to go to the dying man at call. On the
26th of May he makes this memorandum:

It is curious and dreadful to sit up in this way and talk cheerful
nonsense to General Grant, and he under sentence of death with that
cancer. He says he has made the book too large by 200 pages--not a
bad fault. A short time ago we were afraid we would lack 400 of
being enough.

To-day talked with General Grant about his and my first great
Missouri campaign in 1861. He surprised an empty camp near Florida,
Missouri, on Salt River, which I had been occupying a day or two
before. How near he came to playing the devil with his future
publisher.

Of course Clemens would amuse the old commander with the tale of his
soldiering, how his company had been chased through the brush and mud
by the very announcement that Grant was coming. Some word of this got to
the Century editors, who immediately proposed that Mark Twain contribute
to the magazine War Series the story of his share in the Rebellion, and
particularly of his war relations with General Grant. So the "Private
History of a Campaign that Failed" was prepared as Mark Twain's
side-light on the history of the Rebellion; and if it was not important
history it was at least amusing, and the telling of that tale in Mark
Twain's inimitable fashion must have gone far toward making cheerful
those last sad days of his ancient enemy.

During one of their talks General Grant spoke of the question as to
whether he or Sherman had originated the idea of the march to the sea.
Grant said:

"Neither of us originated the idea of that march. The enemy did it."

Reports were circulated of estrangements between General Grant and the
Century Company, and between Mark Twain and the Century Company, as a
result of the book decision. Certain newspapers exploited and magnified
these rumors--some went so far as to accuse Mark Twain of duplicity, and
to charge him with seeking to obtain a vast fortune for himself at the
expense of General Grant and his family. All of which was the merest
nonsense. The Century Company, Webster & Co., General Grant, and Mark
Twain individually, were all working harmoniously, and nothing but the
most cordial relations and understanding prevailed. As to the charge
of unfair dealing on the part of Mark Twain, this was too absurd, even
then, to attract more than momentary attention. Webster & Co., somewhat
later in the year, gave to the press a cl