People Lew Knew: Mahlon D. Manson, Crawfordsville General

On April 22, 1861, Oliver P. Morton, Governor of the State of Indiana and Commander in Chief of the Militia signed the enrollment paper for Mahlon D. Manson as Captain of the Crawfordsville Guards. This enrollment was countersigned by Lew Wallace. Before, during and after the Civil War, the lives of Mahlon Manson and Lew Wallace intersected many times.

Manson was born in Piqua, Ohio, about 1820. His father died when Manson was three years old. As a young man, he became a clerk in a druggist store and continued to pursue that profession. In 1842, he moved to Montgomery County, Indiana, where he taught school and pursued a medical degree by attending classes at the Ohio Medical School in Cincinnati and by taking a course or two in New Orleans. Although he pursued a medical degree, it appears he never practiced medicine and instead continued his career as a druggist.

Like Lew Wallace, when the Mexican War broke out Manson volunteered for service. Unlike Wallace, Manson saw significant action in General Winfield Scott’s campaign from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. After the War, Manson returned to Montgomery County and resumed his career as a druggist. Again like Wallace, he became heavily involved in the Democratic Party and in 1851 was elected to the State House of Representatives. In 1856, he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention that nominated James Buchanan and John Breckinridge. He continued his support of the Democratic Party in 1860 when he supported Stephen A. Douglas for President.

When War broke out in 1861, he took an active part in raising the first company in Montgomery County under Lew Wallace.  Company G of the 10th Indiana selected Manson as Captain. He was quickly promoted to Major and just ten days later to Colonel. In June 1861, he participated in the Battle of Rich Mountain in (West) Virginia and in January of 1862 he was involved in the Battle of Mill Spring (Kentucky). His troops then removed to Louisville, Kentucky, and for much of the spring and early summer he remained in the area, receiving a promotion to Brigadier General.

In 19th century biographies that praised Brigadier General Mahlon Manson, some authors skipped over aspects of his military career. One battle that some early biographers minimized was the Battle of Richmond, Kentucky. Kentucky was a border state during the War and Indiana Governor Morton was deeply concerned about the possibility of losing Kentucky to the Confederates. In the summer of 1862, rumors began circulating about a large Confederate army massing near Knoxville and Chattanooga. By late August, Morton had rushed almost 15,000 men into Kentucky with another 5,000 on the way. General Don Carlos Buell, who had served at the Battle of Shiloh with Lew Wallace, was in charge of the district that included central Kentucky and sent Major General William Nelson along with Brigadier Generals Mahlon Manson and Charles Cruft to take command of the Union troops that were massing in Kentucky. Unfortunately, Buell didn’t send any significant troop support as he believed this Confederate threat was a ruse and that their true aim was to regain parts of Tennessee lost after Shiloh.

On August 29, the Confederate cavalry moving north in Kentucky encountered Union troops. Manson was in charge of the Union army in the area of Richmond. On August 30, after some early Union success, the Confederates began to take control of the field of battle. Out of a force of approximately 6,500 Union men, 206 were killed, 844 were wounded and 4,303 were taken prisoner. In contrast the Confederates saw 78 men killed, 372 wounded, and 1 missing. As some historians have reported, the Battle of Richmond was the closest thing to a battle of annihilation in the entire war. Manson was one of the Union men wounded (in the thigh) and captured. He was exchanged in a prisoner swap two months later. The few Union troops left after the battle fled to Louisville leaving much of central Kentucky and Cincinnati open and vulnerable—enter Lew Wallace.

Some of Manson's items on display at Richmond, KY
Photo by Stephanie Cain

With the catastrophic Union defeat the Confederate army was poised within about eighty miles of both Louisville and Cincinnati. Wallace, who was in the area, was asked to take command of the troops in Cincinnati and prepare the basically defenseless city for a likely Confederate attack. Wallace’s extraordinary organizational skills and military acumen served him well and within about ten days, he had transformed the defensive perimeter around Cincinnati as well as Newport and Covington, Kentucky. After a brief skirmish with the troops of Confederate General Henry Heth, on September 11, Wallace awoke on the 12th to the news that that the Confederates had withdrawn and Cincinnati had been saved from invasion.

In spite of his stunning defeat at Richmond, Manson’s military career was not over and he continued to serve as a Union leader. In May of 1864, he was involved in the Battle at Resaca (part of the Atlanta campaign) where he was again wounded. In an effort to demonstrate to General Haskell how he might best avoid enemy fire, Manson jumped up on the defensive works and was struck by a piece of shell that injured his right shoulder, forever disabling his arm. He was carried from the field, returned to duty a few days later and then had to be taken to Nashville where he was hospitalized for almost three months. Realizing that he would not be able to be fully effective, he resigned his commission in December of 1864.

