w
arrivals seemed to be, mistook them for the enemy and fled.]

Samuel Clemens had by this time decided, like Lee, that he would go with
his State and lead battalions to victory. The "battalion" in this
instance consisted of a little squad of young fellows of his own age,
mostly pilots and schoolmates, including Sam Bowen, Ed Stevens, and Ab
Grimes, about a dozen, all told. They organized secretly, for the Union
militia was likely to come over from Illinois any time and look up any
suspicious armies that made an open demonstration. An army might lose
enthusiasm and prestige if it spent a night or two in the calaboose.

So they met in a secret place above Bear Creek Hill, just as Tom Sawyer's
red-handed bandits had gathered so long before (a good many of them were
of the same lawless lot), and they planned how they would sell their
lives on the field of glory, just as Tom Sawyer's band might have done if
it had thought about playing "War," instead of "Indian" and "Pirate" and
"Bandit" with fierce raids on peach orchards and melon patches. Then, on
the evening before marching away, they stealthily called on their
sweethearts--those who had them did, and the others pretended sweethearts
for the occasion--and when it was dark and mysterious they said good-by
and suggested that maybe those girls would never see them again. And as
always happens in such a case, some of them were in earnest, and two or
three of the little group that slipped away that night never did come
back, and somewhere sleep in unmarked graves.

The "two Sams"--Sam Bowen and Sam Clemens--called on Patty Gore and Julia
Willis for their good-by visit, and, when they left, invited the girls to
"walk through the pickets" with them, which they did as far as Bear Creek
Hill. The girls didn't notice any pickets, because the pickets were away
calling on girls, too, and probably wouldn't be back to begin picketing
for some time. So the girls stood there and watched the soldiers march
up Bear Creek Hill and disappear among the trees.

The army had a good enough time that night, marching through the brush
and vines toward New London, though this sort of thing grew rather
monotonous by morning. When they took a look at themselves by daylight,
with their nondescript dress and accoutrements, there was some thing
about it all which appealed to one's sense of humor rather than to his
patriotism. Colonel Ralls, of Ralls County, however, received them
cordially and made