SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 27 (of 78)
Lighting Out for the Territory (1861)
Chapter 27
Lighting Out for the Territory (1861)
In 1861, after Abraham Lincoln’s victorious presidential campaign, my brother Orion was appointed Secretary of the Territory of Nevada—a brand new Territory which Lincoln wanted to become a state soon.
Orion had gone against the grain of most people in our part of Missouri by advocating for the abolition of slavery and for Unionism, and his stumping for Lincoln was a natural offshoot of those feelings of his. His appointment as Territorial Secretary was then a natural offshoot and recompense for his tireless labors in behalf of the newly minted President.
But Orion had no money to get to his post in the Far West. Still, with faith that things would turn out all right, he offered me an unofficial situation as his private secretary (secretary to the Secretary, that is).
Normally I would not have been much tempted by this, but I could no longer ply my trade as a steamboat pilot, and I did not want to wait around to again be discovered by military recruiters and pressed into forced servitude. I had money, saved from my years on the river. So, I went with Orion by stagecoach to Nevada, paying the way for both of us.
Orion and I headed west together—first on a steamboat up the Missouri River to St. Joseph, then the rest of the way by stage coach, from St. Jo to Carson City. It took us 20 days to make that journey on the stage; during that long, bumpy ride, we saw Indians, desperadoes, jackrabbits, coyotes, lots of sagebrush and dust, and even the occasional Pony Express rider. We finally arrived in Carson City, the capital of the Territory, travel-worn and covered with alkali dust.
EDITOR’S NOTES: The Pony Express only lasted eighteen months, being displaced and replaced by the telegraph, but Twain wrote a premature eulogy of sorts to it in Roughing It, describing what it was like to see a member of this hearty squad pass their stagecoach:
We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, tosee a pony-rider, but somehow or other all that passed us and all that met us managed to streak by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out of the windows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and would see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims:
“HERE HE COMES!”
Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so!
In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling—sweeping toward us nearer and nearer—growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined—nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear—another instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider’s hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm!
So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for the flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail-sack after the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we might have doubted whether we had seen any actual horse and man at all, maybe.
You can listen to this chapter here.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Blackbird Crow Raven’s “Rebel With A Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs” is being serialized in this space on substack every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; it is also available in its entirety from here.