Shortly after his inglorious "military career" in a Confederate militia, as related in "A Private History of a Campaign That Failed," Mark Twain "lit out for the Territories" when his brother was appointed secretary to the governor of Nevada. The result was one of the greatest books in the literature of the American West, full of first-hand accounts of cowboys, miners, roughnecks, and assorted colorful characters as only Mark Twain could describe them.