The lives of Manson and Wallace would continue to influence one another. As a result of the Battle of Richmond, the Buell Commission was formed to inquire into Major General Don Carolos Buell’s performance with respect to the invasion of Kentucky. Buell was Manson’s superior who placed Manson in command, but failed to send significant troop support. Wallace was appointed chair of this commission which effectively removed Wallace from battle command for the balance of 1862 and much of 1863.

After the war, Manson continued his active involvement in the Democratic Party. In 1864, he was nominated for Lt. Governor, but lost. In 1866, he was nominated for Secretary of State, but lost. Then in 1868, he was nominated for as Representative of the 9th District in Congress—and again, lost. In 1870, he was nominated as Representative a second time, and he won—defeating Lew Wallace!

At this time, Manson also served on the Committee on Invalid Pensions. In 1873, he became a member of the State Democratic Committee, became its chairman in 1875 and was in an official capacity lobbying on behalf of Democratic interests in the controversial election of 1876 where Wallace represented Republican interests. In 1876, he was elected State Auditor and in 1884 elected Lt. Governor. He resigned his post as Lt. Governor to accept a post as a Collector of the Internal Revenue Service in Terre Haute.

Beyond their political intersections, Manson and Wallace would have crossed paths in other ways. The Mansons and Wallaces were both members of the Methodist Church in Crawfordsville, both men were members of the Grand Army of the Republic and the local Masonic Lodge, both were involved with the building of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Indianapolis and finally, both were laid to rest in Oak Hill Cemetery.

The parallels in the lives of Manson and Wallace, two of Crawfordsville’s five Civil War generals, are striking. Even the closing comments of one 19th century Manson biographer would equally describe Wallace.

"An eloquent orator, he commands the attention, convinces the reason, arouses the enthusiasm and awakens the zeal of his hearers. A brave and gallant soldier, a prudent and conscientious statesman, a public spirited citizen, a faithful friend, an honest man in business, and a true man in all the relations of life, it is not surprising that he holds a high position in the esteem and affection of the people of the State. He rose from poverty to justly deserved eminence and the bright light which beats upon his life discovers no flaw in his character. Not by accident or aid of others, but by earnest toil, constant perseverance, through smoke and blood of battle, he has attained success in life, military glory, political and social popularity and the love and honor of his fellow-citizens. Such men as he make all men their debtors."

Haunted Basements and the Mexican War

To put it politely, Lew Wallace was what today would be called an alternative learner. In his day, many in Indianapolis referred to Lew, the governor’s son, as rascal and worse. As a youth running around the capital city, Lew and his friends found their way into the basement of the Governor’s house that stood in the middle of the circle downtown where the Soldiers and Sailors Monument was to be built decades latter. For different reasons, this house was never occupied by any governors, but was used instead by others. One of the occupants was Judge Isaac Blackford who lived in and worked out of the old mansion. Many of the other local attorneys and judges began to use this house as an informal place to meet and socialize.

The basement of the house was a vast, unlighted cellar filled with boxes, barrels, and as Lew wrote in his autobiography, “. . . debris of such varied ins and outs as to be dangerous, if not quite impassable, to the unfamiliar.” The basement was also supposed to be haunted by a workman who, on good authority, was reportedly buried in deep, dark, dank cellar.

Lew and a few of his cohorts found this basement and its intrigue impossible to pass up and used the lower area of the house as a meeting and rendezvous spot much as the lawyers did upstairs. Boys being boys, they decided it would be fun to take long poles and begin punching the underside of the floors just as the attorneys were engaging in their debates and discussions. The more the men yelled and stomped their feet, the louder the boys would hit the underside of the floor. The rascals could easily hear when the men had had enough and were headed to the basement to apprehend the criminals so like rats, the boys scattered into the dark recesses of the cellar to preselected hiding places.

After a couple of these episodes, the men turned the tables and had the local sheriff of the court and several bailiffs lie in wait for the boys. At the first thump, the cellar doors were seized shut and with lanterns each boy was fished out by his shirt collar. As Wallace wrote: “With an inconceivable hardness of heart, the myrmidons took us up-stairs and before the judges. There I made the acquaintance of Isaac Blackford . . .” Lew continued his wayward existence and eventually struck out on his own when his father had had enough of his poor behavior and poor scholarship. During this time, young Wallace did undertake the study of law, but also grew increasingly interested in the turmoil in Texas and discovered that he had a gift for public speaking when he began recruiting men to fight in the Mexican War.

