enlisted on the side of the South, he would doubtless have stayed at his
post. In reality, he was at that time lacking in conviction; and in
after life he became a thorough Unionist and Abolitionist. In the
summer of 1861, Governor Jackson of Missouri called for fifty thousand
volunteers to drive out the Union forces. While visiting in the small
town where his boyhood had been spent, Hannibal, Marion County, young
Clemens and some of his friends met together in a secret place one
night, and formed themselves into a military company. The spirited but
untrained Tom Lyman was made captain; and in lieu of a first lieutenant
--strange omission!--young Clemens was made second lieutenant. These
fifteen hardy souls proudly dubbed themselves the Marion Rangers. No
one thought of finding fault with such a name--it sounded too well. All
were full of notions as high-flown as the name of their company. One of
their number, named Dunlap, was ashamed of his name, because it had a
plebeian sound to his ear. So he solved the difficulty and gratified
his aristocratic ambitions by writing it d'Unlap. This may serve as a
sample of the stuff of which the company was made. Dunlap was by no
means useless; for he invented hifalutin names for the camps, and
generally succeeded in proposing a name that was, as his companions
agreed, "no slouch."

There was no real organization, nobody obeyed orders, there was never a
battle. They retreated, according to the tale of the humorist, at every
sign of the enemy. In truth, this little band had plenty of stomach for
fighting, despite its loose organization; and quite a number fought all
through the war. Mark Twain is doubtless correct in the main, in his
assertion that he has not given an unfair picture of the conditions
prevailing in many of the militia camps in the first months of the war
between the states. The men were raw and unseasoned, and even the
leaders were lacking in the rudiments of military training and