Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1

by Mark Twain

  401.36–402.2 Mr. Kercheval, had an apprentice . . . and he had also a slave woman . . . I was saved again] The apprentice has not been identified. The “slave woman,” who must have been about forty-four years old when she rescued Clemens, is identified only by Kercheval’s name in the 1850 census, which describes her as a female mulatto (Marion Census 1850 [“Slave Inhabitants”], 615).

  402.2–4 I was drowned seven times . . . once in Bear Creek and six times in the Mississippi] Clemens elsewhere claimed that he had survived drowning nine times: “As a small boy I was notoriously lucky. It was usual for one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned in the Mississippi or in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a ⅔ drowned condition 9 times before I learned to swim, & was considered to be a cat in disguise” (2 Jan 1895 to Rogers, CU-MARK, in HHR, 115; see also SLC 1899a).

  402.8–12 Another schoolmate was John Meredith . . . devastations and sheddings of blood] John D. Meredith (1837–70) was one of five children of the Clemens family’s old friend and doctor, Hugh Meredith, and his wife, Anna D. Meredith (b. 1813?) (see “Something about Doctors,” note at 188.19–20). John worked as a printer at the Hannibal Messenger office in 1859. Despite Clemens’s memory of John as a Confederate guerrilla, official records show that Hugh, John, and his younger brother, Henry H. Meredith (b. 1840), all served in the Union army. Hugh served as a captain surgeon in 1861 and 1862 in the Twenty-second Regiment Infantry Volunteers; between 1863 and 1865 John served as a captain in the Fifty-third Regiment of the Enrolled Missouri Militia, then in the Second Regiment of the Provisional Enrolled Missouri Militia, and finally in the Thirty-ninth Regiment Infantry Volunteers. Henry, who enlisted in 1861, served in 1864 under his brother John in the Enrolled Missouri Militia (Marion Census 1850, 326; Marion Census 1860, unknown page; Marion Census 1870, 690; Fotheringham 1859, 41; Marion Veterans Census 1890, 1; Missouri Digital Heritage 2009b, reels s794, s817, s852, s863, s895; Inds, 310, 335; Wecter 1952, 55).

  402.16–33 Will Bowen was another schoolmate, and so was his brother, Sam . . . Death came swiftly to both pilots] William Bowen (1836–93) and Samuel Adams Bowen, Jr. (1838?–78), were the two youngest boys of seven children born to Samuel Adams Bowen, Sr., and Amanda Stone Bowen (1802–81). Will and Sam (and their older brother Bart) became pilots on the Mississippi, operating on the same route as Clemens, between St. Louis and New Orleans. Clemens was Sam’s copilot on the John H. Dickey during the summer of 1858, and twice Will’s copilot on the A.B. Chambers and the Alonzo Child between 1859 and 1861 (Inds, 303–5). Clemens told the story of Sam’s marriage, using fictional names, in chapter 49 of Life on the Mississippi; the character based on Sam was a “shiftless young spendthrift, boisterous, good-hearted, full of careless generosities, and pretty conspicuously promising to fool his possibilities away early, and come to nothing.” Clemens retold the story in “Villagers of 1840–3,” noting that Sam “slept with the rich baker’s daughter, telling the adoptive parents they were married,” and describing Sam’s character and death: “Sam no account and a pauper. Neglected his wife; she took up with another man. Sam a drinker. Dropped pretty low. Died of yellow fever and whisky on a little boat with Bill Kribben the defaulting secretary” (Inds, 97). William J. (Bill) Kribben (d. 1878), who had embezzled the Western Boatmen’s Benevolent Association Fund when he was secretary and treasurer during the Civil War, was Sam Bowen’s copilot on the Molly Moore when they caught yellow fever and died. “Island 82” was just above Greenville, Mississippi, and Columbia, Arkansas. In 1882, when Clemens revisited the Mississippi Valley, he noted that Bowen had been buried in Arkansas at “Jackson’s point” (or “Parker’s Bend”) at the head of Island 65. “The river has cut away the banks & Bowen is washed into the river.” Island 65 had completely disappeared by 1884 (N&J2, 527, 561; Bragg 1977, 105–9, 130; Clabaugh to SLC, 19 July 1890, CU-MARK; Inds, 328).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 12 March 1906

