The Private History of a Campaign that Failed is one of Mark Twain's sketches (1885), a short, highly fictionalized memoir of his two-week stint in the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard.[1] It takes place in Marion County, Missouri, and is about a group of inexperienced militiamen, the Marion Rangers, who end up killing a stranger in panic. (In 1887, he claimed before Union veterans that he had been in one battle in which a stranger had been killed in the summer of 1861.[2] In fact, Twain saw no action; he quipped that during his service he spent more time retreating while being hunted than fighting.)[3] [4]
Director: | Peter H. Hunt |
Starring: | Edward Herrmann Pat Hingle Joseph Adams Harry Crosby Kelly Pease |
Music: | William P. Perry |
Country: | United States |
Language: | English |
Producer: | Peter H. Hunt |
Editor: | Herbert H. Dow |
Cinematography: | Walter Lassally |
Runtime: | 89 minutes |
Company: | Nebraska Educational Television |
Network: | PBS |
In 1981, a made-for-television film adaptation of The Private History of a Campaign that Failed was broadcast on PBS starring Edward Herrmann, Pat Hingle, Joseph Adams, Harry Crosby and Kelly Pease. The film also adapts Twain's short story "The War Prayer".