Sam Bowen is said to
have been caught by the Federal troops and put to sawing wood in the
stockade at Hannibal. Ab (A. C.) Grimes became a noted Confederate spy
and is still among those who have lived to furnish the details here set
down. Properly officered and disciplined, that detachment would have
made as brave soldiers as any. Military effectiveness is a matter of
leaders and tactics.
Mark Twain's own Private History of a 'Campaign that Failed' is, of
course, built on this episode. He gives us a delicious account, even if
it does not strikingly resemble the occurrence. The story might have
been still better if he had not introduced the shooting of the soldier in
the dark. The incident was invented, of course, to present the real
horror of war, but it seems incongruous in this burlesque campaign, and,
to some extent at least, it missed fire in its intention.
--[In a book recently published, Mark Twain's "nephew" is quoted as
authority for the statement that Mark Twain was detailed for river duty,
captured, and paroled, captured again, and confined in a
tobacco-warehouse in St. Louis, etc. Mark Twain had but one nephew:
Samuel E. Moffett, whose Biographical Sketch (vol. xxii, Mark Twain's
Works) contains no such statement; and nothing of the sort occurred.]
XXXI
OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY
When Madame Caprell prophesied that Orion Clemens would hold office under
government, she must have seen with true clairvoyant vision.
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