Book description
When the Civil War halted steamboat travel on the Mississippi River in
1861, an unemployed riverboat pilot named Samuel Clemens enlisted in the
Missouri militia. After two weeks of service, Clemens abandoned his post
and fled westward to begin a writing career-a turn of events that
precipitated the rise to fame of the man who would become known as Mark
Twain. The circumstances surrounding his departure are unclear; some
view Twain as a deserter, while others call into question the nature of
his commitment from the beginning. Twain defended himself in speeches
and in print, offering varying accounts-with varying degrees of truth-of
his confusion upon enrollment, his ignorance of the moral and political
forces behind the war, and his claim to have killed a man while hiding
in a corncrib. Regardless of the reason for his desertion, his personal
experiences and the Civil War in general are recurring topics in Twain's
speeches, fiction, and nonfiction. In addition to broaching the issue in
longer works, such as Life on the Mississippi and The Gilded Age, Twain
directly addresses it in shorter pieces such as “The Private History of
a Campaign That Failed” and “A Curious Experience.” Editor David Rachels
unites these selections in Mark Twain's Civil War, offering Twain fans
and Civil War scholars the unprecedented opportunity to read the entire
array of Twain's Civil War-influenced literature in one volume. In
addition to Twain's own pieces, Rachels includes an account of Twain's
war career by his official biographer as well as a story by Absalom C.
Grimes, a Confederate mail runner who claims to have served with Twain
early in the war. An introduction by Rachels completes the text, which
analyzes Twain's military stint and assesses the war's profound
influence on one of America's most celebrated authors.
