Racialism Of Mark Twain Towards Civil War

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TOPIC: RACIALISM OF MARK TWAIN TOWARDS CIVIL WAR: MARK TWAIN: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) has been likened to Walt Whitman as one of the most quintessentially American writers this country has produced. While this book does not contain Mark Twain's complete autobiography, the stories do leave us with more of a flavor for the man and the legend. As Charles Neider writes in his introduction, "Mark Twain's autobiography is a classic of American letters to be ranked with the autobiographies of Ben Franklin and Henry James... It has the marks of greatness in it—style, scope, imagination, laughter, tragedy." It becomes clear that Mark Twain was much more than just a writer. He was a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a friend. With these bits of memory, we share the tragedies, triumphs, and adventures of his life. These memories are colored by emotions, and tempered by the fact that the book appeared only after he was dead. As he says, "Now then, that is the tale. Some of it is true." Mark Twain & His Experience With The Civil War Mark Twain had been a journalist and a riverboat pilot, but he enlisted in the Confederate militia in 1861--just as the Civil War was getting started. The war would last until 1865, but Mark Twain didn't stay a soldier long. Instead, he went West, where he briefly became a gold miner (a profession at which he failed miserably) and a journalist. Mark Twain -- An Account of Soldiering Mark Twain said: "I was a soldier two weeks once in the beginning of the war, and was hunted like a rat the whole time. Familiar? My splendid Kipling himself hasn't a more burn't in, hard-baked and unforgettable familiarity with that death-on-the pale-horse-with-hell-following-after which a raw soldier's first fortnight in the field--and which, without any doubt, is the most tremendous fortnight and the vividest he is ever going to see." Mark
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