Mark Twain's Civil War: The Private History of a Campaign That Failed

by Mark Twain

From the Mark Twain Project comes a freshly informed look at Twain's controversial Civil War story "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed." Twenty years after Appomattox, Twain published a highly fictionalized account of his two-week stint in the Confederate Army. Ostensibly this told what he did (or, in his own words, why he "didn't do anything") in the war; but the article was criticized as disingenuous, and it did little to address a growing curiosity about the nature of his brief military service. The complex political situation in Missouri during the early months of the war and Twain's genius for transforming life into fiction have tended to obstruct historical understanding of "The Private History"; interpretations of Samuel Clemens's enthusiastic enlistment, sedulous avoidance of combat, and abandonment of the rebellion have ranged from condemnation to celebration. Aided by Twain's notes and correspondence-- transcribed and published here for the first time--Benjamin Griffin of UC Berkeley's Mark Twain Project offers a new and cogent analysis, particularly of Clemens's multiple revisions of his own war experience. A necessity for any Twain bookshelf, Mark Twain's Civil War sheds light on a great writer's changeable and challenging position on the deadliest of American conflicts.

Genres: Literature, Military Fiction, History, Short Stories

192 pages, Hardcover

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.