samuel Forman, author of the biography Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty, for sharing his expertise and offering his support for my historical research on Warren while I wrote this book.

Thank you for allowing me to share this humbling and exciting announcement!

Angels & Patriots – The series is available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle eBook. The fourth and final book will be released early 2022. Happy reading!

Angels & Patriots : The Series

6 Favorite Sons of Liberty Quotes

#6 “There is not a king in Europe that would not look like a valet de chambre by his side.” ~~Benjamin Rush, referring to George Washington, 1776

#5 “The colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black.” ~~James Otis, Rights of the British Colonies, 1764

#4 “Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent?” ~~Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists, 1772

#3 “When liberty is the prize who would shun the warfare? Who would stoop to waste a coward thought on life?” ~~Joseph Warren, Letter to Patriots in Connecticut 1774

#2 “Give me liberty, or give me death!” ~~Patrick Henry in a speech to the Second Virginia Convention, 1775

#1 “There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head!” ~~John Hancock, after signing the Declaration of Independence, 1776

Dr. Joseph Warren is an important character in my award-winning historical fantasy novel Angels & Patriots Book One. Sons of Liberty, Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill Available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle eBook.

Angels & Patriots Book One

Lexington and Concord: The Last Days Leading up to a Revolution, Part 2

The violences committed by those who have taken up arms in Massachusetts Bay have appeared to me as the acts of a rude Rabble without plan, without concert, & without conduct, and therefore I think that smaller Force now, if put to the Test, would be able to encounter them with greater probability of Success…..

….In this view of the situation of the King’s affairs, it is the opinion of the King’s servants, in which his Majesty concurs, that the essential step to be taken toward reestablishing government would be to arrest and imprison the principle actors and abettors in the Provincial Congress (whose proceedings appear in every light to be acts of treason….

~~Lord Dartmouth to General Thomas Gage, about April 16, 1775

The Earl of Dartmouth
Secretary of State for the Colonies 1772 – 1775

This was part of Lord Dartmouth’s long awaited, cross-Atlantic response to General Gage’s admonishments, which he had written to Lord Dartmouth in late January 1775, on how to handle the rebellious acts of the colonists. Those defiant acts were seemingly endless: the illegal proceedings of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the Continental Congress, the Suffolk Resolves, smuggling, seizures of powder and munitions, and threats to march into Boston “like locusts and rid the town of every soldier.” (Philbrick quoting Rev. John Andrews, pg 71)

General Thomas Gage
Royal Governor of Massachusetts 1774 – 1775

General Gage did not consider himself a royalist, but part of his advice to Dartmouth was something he believed the King wanted to hear:

“It’s the opinion of most People, if a respectable Force is seen in the Field, the most obnoxious of the Leaders seized, and a Pardon proclaimed for all other’s, that Government will come off Victorious, and with less Opposition than was expected a few Months ago.”

By the time Lord Dartmouth’s lengthy letter of advice reached Thomas Gage, tempers among the British ministry, the loyalists, and the patriots in Massachusetts had simmered down. In fact at this point, there was growing discord among the patriots’ own ranks, rooted in a misguided optimism that once King George III saw for himself that his ministers had misled him, the king would withdrawal his troops and the demand for unfair taxes would withdraw with them, leaving New England free. That optimism was founded in the colonists’ previous experiences with protests and the king’s withdrawal of the transgressions.

If Gage had chosen to do nothing in response to Dartmouth’s letter that spring, the patriots may have had a difficult time maintaining a united front. Ironically, Dartmouth’s letter, based on information and instructions months old, arrived around the same time Gage was receiving valuable information from his British spies. Those things came together to lead Gage to make a series of decisions that would change the course of history.

Just as ironically, one of Thomas Gage’s spies was a trusted colleague among the members of the Sons of Liberty and the Provincial Congress: Dr. Benjamin Church.

Dr. Benjamin Church

When it came to rebel secrets and plotting; only Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Joseph Warren were more involved than Benjamin Church. But Benjamin had an expensive mistress, and spying brought the ready cash he needed to please her. He had no qualms about betraying his fellow patriots in exchange for the means to pay for the treasures that lay between the legs of his mistress, Phoebe Yates.

Church, among other spies, assured Gage there was a stockpile of provincial armaments located in Concord. Instead of taking Dartmouth’s advice to arrest the leaders of the Provincial Congress, Thomas Gage focused on securing and destroying the rebel military stores in Concord.

Sources:

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Bunker Hill A City, A Siege, A Revolution New York: Penguin Books, 2013. Print.

Borneman, Walter R. American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2014. Print.

