WHY MARK TWAIN LEFT THE ARMY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1614, 20 July 1887, Page 4

WHY MARK TWAIN LEFT THE ARMY

At the bacqaot of Union Veterans In Baltimore iecen\ly, Mark 3>a!n gave bis war history as followf':— " ; When your Becretaiy invited me to tbJB reunion of Union Veterans of Maryland he requested m© to come prepared to clear up a matter which he said had long been a subject of dispute and bad blood In war circles m this country— to wit, the true dimensions of my military serviosß m the Civil Wsr, and the effect which they had upon the genera) result. I recognise the importance of thin thing to history, and I have come prepared. Here are the detail?, I was m the Civil War two weoks. la that brief time 1 rose from priva'e to second lieutenant. The monume^|| feature of my campaign was the ouenSattle which my command fought — It was m the summer of '61 It Ido say it, it was the boldest battle ever fo >ght m human bißtory ; there is nothing apprjachlog it for the destruction of human life m the fiVld^if you take into consfderatibn (he forces engaged and the proportion of death to sury.val. And yet you do not oven know the name of tb*t battle. Neither do- I. It had a name, but I have forgotten it. It is no cse to keep private information which you can't show off. In our battle there were just fifteen men engaged en our side— all brigadier-generals but me, and 1 was a second-lieuiendnt. , On the other side there was one man. He was a' stranger. We killed him. It was night, and we thought he was an army of observation ; he looked like an army of observation m fact he looked bigger than am ar ir>y of obiervation would be m the daytime; and some of us believed he was trying Jo surround ns, and some thought he^waß going to turn oar position, and bo we shot him. Poop fellow, he probably wasn't an army of observation, 'after all, but that wasn't our fault ; as I Bay, he htd all the looks of It m that dim Ight. It was a sorrowful circumstance, but he took the chances of war, and he drew the w»*ong card ; he overestimated fcii fighting bio igth, and ha suffered the likely reaul'; b >t he fell as tha brave should fa I— with nrs face to the from and feet to the field — bo we buried him with the honors of war, and took his things. So began and ended the only battle m the' history of the world where the opposing force was utterly exterminated, Bwept from the face of the earth— to the last man. And yet you don'fc know tho name of that battle j you don't even know the name of that mtn Now then for the argument. Suppose I had coutinoed m the war, and gone on as I begao, and exterminated the opposing force every time—every two weeks — where would your war have been ? Why, you see yourself, the cocflcb would have too onesided. There was but one honorable oourse for me to pursue, and J pursued it. I withdrew to privata His, and gave the Union cause a chance The.ro now, you have the whole thiDg m a nutshell ; it was not my preßerca m the Civil War that determined that tremendous oontest— it was my retirement from it that brought the crash. It left the Confederate side too weak."