  403.12–15 A tribe of Moros, dark skinned savages . . . bitter against us because we have been trying for eight years to take their liberties away . . . a menace] In December 1898, after the battle of Manila in the Spanish–American War, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. Rather than granting independence to the Filipinos as had been expected, the United States established military rule. What had been a war of independence against Spain soon became a war of independence against the United States, concentrated in the primarily Tagalog north. The Moros, a collection of thirteen cultural-linguistic groups sometimes at war with one another but united by their adherence to Islam, lived primarily in the south, in the Sulu Archipelago, where Jolo Island is located, and in the southern half of Mindanao (Byler 2005, 1–3). In 1899, in what was later admitted to be solely a “temporary expedient,” the American administrative authority signed a treaty with the sultan of Sulu promising governing autonomy in return for recognizing U.S. sovereignty. In the succeeding years it increasingly attempted to assert social and military control of the south, resulting in a series of battles with the Moros, whom the U.S. army many times overpowered in battle but did not defeat (Kho 2009, 1–5). In March 1904, President Roosevelt and Secretary of War Taft decided to abrogate the treaty, which “provided salaries for the Sultan and certain of his dattos and at the same time, it is said, sustained polygamy and slavery” on the grounds that it had simply been “a modus vivendi and an executive agreement” (“America Abrogates Treaty with Moros,” New York Times, 15 Mar 1904, 5). Although they soon reinstated payments to the sultan and his tribal chiefs, the war continued unabated. Before the present action, the Moros had retreated to their fortress in the bowl of the extinct volcano on Mount Dajo (“The Troops in Action,” New York Tribune, 10 Mar 1906, 3; Bacevich 2006).

  403.15 Our commander, General Leonard Wood] Major General Leonard Wood (1860–1927) earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School in 1883 and thereafter worked as an army contract surgeon, participating in the last battle against Geronimo in 1886. He served as personal physician to President William McKinley, and he became friends with McKinley’s assistant secretary of the navy, Theodore Roosevelt. In 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, he assumed command of the First Volunteer Cavalry—the Rough Riders—to Roosevelt’s second in command, and led his men at the battle of San Juan Hill. For the remainder of the war he led the Second Cavalry Brigade, and from 1900 to 1902 served as military governor of Cuba, instituting various reforms but also arousing controversy. In 1902 he became commander of the Philippines Division, and from 1903 to 1906, after President Roosevelt appointed him major general, he served as governor of Moro Province. After attempting to force reforms and impose taxes, he took charge of the military campaign against the Moros (Fort Leonard Wood 2009; Boston Medical Journal 1899, 973). Wood was a controversial figure in his time and remains so. His career, considered stellar and full of well-deserved high honors by some contemporary chroniclers and modern historians, was seen very differently by others, including Clemens, who had watched Wood’s rise to high office, and had in December 1903 written a scathing essay, “Major General Wood, M.D.,” about his character and the machinations to appoint him major general (SLC 1903e; see AD, 14 Mar 1906, note at 409.1–17).

  403.28 General Wood’s order was “Kill or capture the six hundred.”] The New York Times reported on 10 March that Wood “directed Col. Joseph W. Duncan to attack the Moros in the crater and capture or kill them. This was accomplished after repeated demands to surrender” (“15 Americans, 600 Moros Slain in 2 Days’ Fight,” 10 Mar 1906, 1).

  403.31–33 probably with brickbats . . . Heretofore the Moros have used knives and clubs mainly; also ineffectual trade-muskets when they had any] The New York Times reported that the “600 fanatical Moros” were armed with “rifles and knives and supported by native artillery” (“15 Americans, 600 Moros Slain in 2 Days’ Fight,” 10 Mar 1906, 1). The Moros’ “weapon of choice was the kris, a short sword with a wavy blade; the Americans toted Springfield rifles and field guns” (Bacevich
2006).

  404.5–11 The official report quite . . . minutely and faithfully described the nature of the wounds . . . by cable, at one dollar and fifty cents a word] Wood’s cable named seven of the thirty-two wounded, including Coxswain Gilmore, “severely wounded in the elbow” (according to the New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser), and three with “slight” wounds in the thigh, right hand, and left eye (“15 Americans, 600 Moros Slain in Two-Day Fight,” 9 Mar 1906, 1). None of the accounts in the New York newspapers (Herald, Globe and Commercial Advertiser, Evening Post, Evening Sun, Times, Tribune, or World) specified a nose injury.

