MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOAT MEN IN MARK TWAIN'S WRITINGS

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ABSALOM GRIMES
August 1834 - March 27, 1911

The spelling of the name "Absalom" is open to question. His death certificate records the spelling as "Absolom." According to Absolom Grimes's death certificate, he was born August 16, 1834. However, in his personal memoirs edited by his biographer M. M. Quaife, Grimes related he was born on August 22, 1834 in Anchorage, Jefferson County, Kentucky near Louisville.

Shortly after his birth, the family moved to St. Louis. His father William Leander Grimes was a pilot on the WILLIAM WALLACE one of the first Upper Mississippi steamboats. The WILLIAM WALLACE operated between Dubuque, Iowa and St. Louis. The boat was owned by Captain Absalom Carlisle whom Ab was named after. In 1850 Grimes became a messenger boy for the Morse Telegraph Co. in St. Louis and actually delivered a telegram into the hands of Jenny Lind when she was in the city to give a concert. In the fall of 1850 he became a cub pilot under his father on the UNCLE TOBY and got his license in 1852. Grimes served as a steamboat pilot between St. Louis and St. Paul from 1852 to 1861. He was serving on the SUNSHINE when the war broke out in 1861.
- from Absalom Grimes, Confederate Mail Runner, edited from Captain Grimes' Own Story. By M .M. Quaife. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1926.

Grimes' autobiography CAMPAIGNING WITH MARK TWAIN details his Civil War experiences with Sam Clemens.


Clemens comments: The rest of my war experience was of a piece with what I have already told of it. We kept monotonously falling back upon one camp or another, and eating up the country. I marvel now at the patience of the farmers and their families. They ought to have shot us; on the contrary, they were as hospitably kind and courteous to us as if we had deserved it. In one of these camps we found Ab Grimes, an Upper Mississippi pilot, who afterwards became famous as a dare-devil rebel spy, whose career bristled with desperate adventures. The look and style of his comrades suggested that they had not come into the war to play, and their deeds made good the conjecture later. They were fine horsemen and good revolver-shots; but their favorite arm was the lasso. Each had one at his pommel, and could snatch a man out of the saddle with it every time, on a full gallop, at any reasonable distance.
- Private History of a Campaign that Failed

Absalom Grimes

Absalom Grimes


Other Absalom Grimes sites on the web:
Absalom Grimes page at Civil War St. Louis web site
Grimes' Obituary from Civil War St. Louis web site

Index | Intro | Cub Pilot | Licensed Pilot | River Tour 1882 | 1902 Farewell | Steamboat Men | Glossary

reference book
Mark Twain A to Z, The Essential Guide to His Life and Writings
edited by R. Kent Rasmussen
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