A few years after his escapade in the basement, imagine his dismay when he and others interested in pursuing a legal career appeared in court to take the bar examination. “We advanced and stood in a body outside the railing. As we did so, I observed the clear, gray eyes of his honor, Isaac Blackford, rest on me with a look so sharp and cold it shot me full of rigors. He had waited a long time for what the baseballists would call his innings. At last it was come. Would he make a worm of me and thread me on his hook?”

The good judge did not make a worm of Lew and thread him on a hook. The judge made no speech, but rather gave the young men their instructions and sent them with a bailiff off to a room to take the exam. The exam took hours and hours to complete and at the end of the ordeal, Lew was not particularly satisfied with his answers. As he recorded in his autobiography, at the bottom of the last page he wrote a note, “. . . the flippancy of which makes my face burn as I now write:

‘Hon. Isaac Blackford, Examining Judge:  Dear Sir,--I hope the foregoing answers will be to your satisfaction more than they are to mine; whether they are or not, I shall go to Mexico.  Respectfully, Lew Wallace.”

Two or three days after completing the examination, Wallace received a letter from the post office:  “Supreme Court-Room, Indianapolis.  Mr. Lew Wallace:  Dear Sir—The Court interposes no objection to you going to Mexico.  Respectfully, Isaac Blackford.”

As Wallace noted in his memoirs, the communication was not attached to a license to practice law. It took service in the Mexican War and the love of a good woman named Susan to bring Lew successfully back to his law studies in the early 1850s.

People Lew Knew: Gene Stratton-Porter

One of the great Hoosier authors of the early 20th century was Gene Stratton-Porter. Her literary career began its ascent at the turn of the century and continued until her death in 1924 when her limousine was hit by a streetcar in Los Angeles. Always a trailblazer, she had moved to Los Angeles from her beloved Indiana for health reasons and because she had become so popular that she had formed a movie studio and production company to bring her characters from books such as Laddie, Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost to life on film. At the peak of her popularity it is estimated that she had more than 50 million readers enjoying her romantic novels, magazine articles, and her studies of nature and wildlife.

An avid reader, photographer, and lifelong scholar on conservation and ecology, with the income that she earned from her writings, Mrs. Stratton-Porter enjoyed developing native gardens and natural areas on her northeastern Indiana properties—most famously her Cabin in the Wildflower Woods. In one of her last books, Tales You Won’t Believe, published in 1925, Mrs. Stratton-Porter related a wonderful little story about the white strawberries sent to her from the garden of General Lew Wallace.  

In relating her story, Mrs. Stratton-Porter’s great admiration for Wallace is evident. As her books and her interests in wild flower gardening became known, people from all over the country and, in fact, the world sent her clippings, cuttings, seeds, and plants for her gardens. She wrote: “...perhaps the greatest thrill of the entire collection came when I received a packet containing half a dozen wild strawberries, guaranteed to bear white wild strawberries from the home grounds of General Lew Wallace.”  These plants held special meaning for her as she knew Wallace was a great flower lover and he himself had found them in the woods near his home. Mrs. Stratton-Porter had visited the home and she knew of Wallace’s magnificent trees—especially the Beeches “...which grew for the General in the most elaborate manner, truly lordly Beeches with wide-spreading arms of gray moleskin, great velvet trunks and branches almost sweeping the ground.”

Mrs. Stratton-Porter took great care in personally planting these special gifts—searching her property for just the right soil, light, moisture and shade. She had read and practically memorized The Fair God and Ben-Hur and fairly worshipped Wallace. For many years the strawberries grew and flourished. Then in 1914, a very long and cold winter severely damaged her garden. Among the plants that did not return in the spring of 1914 were the beloved white strawberries. General Wallace had died by 1914 and Mrs. Stratton-Porter considered approaching Wallace’s son for one more plant—hoping that the cold winter had not destroyed the original beds. But time got away from Mrs. Stratton-Porter and fate intervened.

One of her large Beech trees that she had been trying to save also died in the cold winter of 1914 and had to be taken down. After cutting the tree it was discovered that even the roots were rotted and hollow. Squirrels had been using them to hide their winter stores. Mrs. Stratton-Porter and her staff filled the hole left by the beech, smoothed the soil and moved on to other tasks. A year later, Mrs. Stratton-Porter was passing through the woods near where the Beech tree had been and was dumbfounded when she discovered a big circular bed of wild white strawberries spreading over every inch of ground that the Beech had occupied.

