Complete Works of Artemus Ward Part 2, War

Before Mark Twain, before stand-up comedy had a name, there was Artemus Ward. Charles Farrar Browne created one of American literature's most unlikely and enduring comic voices: a semi-literate New England rube whose wandering syntax and deadpan observations hid a razor-sharp satirical mind. This collection gathers Ward's Civil War writings, where his invented yokel turns his wandering eye on the conflict consuming the nation. The humor is period-specific, rooted in 1860s slang and concerns, but the underlying game is timeless: the foolish speaking truth while the wise pretend to listen. Ward's genius lay in his disguise. That innocent mask let him skewer politicians, military leaders, and the absurd pretensions of both North and South with an impunity that more direct critics couldn't risk. Lincoln himself was reportedly so charmed by Ward's prose that he read it aloud to his cabinet. What unfolds in these pages is not just historical curiosity but a masterclass in the ancient art of saying the unsayable through seeming simplicity.