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
discipline. The situation was strange and unprecedented, the terrors
were none the less real that they were imaginary.
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