Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1888-02-01
Mark Twain as a Soldier.

"Mark Twain then responded +
the toast to The Campfire He wa
greeted with cheers and applause.
"When your secretary invited M
to this reunion of the Union Veterans
of Maryland, he requested me to come
prepared to clear up a matter which
he said had long been subject o.
dispute and bad blood in war circle,
in this country-to-wit: the true di-
mensions of my military services in
the civil war, and the effect which
they had upon the general result. ]
recognize the Importance of this thing
to history, and have come prepared.
Here are the details. I was in the
civil war two weeks.
"In that brief time | rose from a
private to Second Lieutenant. The
monumental feature of my campaign
was the one battle which my COM
mand fought--it was in the summer
of '61. If do say it. it was the
bloodiest battle ever fought in human
history; there is nothing approaching
it for destruction of human life in the
field, if you take into consideration
the forces engaged, and the proper
tion of death to survival. And yet
you do not even know the name of
that battle. Neither do l. 1t had n
name but have forgotten it. 1t is
no use to keep private information
which you can't show off. Now look
at the way history does. 1t takes the
battle of Boonville, fought near by,
about the date of our slaughter, and
shouts its teeth loose over it, and yet
never even mentions ours; doesn't
even call it an affair doesn't call it
anything at all never even heard of
it. Whereas, what are the facts !!
Why, these: In the battle of Boon
vile there were two thousand men
engaged on the Union side, and about
as many on the other-supposed to
be. The casualties, all told, were
two men killed and not all of these
were killed outright, but only half of
them, for the other man died in the
hospital the next day. know that,
because his great-uncle was second
cousin to my grandfather, who spoke
three languages, and was perfectly
honorable and upright, though he had
warts all over him, and used to-but
never mind about that, the facts are
just as / say, and | can prove it.
Two men killed in that battle Of
Boonville, that's the whole result.
All the others got away OH both sides.
Now then, in our battle there were
just fifteen men engaged, on our side
all Brigadier Generals but me, and
| was Second Lieutenant. On the
other side there was one man. He
was a stranger. We killed him. 1t
was night, and we thought he was an
army of observation, he looked like
an army of observation-in fact, he
looked bigger than an army of OBJ
servation would in the daytime; and
some of US believed that he was try
ing to surround us, and some thought
he was going to try and turn our po-
sition, and so we shot him. Poor fel-
low, he probably wasn't an army of
observation, after all, but that wasn't
our fault; as say, he had all the
look of it in that dim light. 1t was
a sorrowful circumstance, but he
took the chances of war, and he drew
the wrong card he overestimated his
fighting strength, and he suffered the
likely result but he fell as the brave
should fall-with his face to the foe
aud his feet to the field-so we buried
him with the honors of war and took
his things. So began and ended the
only battle in the history of the world
where the opposing force was utterly
exterminated, swept from the face of
the earth-to the last man. And yet
you don't know the name of the bat
tie, you don't even know the name of
that ma Now, then, for the argu-
ment. Suppose l had continued in
the war, and gone OH as / began, and
exterminated the opposing force every
time-every two where would
your war have been? Why, you see
yourself, the conflict would have been
too one-sided. There was but one
honorable course for me to pursue,
and | pursued it. withdrew to pri-
vate life, and gave the Union cause
chance. There, now, your have the
whole thing in nutshell it was
not my presence in the civil war that
determined that tremendous con-
test-it was my retirement from it
that brought the crash. II left the
Confederate side too weak. And yet.
when | stop and think, ! can not re-
gret my course. No, when / look
abroad over this happy land, with its
wounds healed and its enmities forgot
ten this reunited sisterhood of ma
jestic States this freeist of free COM