Coming back to St. Louis this evening, at sundown, and for over an
hour afterward, we follow'd the Mississippi, close by its western
bank, giving me an ampler view of the river, and with effects a little
different from any yet. In the eastern sky hung the planet Mars,
just up, and of a very clear and vivid yellow. It was a soothing and
pensive hour--the spread of the river off there in the half-light--
the glints of the down-bound steamboats plodding along--and that
yellow orb (apparently twice as large and significant as usual) above
the Illinois shore. (All along, these nights, nothing can exceed the
calm, fierce, golden, glistening domination of Mars over all the stars
in the sky.)
As we came nearer St. Louis, the night having well set in, I saw some
(to me) novel effects in the zinc smelting establishments, the tall
chimneys belching flames at the top, while inside through the openings
at the facades of the great tanks burst forth (in regular position)
hundreds of fierce tufts of a peculiar blue (or green) flame, of a
purity and intensity, like electric lights--illuminating not only the
great buildings themselves, but far and near outside, like hues of the
aurora borealis, only more vivid. (So that--remembering the Pot from
the crystal furnace--my jaunt seem'd to give me new revelations in the
color line.)
SOME WAR MEMORANDA
_Jotted Down at the Time_
I find this incident in my notes (I suppose from "chinning" in
hospital with some sick or wounded soldier who knew of it):
When Kilpatrick and his forces were cut off at Brandy station (last
of September, '63, or thereabouts,) and the bands struck up "Yankee
Doodle," there were not cannon enough in the Southern Confederacy to
keep him and them "in.
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