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Updated: June 21, 2025
I hope that history will deal kindly with him and that, since he was a worthy and strenuous patriot, he will not live merely as an object of execration and ridicule. In August, 1863, my too brief term of service having expired, I came home to the Connecticut Valley and resumed my pulpit, which I had left for a vacation and powder-smoke.
Those who had banked on the big issue wherein Breckenbridge would smell the other man's powder-smoke were disappointed. And there were some among them who shook their heads when the young fellow's name was mentioned, saying, as they had said in the beginning: "Wait till the show-down comes; then we'll see how he stacks up." But Sheriff Johnny Behan was open in his rejoicings.
It did indeed, he informs us, resemble the dissolution of Nature: "For all fell dark too;" a general element of sulphurous powder-smoke, streaked with dull blazes; and death and destruction very nigh. What will become of poor pacific mortals hereabouts?
Border women, they, who well knew the uses of a rifle. A dummy cannon, of painted wood, had been mounted upon the flat roof of the commandant's quarters. But the Indian soon saw that it did not awaken. They laughed and jeered, and grew bolder. Within the fort all was a reek of powder-smoke; the stout pickets quivered to the pelting balls every loop-hole was a target.
The village of Pastrengo has given its name to the day. It was a day of intense heat coming after heavy rains. The arid soil steamed; the white powder-smoke curled in long horizontal columns across the hazy ring of the fight. Seen from a distance it was like a huge downy ball, kicked this way and that between the cypresses by invisible giants.
What is it about the rhythmic stride of many men down a dusty road that grips you by the throat and makes your lungs feel like overcharged balloons? I felt something like the maddening, irritating tang of powder-smoke in my throat. Trumpet cries that I had never heard, yet somehow dimly remembered, wakened in the night about us far and faint, but haughty with command.
The ports were all fast, but leaked, and what little air came in descended through the scuttle, so the place still reeked with acrid powder-smoke that bit the throat and eyes. The deck was strewn with panniers and cups, that clattered to and fro with the motion of the ship.
The men were marching at a quick step, carrying their guns, cartridge-boxes, haversacks, canteens, and blanket-rolls. I saw that they had not been in the fight, for there was no powder-smoke on their faces. "What regiment is this?" I asked of a young sergeant marching on the flank. Back came the answer in a quick, cheery tone, "The 36th Indiana, the advance guard of Buell's army."
But though the Indians could not get in, they themselves were out-numbered and could not get out; could not even get to the spring, and what with the thirst from sun and powder-smoke they at last had drained their canteens. Doubtless the Indians were counting on this; but they had not reckoned the nerve of the men behind the walls. Jim Bowie was the commander there. He figured the situation over.
He no longer hesitated, or lost any time in getting leave to report himself to the commander of the battery. "What can you do?" was the hurried question put to him, as he stood in the thick powder-smoke, calmly asking for work. Just then, a gunner was taken off his feet by a cannon-ball. "I can take this fellow's place, sir," said the old man, grimly. "Take it!" replied the officer.
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