hungry army camped in the barnyard and crept into the hay-loft
to sleep. Presently somebody yelled "Fire!" One of the boys had been
smoking and started the hay. Lieutenant Clemens suddenly wakened, made
a quick rolling movement from the blaze, and rolled out of a big
hay-window into the barnyard below. The rest of the army, startled into
action, seized the burning hay and pitched it out of the same window.
The lieutenant had sprained his ankle when he struck the ground, and his
boil was far from well, but when the burning hay descended he forgot his
disabilities. Literally and figuratively this was the final straw. With
a voice and vigor suited to the urgencies of the case, he made a spring
from under the burning stuff, flung off the remnants, and with them his
last vestige of interest in the war. The others, now that the fire was,
out, seemed to think the incident boisterously amusing. Whereupon the
lieutenant rose up and told them, collectively and individually, what
he thought of them; also he spoke of the war and the Confederacy, and
of the human race at large. They helped him in, then, for his ankle was
swelling badly. Next morning, when Colonel Splawn had given them a good
breakfast, the army set out for New London.

But Lieutenant Clemens never got any farther than Nuck Matson's
farm-house. His ankle was so painful by that time that Mrs. Matson had
him put to bed, where he stayed for several weeks, recovering from the
injury and stress of war. A little negro boy was kept on watch for Union
detachments--they were passing pretty frequently now--and when one came
in sight the lieutenant was secluded until the danger passed. When he
was able to travel, he had had enough of war and the Confederacy. He
decided to visit Orion in Keokuk. Orion was a Union abolitionist and
might lead him to mend his doctrines.

As for the rest of the army, it was no longer a unit in the field.
Its members had drifted this way and that, some to return to their
occupations, some to continue in the trade of war. Sam Bowen is said
to have been caught by the Federal troops and put to sawing wood in the
stockade at Hannibal. Ab (A. C.) Grimes became a noted Confederate spy
and is still among those who have lived to furnish the details here set
down. Properly officered and disciplined, that detachment would have
made as brave soldiers as any. Military effectiveness is a matter of
leaders and tactics.

Mark Twain's own Private History of a 'Ca