  404.15–25 In one of the great battles of the Civil War . . . Waterloo . . . the pathetic comedy called the Cuban war . . . crippled on the field] Clemens may have had in mind the Appomattox campaign, in which the casualties equaled about 10 percent of the 163,000 men who fought on both sides. According to modern historians, most of the major battles in the Civil War had a far greater percentage of casualties (Home of the American Civil War 2009; American Civil War 2009b; Fox 1889). His estimate of the number of combatants at Waterloo (on 18 June 1815) is high. By one estimate, only about 141,000 men engaged in the battle; French casualties were about 54 percent, and Allied casualties about 33 percent. Troop strength and casualty figures for the Cuban battles of the Spanish-American War also differ, but Clemens’s statistics are substantially correct. A far greater number of Americans, perhaps 90 percent, died in hospitals of yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, and food poisoning than died in action (Veteran’s Museum and Memorial Center 2009; Library of Congress 2009). Clemens’s source for Spanish casualty figures is uncertain, but it is known that they also lost a greater number to tropical disease than to battle (Bollet 2005).

  404.32–41 The splendid news appeared . . . on Friday morning . . . nobody said a word about the “battle.”] The dispatch from General Wood reporting the “severe action between troops,” dated Friday, 9 March, was first published or excerpted the same day in at least three New York newspapers, the Evening Post, Evening Sun, and the Globe and Commercial Advertiser, and the next day, the morning of Saturday, 10 March, in the Times, Tribune, World, and others. Only two, the New York Evening Post and the World, had an editorial comment. The Post wrote: “Congress would make no mistake if it should rigidly inquire into the latest ‘battle’ in the Philippines. . . . What possible military excuse was there for charging up a mountain cone, 2,100 feet high, to attack an almost impregnable fort? Was there no possibility of forcing these Moros to surrender by starving them out?” (“The Latest Moro Slaughter,” New York Evening Post, 10 Mar 1906, 4).

  405.13–17 Washington . . . (Signed) Theodore Roosevelt] Roosevelt’s congratulatory cable of 10 March was widely published on 11 March, with no direct commentary (“Special to the New York Times,” New York Times, 1; “President Congratulates Wood,” New York Tribune, 1; “President Congratulates Wood upon the Massacre,” New York World, 1).

  405.28 WOMEN SLAIN IN MORO SLAUGHTER] This headline and the others quoted below through 406.22 were from the New York Herald of 11 March.

  406.23 Lieutenant Johnson has pervaded the cablegrams] Lieutenant Gordon Johnston (1874–1934) was the son of Confederate General Robert Daniel Johnston and nephew of Joseph F. Johnston, governor of Alabama, 1896–1900. His injury was followed closely in the newspapers because of his connection to Roosevelt. (Many newspapers erroneously called him Johnson, the name Clemens uses.) On 10 March the New York Tribune published two stories, headlined “Lieutenant Johnston Formerly in Rough Riders” and “Lieut. Johnston Not Badly Hurt,” and the Globe and Commercial Advertiser published “Moro Fight Hero. Lieut. Johnson, Princeton Graduate, Is Badly Wounded in Leading a Charge.” On 11 March the World noted that his wounds “are severe, a slug having passed through his right shoulder. He performed a gallant deed when he scaled the wall of the Rio crater and was blown off the parapet by the force of exploding artillery” (“900 Moros Slain, It Is Now Said, in Fatal Crater,” 1). On 12 March, the New York Times reported Roosevelt’s telegram and Johnston’s answer in a story headlined, “Fine, Cables Johnston, Answering Roosevelt” (12 Mar 1906, 6; Arlington National Cemetery 2009).

  406.25–26 Gillette’s comedy farce of a few years ago, “Too Much Johnson.”] William Gillette’s comedy, based on the French comic operetta La Plantation Thomassin by Maurice Ordonneau and Albert Vizentini, opened on Broadway on 26 November 1894 and ran until June 1895 (“The Theatrical Week,” New York Times, 2 Dec 1894, 10; Broadway League 2009).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 14 March 1906

