St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-12-17
WAR "REMINISCENCES.

SOnle complaint is DelllS maze LnaC MARK
TWAIN was allowed to have the exclusive
publication of Gen. GRANTS memoirs, be-
cause the celebrated humOrist was rebel
soldier. 1t seems to have only recently
leaked out that MARK TWAIN was a Con-
federate soldier. He kept his secret so we'll
that the most sensitive lOyalists have
laughed at his jokes without the remotest
suspicion that there was treason and re-
bellion lurking in every line of them. And
it turns out singularly enough in connection
with the discovery that CLEMENTS was a
Confederate that he was opposed to GRANT
in the first military movement that the lat
ter made in the war. In Gen.
GRANTS memoirs he gives humorous
account of the movements of his Illinois
regiment when ordered to leave camp at
Palmyra and proceed to little town
called Florida in Northern Kentucky and
dislodge force of rebels under the COM
mand of Col. HARRIS. In speaking of
this movement Gen. GRANT says:
AS we approached the brow of the hill from
which it was expected we could see HARRIS
camp, and possibly find his men formed ready
to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and
higher until it felt to me as though it was in
my throat. I would have given anything
then to be back in Illinois, but had not the
| usual courage to halt to consider what to do;
l kept right on. When we reached a point
from which the valley below is in full view, I
halted. The place where HARRIS had been
encamped few days before was still there,
and the marks of a recent engagement were
plainly visible, but the troops were gone.
NFxyh ~ Il fr,
me at once that HARRIS had been as much
afraid of me as l had been of him. This was
view of the question had never taken be-
fore; but it was one l never forgot after
ward. From that event to the close of the
war never experienced trepidation upon
confronting an enemy, though 1 always felt
more or less anxiety.
In war paper published in the Deem
Der Century, MARK TWAIN thus alludes to
the same incident:
We kept anonymously falling back upon
one camp or another, and eating up the coun-
try. x The last camp which we fell
back upon was in hollow near the village of
Florida, where was born, in Monroe county.
Here we were warned one day that Union
colonel was sweeping down upon us with a
whole regiment at his heels. This looked decid-
eddy serious. Our boys went apart and con-
suited; then we went back and told the other
companies present that the war was a disap-
pointment to us and we were going to dis
band. They were getting ready themselves
to fall back on some place or other, and were
only waiting for Gen. Tom HARRIS, who was
expected to arrive at any moment; so they
tried to persuade us to wait little while, but
the majority of US said no, we were accus-
toned to falling back, and didn't need any of
Tom HARRIS help; we could get along very
well without him, and save time, too. So al
most half of our fifteen, including myself,
mounted and left on the instant. An hour
later we met Gen. HARRIS on the road. x
HARRIS ordered us back, but we told him
there was a Union colonel coming, with a
whole regiment in his wake, and it looked as
if there was going to be disturbance. so
we concluded to go home. In time
came to know that Union colonel whose COM
ing frightened us out of the and Grip
pied the Southern cause to that extent-Gen.
GRANT. l came within few hours of seeing
him when he was as unknown as myself.