mpaign that Failed' is, of
course, built on this episode. He gives us a delicious account, even
if it does not strikingly resemble the occurrence. The story might have
been still better if he had not introduced the shooting of the soldier
in the dark. The incident was invented, of course, to present the real
horror of war, but it seems incongruous in this burlesque campaign, and,
to some extent at least, it missed fire in its intention. --[In a book
recently published, Mark Twain's "nephew" is quoted as authority for
the statement that Mark Twain was detailed for river duty, captured,
and paroled, captured again, and confined in a tobacco-warehouse in
St. Louis, etc. Mark Twain had but one nephew: Samuel E. Moffett, whose
Biographical Sketch (vol. xxii, Mark Twain's Works) contains no such
statement; and nothing of the sort occurred.]

XXXI. OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY

When Madame Caprell prophesied that Orion Clemens would hold office
under government, she must have seen with true clairvoyant vision. The
inauguration of Abraham Lincoln brought Edward Bates into his Cabinet,
and Bates was Orion's friend. Orion applied for something, and got it.
James W. Nye had been appointed Territorial governor of Nevada, and
Orion was made Territorial secretary. You could strain a point and refer
to the office as "secretary of state," which was an imposing title.
Furthermore, the secretary would be acting governor in the governor's
absence, and there would be various subsidiary honors. When Lieutenant
Clemens arrived in Keokuk, Orion was in the first flush of his triumph
and needed only money to carry him to the scene of new endeavor. The
late lieutenant C. S. A. had accumulated money out of his pilot salary,
and there was no comfortable place just then in the active Middle West
for an officer of either army who had voluntarily retired from the
service. He agreed that if Orion would overlook his recent brief
defection from the Union and appoint him now as his (Orion's) secretary,
he would supply the funds for both overland passages, and they would
start with no unnecessary delay for a country so new that all human
beings, regardless of previous affiliations and convictions, were flung
into the common fusing-pot and recast in the general mold of pioneer.

The offer was a boon to Orion. He was always eager to forgive, and the
money was vitally necessary. In the briefest possible time he had packed
his belongings, which include