  407.13–14 hardly a ghost of a whisper . . . in the editorial columns of the papers] Although comment about the Jolo massacre was at first sparing or nonexistent in several New York newspapers, as early as 10 March the World began publishing daily or almost daily editorials and editorial cartoons, which became more disapproving as new information reached the press. The 10 March editorial concluded: “There will be many Americans who will regret, along with the death of almost a score of our brave men, that so crushing a blow should fall by our arms upon a people who have never appealed to us to extend to them the ‘blessings of civilization,’ but are willing to rule themselves” (New York World: “The Slaughter in Jolo,” 10 Mar 1906, 6; “Peace in Jolo,” 12 Mar 1906, 6; “The Soldier Dead,” 13 Mar 1906, 6; “The Jolo Massacre,” 14 Mar 1906, 8). The Tribune’s editors, convinced that these Moros were “plain, ordinary, everyday outlaws and brigands,” were on 11 March regretful but approving: “It was not a question of submission to American rule but a question of regard for any rule at all and for the peace of the Moro people. [] The manner of doing the work was undoubtedly severe. There are cases in which severity is humanity” (“Suppressing Crime in Jolo,” New York Tribune, 11 Mar 1906, 6). On 12 March the Times reported official criticism of General Wood “for bringing on such a struggle. It is contended that he might have accomplished enough by laying siege to the fort and starving the Moros into submission” and similarly reported “no little criticism” of Roosevelt’s congratulatory message, “on the ground that it was entirely uncalled for. . . . The fight at Fort Dajo is compared frequently with that of Wounded Knee, in January, 1891, when the Sioux ghost dancers were shot down, squaws and children with the braves” (“Not All Praise for Wood. Officials Believe His Policy Caused the Needless Killing of Moro Women and Children,” 12 Mar 1906, 6). But on the same day, the Times published an editorial justifying the action: “Lamentable as it is to hear of the enforced slaughter of 600 inhabitants of the islands where we established peace some five years ago, there is yet consolation in the knowledge that these last rebels against our undoubtedly beneficent rule are men who, if nothing except extermination can reduce them to order, can be exterminated with exceptional facility” (“Extermination or Utilization,” 12 Mar 1906, 8). And on the following day, the Times published another editorial defending General Wood (“Finding Fault with Gen. Wood,” 13 Mar 1906, 8; see also “Fighting Fuzzy-Wuzzies,” New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser, 12 Mar 1906, 6, and “The Battle of the Crater,” New York Evening Sun, 13 Mar 1906, 6).

  408.5–7 “no wanton destruction of . . . used them as shields in the hand-to-hand fighting.”] Here and at 408.17–18 Clemens quoted from “No Wanton Massacre” in the New York Evening Post (13 Mar 1906, 1).

  408.30–42 Colonel Funston had penetrated to the refuge of the patriot, Aguinaldo . . . disgracing the uniform, the flag, the nation, and himself ] Emilio Aguinaldo (1869–1964) was the leader of the fight for Filipino independence, first against Spain and then against the United States. Frederick Funston (1865–1917), nicknamed the “scrapper” and known as a “dare-devil sort of soldier,” participated as a volunteer in more than twenty battles in the Cuban war, where he had been seriously wounded three times, captured by the Spanish and sentenced to death, liberated or escaped, and barely survived a bout of “Cuban fever.” He thereafter joined the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers to fight in the Philippines as a colonel, and had been promoted to b
rigadier general in 1899 after swimming across the Rio Grande under “galling fire from Aguinaldo’s men.” In February 1901, McKinley considered him for promotion to the regular army, but concluded that he was “not a man of proper temperament for any rank higher than that of Lieutenant in the regulars” (“Gen. Funston’s Career,” New York Times, 28 Mar 1901, 2). Although by that time the Filipino fight for independence was essentially over, “largely due to the patient, indefatigable, constant efforts of officers whose names are barely known to the public and whose personalities are almost unknown,” Funston proceeded, in late March, to capture Aguinaldo by treachery and deceit. Despite his reluctance to reward Funston and thereby seem to overlook the more important efforts of other officers, McKinley promoted him to brigadier general in the regular army on 30 March 1901 (“The President’s Dilemma. To Reward Funston Would Be to Slight Hard Work of Other Officers in the Philippines,” New York Times, 30 Mar 1901, 2). Clemens’s bitterly satiric “A Defence of General Funston,” published in the North American Review in May 1902, scathingly criticized Funston for the “forgeries and falsehoods” and “ingratitudes and amazing treacheries” he had employed (SLC 1902c, 620, 622). Clemens also wrote a critical book review (SLC 1902a), which he left unpublished, of Edwin Wildman’s Aguinaldo: A Narrative of Filipino Ambitions (1901).