MARK TWAIN'S HEROIC ENGAGE MENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8020, 6 August 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

MARK TWAIN'S HEROIC ENGAGE MENT.

AN AWFUL BATTLE.

At a banquet of Union veterans in BaltiI more, Mark Twain gavo hie war history as follows:—Whoa your secretary invited mo to this reunion of the Union vetjruns of Maryland ho requested mo to como prepared to clear up a matter which he said had long been a subject of dispute and bad blood in war circles in this country—to wit, the truo dimensions of my military services in the Civil War, and the effect which they had upon tho goneral result. I recogniao the importance of this thing to history, and I havo corno prepared. I Lure are tho details. I wgs in tho Civil War two weeks. In that brief timo I rose from private- to second lieutenant. The monumental feature of my campaign was tho ono battle which my command fought—it was in the summer of '61. If Ido aay'it, it was the bloodiest b&ttlo over fought in hnmaa history ; there is nothing approaching it for destruction of human life in the field, if yon take into consideration the forces and tho proportion of death to survival. And yet you do not even know the namo of that battle. Neither do I. It had a name, but I havo forgotten it. It is no use to keep private information which you can't show off. Mow look at the way history does. Ii takes the battle of Boocville, fought near by, about the date of oar slaughter, and shouts its teoth loose over it, and yet never mentions ours—dosen't even call it au " affair," doesn't call it anything at all, never oven heard of it. Whereas, what arc tho facts ? Why, these : In tho battle of Boonvillo there wore 2000 men engaged on tho Union sido, and about as many engaged on the other—supposed to be. Tho casualties, all told, wero two men killed, and not all of these were killed outright, but only half ot them, for the other man died in tho hospital next day. I know that, becauso hie groat-uuolo was second cousin to ray grandfather, who spoko threo languages, and was perfectly honourable and upright, though ho had warts all over him, and used to—but never mind about that, the' fnct3 are just as I siy, and I can prove it. Two men killed in that battle of Boonvillc, that's the wholo result. All tho others got away—on both sines. Now, then, in our battlo thoro were just fifteen men engaged, on our aide—all Brigadier-Gonerala but mo, and I was a second lieutenant. On the other fiido thero was one man. Ho was a stranger. Wo killed him. It was night, and wo thought ho waa an army of observation—in fact, ho was trying to surround us, and some thought he was going to turn our position, and so we shot him. It was a sorrowful circumstance, but he took tho chances of war, and he drew j tho wrong card ; ho overestimated his fight- j ing strength, and ho suffered tho likely result ; but bo fell as tho brave should fall— with his face to the front aud Ida feet to the field—bo wo buried him with tho honours of war, and took his things. So began and ended tho only battle in tho history of the world whore tho opposing force were utterly exterminated, swept from the face of tho earth—to tho last man. Aud yet, you don't know the name of that battlo ; you don't even know tbo name of that man. Now, then, for the argument. Suppose I had continued in tho war, and gone on as I began, and exterminated the opposing force every time— two weeks—whare would your war have been Why, you see yourself, tho conflict would havo been too onesided. There was but one honourable course for me to pursue, and 1 pursued it. I withdrew to private life, and gave tho Union cause a chunco. There, now, you have the whole thing in a nutshell; it was not my presence in the civil war that determined that tremendous contest—it was my retirement from it that brought the crash.