Lexington and Concord: The Last Days Leading up to a Revolution

On April 11, 1775, five days before Lord Dartmouth’s long awaited orders on how to deal with the rebels reached General Thomas Gage via the HMS Falcon, the general’s clandestine patriot informer noted, “A sudden blow struck now or immediately upon the arrival of reinforcements from England would cripple all the rebels’ plans.”

But despite this warning, the rebels already had plans.

The members of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and their president, John Hancock, feared that the sudden rapid decay between England and America would thrust them into war. All those in attendance, including Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, recognized the portent and the need for preparedness.

The Committee of Safety put a military command structure in place, incorporating existing militia companies and regiments, and their officers. They promoted six men, of various military abilities, to generals, and tasked them with tightening the local militias in Cambridge and Watertown and Roxbury into a well-trained fighting force.

John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Joseph Warren had a rebel intelligence network of tradesmen and skilled workers who frequented the Green Dragon and other Boston taverns. These members of the Sons of Liberty noted British troop movements, ship arrivals and departures, and anything out of the ordinary.

On April 7, the rebels observed longboats being moored under the sterns of British men-of-war in Boston harbor for ready access and concluded that an attack somewhere was imminent. The next day, Paul Revere saddled up to carry a message of alarm to Concord given the stockpiles of munitions and supplies located there, and to the the Committee of Safety of the Provincial Congress, which was now adjourned in Concord.

Joseph Warren did not attend the Committee of Safety sessions held in Concord after April 8. The committee had already laid plans for a watch and couriers to alarm the countryside of suspicious British army movement, and he was well-versed in those plans.

By this time, it was obvious to both John Hancock and Samuel Adams that things had deteriorated with the British to the point that it was not safe for them to return to Boston before setting out for Philadelphia and the Second Continental Congress scheduled to convene on May 10.

John managed to get word to his aunt, Lydia Hancock, his fiancee, Dorothy Quincy, and his young clerk, John Howell, to leave Boston and refugee to Reverend Jonas Clarke’s house in Lexington. John was very familiar with the Clarke house. It was from that house that he had been spirited away, as a seven-year-old boy, by his uncle and aunt, Thomas and Lydia Hancock, to be raised in the world of Boston business.

Samuel’s wife, Betsy, left their house on Purchase Street in Boston and went to stay in the home of her father in Cambridge. Samuel’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Hannah, his child with his deceased wife, Elizabeth, joined Betsy in Cambridge.

During this time, the widowed Dr. Joseph Warren was making arrangements to refugee his children and their nanny, Mercy Scollay, out of Boston. It is unclear exactly what those arrangements were and whether their destination was Roxbury or Worcester. (His children and Mercy Scollay did eventually refugee to Worcester to the home of Joseph’s colleague Dr. Elijah Dix).

In the meantime, Joseph continued to tend to his patients in Boston, but his friends were concerned for his safety. The young handsome doctor was well-known and very recognizable.

Sources:

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Bunker Hill A City, A Siege, A Revolution New York: Penguin Books, 2013. Print.

Borneman, Walter R. American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2014. Print.

Forman, Samuel A. Dr. Joseph Warren The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty Gretna, Pelican Publishing, Inc, 2012. Print.

Dr. Joseph Warren is an important character in my novel Angels & Patriots Book One. Buy it today on Amazon in paperback or Kindle eBook. Angels & Patriots Book One

10 Interesting Facts About the Sons of Liberty and other American Patriots

John Hancock was raised by his uncle and aunt, Thomas and Lydia Hancock, after his father died when John was a boy of seven.

John Adams was the defense lawyer for the British soldiers who were put on trial for the Boston Massacre. The soldiers were acquitted.

Dr. Joseph Warren became the situational leader of the patriotic cause. He dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes to spread the alarm that the British were on the move the night of April 18, 1775.

Samuel Adams was the leader of the early American rebellion. He was uninterested in money. He failed as a tax collector and neglected his father’s brewery.

Paul Revere rode to spread the alarm and deliver news for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress throughout New England on many, many occasions other than the night of April 18, 1775.

Dr. Benjamin Church, a trusted compatriot of the Sons of Liberty, was a spy for British General Thomas Gage.

Benedict Arnold donated $500 to the education of Dr. Joseph Warren’s children after Warren died at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Israel Putnam was the leader of the Connecticut branch of the Sons of Liberty.

Dr. Samuel Prescott was the man who carried the alarm to Concord that the British were on the move, after Paul Revere and William Dawes were detained by a British patrol in the early morning hours of April 19, 1775.

Abigail Adams urged her husband, John, to take women’s rights into consideration if and when the colonies gained independence. “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment [promote] a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”