After much pondering Mrs. Stratton-Porter came to the conclusion that the squirrels must have been feeding on the white strawberries and sowed the seeds throughout the roots and soil of the old Beech tree. When the tree was gone, the soil smoothed, and sun and rain reached the ground, Wallace’s white strawberries returned with a vigor she had never seen in her original beds. As she recorded, “Nature returned to me my lost gift from the wildings of the great general.” Given Wallace’s love of his Beech trees, there was some poetry for Mrs. Stratton-Porter in knowing that the loss of her Beech tree gave new life to the General’s strawberries that she so valued. Sadly, after all the pleasure these little plants brought both the General and Mrs. Stratton-Porter, the white wild strawberries seem to have disappeared from both the grounds of the Wallace Study and from the Cabin in the Wildflower Woods—but as any gardener knows, hope springs eternal and we will be keeping an eye out for these tasty treasures for seasons to come.

*Information in this post is from an article by Joann Spragg.

People Lew Knew: Charles Major, Indiana Author

Recently I had two literary guests visiting the Study who asked about Charles Major of Shelbyville, Indiana. I didn’t recognize the name at first, though I should have--Major is remembered now for having written The Bears of Blue River, but he was a celebrated author in his day. His book When Knighthood Was in Flower, published in 1899, was a bestseller and was adapted on Broadway and in film.

Lew made a habit of encouraging young and struggling authors in Indiana. He knew most of those who are today remembered as Indiana’s greats--James Whitcomb Riley, Booth Tarkington, George Ade, and many others. But he also had an influence on Charles Major.

They met shortly before Major’s first novel was published, and after the meeting, Major wrote a letter to Lew. He confessed that, many years earlier, he had traveled to Crawfordsville in the hopes of meeting the famous author...but then lost his nerve and went back home! It made their meeting in 1898 even more important to Major.

I wish I had known all this before my visitors asked. Hopefully by sharing it on the blog, I’ll be able to reach those who asked as well as all our regular readers.

For more in-depth information about Charles Major, see our earlier post about him here.

Friendship with the Wallaces Shapes a Young Man's Life

Helping with the care and maintenance of the grounds of the Lew Wallace property by incoming freshmen at Wabash College is not a recent phenomenon. These young men have been helping the museum for years and actually helped General and Mrs. Wallace in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

One of the young Wabash men who worked for the Wallaces was Harry Wann. In September 1904, Harry was a seventeen year old freshman at Wabash. His older brother had attended Wabash and had worked for General and Mrs. Wallace at different times. As Harry was in need of money to support his education, he walked over to the Wallace home and introduced himself requesting an opportunity to work for Mrs. Wallace.

Some weeks after his meeting with Mrs. Wallace, she sent him a note asking that he bring all the students he could find to help rake leaves. As Wann recorded, the grounds were spacious and it was a real challenge to keep them neat and free of leaves. After this initial effort, Mrs. Wallace quickly came to depend on Harry for help and he was frequently at the home doing odd jobs.

By the fall of 1904, General Wallace’s health was declining. He often sat outdoors between the house and the Study to enjoy the fresh fall air. Ever curious Wallace would question Harry about his college studies, his ambitions, and even his eating habits! Harry didn’t have enough money for breakfast so he tended to skip that meal—Wallace grew concerned as he told Harry that breakfast was a very important meal. Although he was weak in body, Wallace continued to be strong in mind and he hired Harry to work in the Study. Wallace was still doing research and writing but it was too tiring to move about the Study pulling the books he needed from the shelves. To keep up with his research, he had the young man pull the desired volumes from the book shelves and bring them to the center desk.

As the autumn of 1904 turned cooler, Harry was hired to fire the furnaces in both the Wallace home and the Study. He also performed this same service for Susan’s brother Isaac who lived just up the street and Colonel Thompson who also lived nearby. Each evening Harry would stoke the furnaces and then at 5:30 the next morning he would make the same round to prepare the furnaces for the day.

When Harry was working at the Wallace home, the General would share stories of his experiences as Minister to Turkey as well as other episodes from a crowded life. Wallace’s health declined during the winter of 1904 and early in 1905 he took to his bed. Several times he sent for Harry to come to his bedroom to take dictation which Harry would write out in long-hand for the General to sign. Harry would post the letters the next morning.

