When he reached Hannibal, Samuel Clemens found a very mixed condition of
affairs. The country was in an uproar of war preparation; in a border
State there was a confusion of sympathies, with much ignorance as to what
it was all about. Any number of young men were eager to enlist for a
brief camping-out expedition, and small private companies were formed,
composed about half-and-half of Union and Confederate men, as it turned
out later.
Missouri, meantime, had allied herself with the South, and Samuel
Clemens, on his arrival in Hannibal, decided that, like Lee, he would go
with his State. Old friends, who were getting up a company "to help
Governor `Claib' Jackson repel the invader," offered him a lieutenancy if
he would join. It was not a big company; it had only about a dozen
members, most of whom had been schoolmates, some of them fellow-pilots,
and Sam Clemens was needed to make it complete. It was just another Tom
Sawyer band, and they met in a secret place above Bear Creek Hill and
planned how they would sell their lives on the field of glory, just as
years before fierce raids had been arranged on peach-orchards and
melon-patches. Secrecy was necessary, for the Union militia had a habit
of coming over from Illinois and arresting suspicious armies on sight. It
would humiliate the finest army in the world to spend a night or two in
the calaboose.
So they met secretly at night, and one mysterious evening they called on
girls who either were their sweethearts or were pretending to be for the
occasion, and when the time came for good-by the girls were invited to
"walk through the pickets" with them, though the girls didn't notice any
pickets, because the pickets were calling on their girls, too, and were a
little late getting to their posts.
That night they marched, through brush and vines, because the highroad
was thought to be dangerous, and next morning arrived at the home of
Colonel Ralls, of Ralls County, who had the army form in dress parade and
made it a speech and gave it a hot breakfast in good Southern style.
Then he sent out to Col. Bill Splawn and Farmer Nuck Matson a requisition
for supplies that would convert this body of infantry into cavalry
--rough-riders of that early day. The community did not wish to keep an
army on its hands, and were willing to send it along by such means as
they could spare handily. When the outfitting was complete, Lieutenant
Samuel Clemens, mounted on a small yellow mule whose tail had been
trimmed in the paint-brush pattern then much worn by mules, and
surrounded by variously attached articles--such as an extra pair of
cowhide boots, a pair of gray blankets, a home-made quilt, a frying-pan,
a carpet-sack, a small valise, an overcoat, an old-fashioned Kentucky
rifle, twenty yards of rope, and an umbrella--was a fair sample of the
brigade.
An army like that, to enjoy itself, ought to go into camp; so it went
over to Salt River, near the town of Florida, and took up headquarters in
a big log stable. Somebody suggested that an army ought to have its hair
cut, so that in a hand-to-hand conflict the enemy could not get hold of
it. There was a pair of sheep-shears in the stable, and Private Tom
Lyons acted as barber. They were not sharp shears, and a group of little
darkies gathered from the farm to enjoy the torture.
Regular elections were now held--all officers, down to sergeants and
orderlies, being officially chosen. There were only three privates, and
you couldn't tell them from officers. The discipline in that army was
very bad.
It became worse soon. Pouring rain set in. Salt River rose and
overflowed the bottoms. Men ordered on picket duty climbed up into the
stable-loft and went to bed. Twice, on black, drenching nights, word
came from the farmhouse that the enemy, commanded by a certain Col.
Ulysses Grant, was in the neighborhood, and the Hannibal division went
hastily slopping through mud and brush in the other direction, dragging
wearily back when the alarm was over. Military ardor was bound to cool
under such treatment. Then Lieutenant Clemens developed a very severe
boil, and was obliged to lie most of the day on some hay in a
horse-trough, where he spent his time denouncing the war and the mistaken
souls who had invented it. When word that "General" Tom Harris, commander
of the district--formerly telegraph-operator in Hannibal--was at a
near-by farm-house, living on the fat of the land, the army broke camp
without further ceremony. Halfway there they met General Harris, who
ordered them back to quarters. They called him familiarly "Tom," and told
him they were through with that camp forever. He begged them, but it was
no use. A little farther on they stopped at a farm-house for supplies. A
tall, bony woman came to the door.
"You're Secesh, ain't you?"
Lieutenant Clemens said: "We are, madam, defenders of the noble cause,
and we should like to buy a few provisions."
The request seemed to inflame her.
"Provisions!" she screamed. "Provisions for Secesh, and my husband a
colonel in the Union Army. You get out of here!"
She reached for a hickory hoop-pole [5] that stood by the door, and the
army moved on. When they reached the home of Col. Bill Splawn it was
night and the family had gone to bed. So the hungry army camped in the
barn-yard and crept into the hay-loft to sleep. Presently somebody
yelled "Fire!" One of the boys had been smoking and had ignited the hay.
Lieutenant Clemens, suddenly wakened, made a quick rotary movement away
from the blaze, and rolled out of a big hay-window into the barn-yard
below. The rest of the brigade seized the burning hay and pitched it out
of the same window. The lieutenant had sprained his ankle when he
struck, and his boil was still painful, but the burning hay cured him
--for the moment. He made a spring from under it; then, noticing that the
rest of the army, now that the fire was out, seemed to think his
performance amusing, he rose up and expressed himself concerning the war,
and military life, and the human race in general. They helped him in,
then, for his ankle was swelling badly.
In the morning, Colonel Splawn gave the army a good breakfast, and it
moved on. Lieutenant Clemens, however, did not get farther than Farmer
Nuck Matson's. He was in a high fever by that time from his injured
ankle, and Mrs. Matson put him to bed. So the army left him, and
presently disbanded. Some enlisted in the regular service, North or
South, according to preference. Properly officered and disciplined, that
"Tom Sawyer" band would have made as good soldiers as any.
Lieutenant Clemens did not enlist again. When he was able to walk, he
went to visit Orion in Keokuk. Orion was a Union Abolitionist, but there
would be no unpleasantness on that account. Samuel Clemens was beginning
to have leanings in that direction himself.
[5] In an earlier day, barrel hoops were made of small hickory trees,
split and shaved. The hoop-pole was a very familiar article of commerce,
and of household defense.