As I research more about my ancestors serving the flag and nation during the Great Rebellion, after the Rebels were utterly crushed in the Battle of Nashville in December 1864, Missouri was safe from attack by Arkansawers and those boys could be sent West to safeguard families on the Bozeman Trail, from the merciless Indian savages.
The Powder River Expedition of 1865. The History of the Controversial Campaign Against Native Americans in the Montana and Dakota Territo — Charles River Editors — In response to Sioux raids along the Bozeman Trail, the United States Army closed the trail in 1865 to mount the Powder River...
skokielibrary.bibliocommons.com
They equipped the elite troopers of the 12th Volunteer United States Missouri Cavalry with the very best a wealthy nation could offer. You read about them carving pipes from sweet briar root, chewing on dark fired twists from Kentucky, and sacks of the best Virginia bright leaf from the Old Belt.
And when they ran out, they wrote of smoking sage grass.
The smoking tobacco they used was good for cigarette or pipe.
A half a century passed before Prince Albert revolutionized selling tobacco that was moistened and mostly artificially flavored white burley in pocket cans, what we call codger blends today.
To smoke the pure, original pipe tobaccos, open the plastic bag and crush the ribbons of tobacco after they’ve dried, to a powder that those troopers kept in their saddlebags in cotton muslin sacks.
It’s good enough to fortify you to mount up and ride towards a valley full of Indians thicker than fiddlers in hell.
Xxxxx
On Friday, September 8, 1865, Colonel Cole's and Lieutenant Colonel Walker's column's were marching south up the Powder River in present-day
Powder River County, Montana. Unbeknownst to them, a village of over 3,000
Cheyenne,
Sioux, and
Arapaho, containing approximately 1000 lodges was camped less than ten miles away. Learning of the soldiers' approach, the warriors, not wanting their village to be attacked, struck the army column first. The soldiers' vanguard of about 25 men from the
16th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry under Second Lieutenant Charles Ballance of Company F was marching about a quarter of a mile ahead of the main column. The warriors attacked Ballance's small party, and Private William P. Long of Company E was killed and Corporal John Price of Company G was wounded. Lieutenant Ballance sent one of his men back to Walker, who was now viewing the action unfold from a butte a mile to the rear. Walker sent a courier back to inform Colonel Cole of the attack. At the time, Cole was about two miles behind Walker, overseeing the crossing of his wagon train over the Powder River. In his words, Cole ordered the train,
"out of the timber and corralled", and the
12th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry "to skirmish through the woods along the river bank to drive out a body of Indians who were posted in the woods". A German immigrant, First Lieutenant Charles H. Springer, of Company B, 12th Missouri Cavalry, said that this took place at about 1:00 p.m. Springer, who was with the 12th Missouri clearing out the woods, described the scene in front of the command:
"The whole bottom and hills in advance were covered full of Indians, or to use a soldiers expression, they were thicker than fiddlers in hell".
en.m.wikipedia.org
Xxxx
There wasn’t any propylene glycol and casings and flavorings at Broadus!.
For the last twenty five years, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen has raised our children, managed my law office, greeted my clients, hired my assistants and taken excellent care of me.
Now I’m taking care of her, in our retirement.
If she’s better, I know where we’ll be on September 8, 2025.
The Sons of the Confederacy get all the ink and glory.
We are the sons of the soldiers that won the war, liberated the slaves, and forged the peace that followed.
suvcw.org
