Mark Twain's Civil War

by Mark Twain, David Rachels (Editor)

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.

Genres: Literature, Military Fiction, History, Short Stories

232 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 2007

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't give your own book five stars, who will?

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a fan of Twain's writing, I wasn't aware of the pivotal role that his brief, tangential experience in the Civil War had on his life and writings.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of Twain's works written about the Civil War, including two stories by other authors who were writing about Twain's "experiences" during the war (he enlisted for two weeks in the Missouri State Guard but saw no action, nor did he enlist for southern principles). The stories would be better served with a more historically-oriented context in the introduction; as is, it mentions briefly Missouri's 1861 role in the war and speculation regarding Twain's service (which admittedly we cannot known much about at this point). Still, more context on the timing and motivations of Twain's writings (literary analysis as well as historical perspective) would have added immensely to the value of this introduction and set a better stage for the works that follow.