On January 25, 1905 the General called for Harry to take dictation. The General dictated one letter regarding a typewriter he intended to purchase and a second letter to a nursery which included a list of plants and seeds for the spring planting. Harry completed the letters and prepared to leave. As he reached the front door, Mrs. Wallace detained him and asked Harry to refrain from sending the letter with the plant list as there was doubt as to her husband’s ability to garden come the spring. Harry headed back to Wabash College and laid the letter aside. He continued to come each evening and early each morning to tend the furnace, but he never saw the General again. Wallace’s health declined rapidly and he died on February 15.

After the General’s passing, Mrs. Wallace closed the house and she moved to Indianapolis for a time. A few months later, Harry received a note from Mrs. Wallace requesting him to retrieve her door key from Miss Millen (who was staying at Colonel Thompson’s home). In the note, Mrs. Wallace asked Harry to go to the Wallace house, and get two things for her. From the lowest drawer of her desk in the small (east) room, downstairs she wanted a manuscript of a play based on the Prince of India and then on the mantel was a letter from a friend. She asked Harry to add some Ben-Hur postcards from a local store; bundle it all together and send the package to her in Indianapolis via American Express.

As Harry wrote: “Needless to say, I was proud as a peacock, as a boy of seventeen, to be privileged to enter alone the privacy of the Wallace home to obtain, wrap and send to Mrs. Wallace the original MS. of the play “Prince of India.”

Harry Wann graduated from Wabash in 1908, taught German at Wabash for one year and then, perhaps remembering Wallace’s stories of the Middle East, he moved to Constantinople where he taught for three years. Wann returned to Wabash briefly in 1911 before moving on to teach at the University of Michigan. He pursued his doctorate and in 1917 was appointed head of the Romance Language Department at Indiana State University. Like Wallace, Harry Wann loved to learn. He participated in Community Theater, enjoyed singing in local choirs, and became a student once again when he enrolled at the Herron Art School in Indianapolis to learn the art of sculpting. As a sculptor he received a number of commissions.

In his 80s, as Wann reflected on his life and recorded his memories he continued to treasure the few months he worked for General and Mrs. Wallace. After a lifetime of accomplishment one of his prized possessions was the letter that was dictated to him and signed by General Lew Wallace on January 25, 1904 but never mailed.

Lew Wallace and the "Doctor"

Josiah K. Lilly, Sr. was a generation younger than Lew Wallace but the two men shared a great friendship. Josiah’s father was Eli Lilly a colonel in the Civil War and founder of the pharmaceutical company. Josiah received his college diploma in pharmacy in 1882 and in the fall of that year he married a second cousin named Lilly Ridgely (making her Lilly Lilly). Josiah had a keen interest in the mixing of medicines, but as the Lilly enterprise grew he was shifted into managerial positions and elected to the Board of Directors.

Around the turn of the century, Josiah and Lew Wallace went on a duck hunting trip. One morning, Lew woke up with a severe stomachache. Josiah jumped into action; digging up some Hydrastis canadensis roots (more commonly known as Goldenseal) he had seen near the duck blind. Josiah ground the roots in whiskey, tasted the brew and finding it suitable he named it Yaller Root Bitters. The drink was then given to the ailing General. According to Lilly, the results were highly satisfactory and he stated: “I do not believe the General was more enthusiastic over his capture of Fort Donaldson in the Civil War.” In his memoirs, Lilly failed to note just how large a medicinal dose Wallace took prior to his enthusiastic response. After taking the cure, Wallace always referred to Josiah as “Doctor.”

According to Wikipedia, Goldenseal is often used as a multi-purpose remedy, and is thought to possess many different medicinal properties. In addition to being used as a topical antimicrobial, it can be taken internally as a digestion aid, and may remove canker sores when gargled. Goldenseal is often used to boost the medicinal effects of other herbs it is blended or formulated with. Wikipedia does not address the medicinal boost offered by mixing Hydrastis Canadensis with whiskey and a couple of duck hunters.

Information for this Tidbit from: All in a Century: The First 100 Years of Eli Lilly and Company, by E.J. Kahn, Jr. 

Maurice Thompson: North vs. South Hunting With Lew Wallace

In the late 19th century, Crawfordsville became known as the Athens of Indiana because of the impressive number of successful authors who claimed Crawfordsville home. At the same time it was also known as the archery capital of the United States. Maurice Thompson was a celebrated leader in both of these seemingly unrelated worlds.

