Ray Mulesky, of Evansville, Indiana, wasn’t planning to write a book about the Texas Hill Country. In fact, his early objective was simply to research the history of his wife’s great great-grandfather, who had Thunder From A Clear Sky enlisted in the Union Army in 1862.

He soon found that there had been a flood of new volunteers in Indiana that year, and started asking, "Why?" The reason was Adam Rankin Johnson, Burnet County’s all-time most influential citizen and founder of Marble Falls, a genuine Texas hero whose daring raid on a federal arsenal in Newburgh, Indiana sent shockwaves around the world (and especially Indiana) in July of 1862.

As Mulesky researched the events of that epic summer, he became a real admirer of the intrepid young Confederate leader, and his well-written book (called "Thunder From a Clear Sky," from an article in the Evansville newspaper at the time of the raid) reflects that new-found admiration. Mulesky provides a vivid background for the week’s adventures, then tells how thirty ragged soldiers invaded the North, captured a town with its federal arsenal and more than one hundred Union soldiers, and escaped back to Kentucky with three boatloads of looted weapons and supplies; all without suffering a scratch. Johnson’s trump card, which gave him the nickname "Stovepipe Johnson," was a faked artillery battery across the river from Newburgh. Before the invasion, Johnson had his men construct two menacing-looking cannons from a stovepipe, a charred log, and some wagon wheels. The threat of shelling prevented the townsfolk from mounting a counter-attack, and gave Johnson and his men time to make good their escape.

The bold attack made headlines in Europe and America, and forced the Union army to fortify the length of the Ohio River for the rest of the war, but it also turned up the heat on Johnson’s "Partisan Rangers" in western Kentucky, which was overrun with Union troops seeking revenge. Johnson himself was blinded by a frie ...

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