Stills of Hell On Wheels' Anson Mount Smoking A Pipe

Is the only reason you've considered picking up pipe smoking that it's so badass? That's reason enough, because it is very badass indeed.

Anson Mount, whose great-great-great granddaddy was a Confederate cavalry colonel, and whose full name is Anson Adams Mount IV, smokes a pipe through season 3 of Hell on Wheels. And not only does he smoke a pipe throughout, it's a meerschaum. I would like to move, on the strength of these pictures, to get rid of the idea that a meerschaum is only for the drawing room: let's take them out into the wide world, whether that wide world be the wild west or a movie set.

Feast your eyes on the awesomeness.

He discovers the pipe clenched between the teeth of a frozen compatriot.

The bowl is already conveniently packed. At this point we ask ourselves why the character, a former tobacco farmer, hasn't been smoking a pipe all along.

The pipe faces down the hostile board of a railroad company.

The pipe gets knocked into the mud. The pipe is angry now.

The pipe climbs out of the mud and gets to work.

The pipe meets Ulysses S. Grant.

The pipe looks its troubles in the eye with a steely resolve.

The pipe is contemplative at close of day.