BLACK POWDER, GRAY HOPE:
NEW AMERICANS

Prologue

Prologue: 1862 to 1865

     Black Powder, Gray Hope is a story of the untamed frontier before it was civilized by steamboats and railroads. It is the story of the men who used black powder in their smoothbores and their rifles. It is a story of the Dakota War of 1862, of vengeance of the warrior and the vengeance of white citizens. It is a story of a people's hope for peace during the gray days of war.
     Ultimately, it is the story of the common man: Patrick Harant, an Irish lad from Louisiana and Kelsey O'Welin, the 'red hair demon' from just west of Fort Ridgely in Minnesota. It is also the story of Ransom Purdy, a svelte rake and Anna Lee Roan, a detective who risks her life for the cause of the Union. Black Powder, Gray Hope is the story of the ordinary men and women who risked their lives to preserve the Union and the Constitution.

Book One: Vengeance

    When all around him join the Rebel Army, Patrick Harant must prove himself to his father. He is arrested for fighting on a New Orleans pier. When he refuses to volunteer for a Rebel infantry unit, he is “enlisted” by Ransom Purdy, a spy for General Grant. They are both bewitched by the charming Mrs. Anna Lee Roan, the Union spy inside Vicksburg. She helps them escape to St. Louis. Patrick, hired by Pinkerton is sent to Minnesota where the Dakota are angry.
     The frontier is not safe. On the reservation west of Fort Ridgely, Dakota women and children are starving; their men want vengeance on the whites who would re-make warriors into farmers. A feisty Irish lass, Kelsey O'Welin worked at the nearby fort; she struggled to bury her powerful distrust of men.
     She has escaped from her drunken father. She is serving a group of Dakota warriors when Dewanea puts a hand on her. The hot-tempered Kelsey whacks him with a pewter plate and knocks him on his keister. She has humiliated a warrior and acquired notoriety among the Dakota. She is now 'Sha hin Wakahnshica’ (Red Hair Demon).
    Kelsey is bringing supplies to her father when she finds a child dead near a neighbor's burning farmhouse. She climbs onto the hill and approaches her father's farm carefully. From the hill she watches while Dewanea, Tazoo and Cut Nose torture her father and steal his whiskey. Her father dies. Kelsey watches while the Dakota leave and her father's house burns. After dark she drives her buggy onto the prairie, hoping to avoid the angry Dakota.
Kelsey is captured by Waheyna, a Christian Dakota who brings her to Chaska, the chief who protects 260 white women. Many of the women are raped by angry Dakota and half-breed men. Kelsey is protected by Chaska's wife until the night before the women are rescued, when Cut Nose takes her away from Chaska's camp.
     The women are rescued. Patrick Harant, he of the drunken tirade on July 4, proves he has some value by helping the women. He later joins the 5th Minnesota Regiment in the pursuit of the Dakota warriors. Many of the warriors are arrested, tried and sentenced to be hung. The newspapers cry for vengeance. Kelsey witnesses the hanging of 38 including Waheyna and Chaska, the two men who were innocent of rape, while the crowd growls. Vengeance is served.

Book Two: A Civil War Romance

     Patrick rejoins his company, in winter camp in Tennessee. Minnesota is quiet, but wary of further attacks by the Dakota. Kelsey visits the farm where her adoptive parents were killed. She posts notice of claim to the land. Her new friend Lt. Tom Sullivan is impressed; he asks her to marry him. Two months later he asks her a second time. She does not say 'Yes.'
     Cannons rumble and sharps-shooters pick off Union attackers in front of Vicksburg. When Ransom tries to save a fellow soldier his leg is punctured by a Minie ball. The attack fails. Grant begins a siege and Patrick is injured; his foot smashed. Patrick is shipped to the Union hospital at St. Louis where he finds Union doctors want to amputate Ransom's leg. Grant achieves his victory. Vicksburg surrenders. Both Anna Lee and Kelsey travel to St. Louis where the two ladies bring water and fruit to the injured men. Kelsey helps with Patrick's rehabilitation; she worries while Ransom deteriorates. Anna Lee in her pain for Ransom leaves for Vicksburg. Patrick learns how to walk then ships himself south. Alone, Kelsey sees Ransom daily while he slowly dies in a fever.
     Patrick marches with difficulty, after losing a quarter of his right foot. After marching 800 miles through snowy Missouri, Patrick's regiment arrives in Nashville in time to hear the cannon at Franklin, a battle that demoralizes Hood's army. Four days later the day begins with fog. The Union troops advance then charge up Shy Hill and chase the Rebs into an all-out retreat.
     General Lee surrenders his army on April 10 while the 5th Minnesota is tramping dusty roads in Mississippi. When they encounter newly released prisoners, Corporal Patrick and Company B volunteer to transport the weak and sick soldiers to Vicksburg for shipment to their home states. At the tent hospital outside Vicksburg, Patrick and Kelsey learn their beloved President has been killed.
     At Anna Lee's home, Patrick finds himself in a quandary. Anna Lee, who loved him once, Adorene, the saucy 'working girl' from the French Quarter and Kelsey, the lass who distrusts men …they each have their sights set on capturing his heart. Anna Lee frees Patrick; she tells him she is married. Adorene disappears in a whirl of cotillions on the arm of a dashing Union officer.
     Kelsey and Patrick work at the hospital. They together help weak, debilitated Union soldiers load onto the Sultana. Three days later, near Memphis, the Sultana explodes under suspicious circumstances. Patrick begins to feel as if Adorene has discarded him. He feels guilty but relieved and only slightly jealous of the young dashing Lt. Cassius, the young officer with money in his pocket.
     At war's end Patrick tells Kelsey that he is going to Texas to find his family. He asks her to keep his ring but fails to ask her to put it on. Patrick leaves and Kelsey finds herself pondering her future while a full moon rises over Vicksburg.