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Was Mark Twain Really a Confederate?
Mark Twain, born Samuel Clemens, gained significant praise for several literary works. Classic novels recounting childhood in the southern states, such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, are among the most popular.
Clemens served briefly in the Confederacy during the Civil War. Known for his satire and wit, he provided different accounts of his military experience, each with questionable accuracy. What did Twain truly feel about the conflict, and did his attitude change throughout his life?
The Early Life & Adventures of Mark Twain
The Adventures by Huckleberry Finn from the book by Mark Twain: [Mississippi River], ca. 1959, by Everett Henry. Source: Library of Congress
Samuel Clemens was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, a tiny village in the northern part of the state. His family moved from Tennessee before Samuel’s birth, and his father, John Marshall Clemens, soon relocated the family again to Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River. His father pursued several entrepreneurial ventures there, including shopkeeping and slave trading. These efforts failed, and the family relied on money sent home from Samuel’s older brother, Orion, who worked as a newspaper printer.
Samuel mirrored his brother’s career, leaving home in 1853 and finding employment as a typesetter in various cities. In 1854, Clemens joined a group armed to dispel rioters in St. Louis. Samuel’s band marched to the scene, but as they drew closer, he asked his friend to hold his musket while he fell out to get a drink. He did not return. This suggests a natural aversion to violence and a pretext for his wartime desertion. After forays across the country, he returned to Hannibal in 1857 and became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi. This experience influenced his future pen name, “Mark Twain,” a call signifying the river was deep enough in that spot for safe passage.
Orion grew to support the abolition of slavery, a position that Samuel resisted. Their uncle owned many enslaved people as a farmer, and both grew up in a society that upheld the institution as natural. Even in northern cities such as Syracuse, New York, Samuel complained of abolitionists and the presence of free people of color. He voted for John Bell in the 1860 election, who embodied the pro-slavery yet anti-secession position. This platform meant a continuation of the life Samuel knew, one which was soon to change drastically.
Missouri in the Civil War
Captain David Thompson of the Missouri State Guard, holding a sword, ca. 1861-1865. Source: Library of Congress
Missouri was a border state, which remained with the Union yet allowed slavery. Many residents had mixed feelings at the start of the conflict. Slavery and the Mississippi River tied the state to the south, yet its industry and railroads linked it to the north. After the firing on Fort Sumter, Missouri’s governor resisted Lincoln’s call for troops and issued his own mobilization orders for the Missouri State Guard. The State Guard moved to threaten the Federal arsenal in St. Louis. First, they established a position named Camp Jackson on the outskirts of town.
Union commanders in the city raised their own militia, and on May 10th, with superior numbers, they compelled Camp Jackson to surrender. As the bluecoats marched their prisoners through the city streets, secessionist onlookers ridiculed them, pelted them with various items, and drew weapons. Federal soldiers shot into the opposing procession, and the event ended in the deaths of two soldiers and twenty-eight civilians. Labeled the Camp Jackson Affair, this caused many indecisive Missourians to view US troops as an occupying force and rally around the Confederate cause.
Mark Twain’s Contradictory Civil War Service
Engagement at Mason’s Farm: illustration for The Private History of a Campaign that Failed, December 1885, by Mark Twain. Source: Cornell University Library
Twain chronicled his wartime experience in a fictionalized short autobiography published in 1885, The Private History of a Campaign That Failed. Rather than detailing heroic escapades, the author portrays his military career as a grand adventure. He and his local comrades numbered only fifteen and formed a company in Hannibal, stylizing themselves the Marion Rangers, named after their county. They first elected a captain, and Clemens became second lieutenant. The new soldiers found difficulty following orders from those whom they knew their entire lives. They balked at any hint of facing the enemy, instead practicing horsemanship, visiting local girls, and finding entertainment in camp.
Union forces quickly seized Jefferson City and exercised control of the Missouri River, which left many State Guard units unable to join Confederate armies. The formation of the Union militia forced the Marion Rangers to move with caution. Only once did Clemens’ group fire upon an adversary, a wanderer who accidentally stumbled upon their position. Clemens expressed this mistake as embodying the nature of war, the killing of outsiders who had no intimate quarrel with oneself. For this reason and close pursuit by a Union colonel, he and other compatriots deemed themselves unsuited for fighting.
Eight years before The Private History of a Campaign, Twain addressed Union veterans and offered an alternate interpretation of his service. He claimed to have enlisted in the State Guard under General Tom Harris’s command. Professing to uphold the tenets of the American Revolution and Constitution, Clemens expressed confusion as to what side they were fighting for. He asked for a transfer to a less active field after close encounters with the enemy. Facing a court martial for this insubordination, he and his entire brigade deserted.
Why Did Mark Twain Desert?
Mark Twain standing in the wheelhouse of a riverboat, ca. 1900-1910. Source: Library of Congress
Clemens was 25 (and a half) years old at the time of his enlistment, the typical age for a Civil War soldier. Twain wrote his reasons for enlistment and desertion years after the war when he tried to appeal to those who served. Examination of his authentic rationale proves challenging. Few of his letters from the opening period of the war survive. In those that do, he expresses ambivalence to the dissolution of the United States. Yet the outbreak of conflict ceased the need for commercial traffic along the Mississippi and left Clemens out of work.