Thompson was born in Indiana but grew up in Georgia. Like Lew Wallace, Maurice learned best in the out of doors; not in the classroom. Like Lew, Maurice served in the Civil War; although in the Confederate army. Like Lew, Maurice tried many careers with varying degrees of success; working as a railroad man, civil engineer, surveyor, naturalist, geologist, soldier, lawyer, politician, novelist, poet, and sportsman. And finally, like Lew, Maurice had strong creative talents. With all of his careers and interests, Maurice Thompson is best remembered as a novelist and sportsman.

For reasons unknown Maurice Thompson moved to Crawfordsville in 1868, quickly followed by his brother, Will. Maurice soon met and married Alice Lee of Crawfordsville and his brother married Alice’s sister. Beginning in the 1870s, a number of Maurice’s essays, articles and publications began receiving broad public acclaim. He is most widely remembered for two works, Alice of Old Vincennes, which was published in 1900, shortly before his death in 1901 and The Witchery of Archery, published in 1878.

An avid outdoorsman Thompson, together with his brother Will, developed a passion for bow hunting and archery. In the 1870s and 1880s, four Crawfordsville men made up the top archery team in the country with Maurice and Will Thompson as two of the men (the others were Henry Talbot and Paul Hughes). The Thompson brothers were also individual champions. The men bow hunted game in the countryside, had contests with archers from surrounding states and even challenged Lew Wallace.

One of the more memorable events in Crawfordsville’s sporting history happened when Thompson and two of his Confederate friends who were visiting Crawfordsville challenged Lew Wallace and two of his Union friends to a competition. Thompson’s team used bows while Wallace and his team used rifles. In this North versus South, bows versus rifles shooting match—the Southern bows won! By all accounts the six marksmen enjoyed the event as “a day’s excellent sport.”

With the Thompson brothers’ national reputations and Maurice’s writing on the sport, Crawfordsville enjoyed the undisputed title as archery capital of the country. The national archery association was formed in Crawfordsville and the first meeting of the association was held here in 1879. As the national craze for bow hunting caught on two local women, Mrs. Alice Klein and Mrs. William Lee, gained fame as they won state and regional contests.

With the significant parallels in their lives, Wallace and Thompson shared a long and strong friendship. They were even neighbors as the impressive Thompson home, Sherwood Place, was within sight of the Wallace Home. Called “The Father of Archery,” Thompson is credited with popularizing sport in the late 19th century and in 1939, the National Archery Association named their highest honor for outstanding members of the archery community the Maurice Thompson Award.

Mark Twain Said What?

According to a recent article in the New York Times, celebrated author Mark Twain was “often savage in his commentary” on other literary works. Writing in the margins, as was common among voracious readers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Twain edited already-published volumes by renowned authors Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, and our own Lew Wallace.

So what did he think of Wallace’s writing style? Twain’s handwriting on one of the endpages of his copy of Wallace’s 1906 Autobiography is pictured here, and the transcription below spells it out clearly:





“The English of this book is incorrect & slovenly & its diction, as a rule, barren of distinction. I wonder what ‘Ben-Hur’ is like.”

This may be professional jealousy on Twain’s part. After all, Wallace’s epic – which Twain had apparently not read – outsold Twain’s work handily.

On the other hand, he’s kind of right. I mean, a two-volume autobiography? I’m not sure if he learned to be long-winded or if it was just his personality, but Lew could go on a bit. Modern readers in particular can get lost in the flowery, descriptive sentences that fill Lew’s writings. But, if it was “slovenly”, as Twain puts it, then why was Ben-Hur so popular? Was Mark Twain’s grammatical knowledge that far above the masses, or was he nitpicking other authors of popular works?

Frankly, even as a self-proclaimed “grammar Nazi”, I find Twain’s comments unnecessarily abrasive. True, some of his better-known works – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for instance – contain diction that is quite distinctive, enough to prompt some school districts to ban some of them from the required reading list. But, is his work “correct” enough to qualify him to criticize so harshly? Wallace was not the only recipient of his reproach. Perhaps the question for the ages is not so much, “did Lew Wallace’s writings measure up?” as, “can Mark Twain make these claims?”

Member Sneak Preview Party, 3/3/10

Larry Paarlberg, Director of the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, greets guests to the Member Sneak Preview Party for the opening of the Museum's new exhibit, "Sanctuary: Preserving the Legacy of Lew Wallace."

Member Sneak Preview Party, 3/3/10, originally uploaded by WallaceStudy.