Samuel could have lent his services to either army as a riverboat pilot, as two of his superiors did, one for the Union and one for the Confederacy. Federal General John B. Grey summoned Clemens to discuss piloting troop transports along the Missouri River, an offer which Clemens refused based on unfamiliarity with that waterway.
Baylor professor Dr. Joe B. Fulton posited the motivation for Twain’s desertion could have been the consequences Federal forces warned Confederate militia members of. These included execution and confiscation of family property. Twain claimed in a 1901 event commemorating Lincoln’s birthday, “We believed in those days we were fighting for the right–and it was a noble fight, for we were fighting for our sweethearts, our homes, and our lives.” Ultimately, a lack of conviction in the Confederate cause, unwilling compatriots, and fear of battle influenced his decision to withdraw from the military.
What Happened After His Desertion?
US Sanitary Commission at Gettysburg General Hospital, August 1863. Source: Library of Congress
Orion was a prominent Republican advocate who supported Lincoln’s election. The president appointed him secretary of the Nevada Territory, yet Orion did not have the finances to pay for travel. Samuel granted him the necessary money and accompanied him as an aide. In Nevada, Samuel bragged about his lieutenant position in the Confederacy. This aggravated his brother and the governor of Nevada, who called Samuel a “damned secessionist.”
However, Samuel used newspaper writing and his existing wealth to fundraise for the US Sanitary Commission, an organization providing for the health of Union soldiers. He jeopardized this success by integrating his characteristic satire with news. Samuel claimed in an article that proceeds raised for the Sanitary Commission were instead bound for a society promoting interracial marriage. Not only was this revelatory to Clemens’ views on equality and the Union cause, but it also sparked outrage, which prompted him to move to San Francisco.
In private correspondence, Clemens still exhibited secessionist views. He saw Union forces as “the enemy” and sympathized with Confederate Missourians. These letters portray Samuel more as an opponent of what he saw as an invading army of occupation rather than a proponent of Confederate independence. After Lincoln’s assassination, Twain satirized a poem that exalted the fallen president, mocking comparisons between Lincoln and Jesus.
Mark Twain’s Changing Values After the Civil War
Mark Twain, ca. May 20, 1967, by A.F. Bradley. Source: Library of Congress
During the Reconstruction of the South, Clemens gradually came to support racial equality, as he witnessed discrimination toward Chinese immigrants and interacted with freed Black Americans. As his fame grew, he expressed support for Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass. Twain characterized his young self as an arrogant fool. Huckleberry Finn offered a sympathetic, albeit aged, view of African Americans.
Twain used wit to help reunite himself and the nation. In the same 1901 speech honoring Lincoln, he related a joking plan to destroy Ulysses S. Grant’s army by forcing him all the way to the Pacific Ocean; this involved using a single regiment to surround the Federal forces until his company arrived to begin the campaign. The regimental colonel did not heed Clemen’s insubordinate orders, and due to this alone, the Union was victorious. Ultimately, Twain left the service due to the bad weather he experienced, for which he said the Union cause should be thankful.
He expressed a similar viewpoint in a toast to Union veterans in 1887, where he offered a condensed version of the Private History account. The killing of the stranger represented the total destruction of an enemy force of one. This imbalance led Twain to believe that continuing his military escapades would make the war easily won for the Confederacy. Mark “acted for the best when I took my shoulder out from under the Confederacy and let it come down.”
The Friendship Between Mark Twain & Ulysses S. Grant
President Ulysses S. Grant, ca. 1869-1877. Source: Library of Congress
After Grant’s presidency, the former general quickly fell into ill health, and investment failures destroyed his fortune. In 1884, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and decided to write his personal memoirs to support his family after his death. Twain visited Grant to offer publishing services for the memoirs. Grant accepted, and the two became close friends, working rapidly to finish the book before death came. Only three weeks after its completion, the former Union general passed away.
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant attained remarkable success, with Grant’s seven percent stake in the venture generating the modern equivalent of twelve million dollars for his wife. Though primarily a business move, Twain incorporated his friendship with Grant into his Private History. The Marion Rangers disband in part because of their pursuit by a formidable yet unknown Union colonel, one Ulysses S. Grant. Twain’s humorous boasts of his military prowess are contrasted by the assertion that only the most capable commander forced him to retire. This success, along with other writings, cemented Twain’s later life as a supporter of the Union cause and a renowned American literary icon.
Mark Twain, Stormfield, December 21st, 1908., by Alvin Langdon Coburn. Source: New York Public Library
Mark Twain represented more for Samuel Clemens than a pen name. Literary critics characterize Twain as an alter ego that combined the maturity found later in life with the childlike wonder forged growing up on the Mississippi. As a young man, Clemens grew up in a culture where slavery was integral to daily life and saw his worldview threatened in the Civil War. Adjusting to a postwar America, Twain came to admire the tenets of national unity and equality. When addressing the war, he acknowledged current support of the Union cause yet never ceased to use his famous wit to hearken back to his former beliefs.
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