Mark Twain and Joel Chandler Harris take a non-stereotypical attitude toward the Civil War in The Private History of a Campaign that Failed and A Story of the War. The traditional view of the Civil War is that the Southerners were very spirited about beating the Yankees and keeping their slaves while the Northerners and slaves were spirited about beating the Rebels and giving slaves their freedom. The Southerner and slave, narrating The Private History of a Campaign that Failed and A Story of the War respectively, break away from these stereotypes. The Southerners seen in Twain's story take a lackadaisical approach towards the war and actually want to avoid fighting at all costs. The slave in Harris's story shoots down a Union soldier fighting for his freedom to protect his slave owners. The actions of the characters in Mark Twain's The Private History of a Campaign that Failed and Joel Chandler Harris's A Story of the War cause the reader to question the significance of the Civil War altogether.
             From the onset of The Private History of a Campaign that Failed the reader questions the war from both sides. The motives of the men fighting in the war are doubted as members from both the Union and the Confederacy would switch sides often. At one point a Union soldier says the narrator can not be in the Union because his father owned slaves even though his father was opposed to slavery. Later, when they both switched to the Confederacy, the soldier says that the narrator could not be with the Confederacy because his father was "willing to set slaves free". Ultimately, that soldier would return to the Union (Twain 144-5). This humorous exchange makes the soldiers seem like a joke from the beginning.
             The narrator eventually forms a military company with other local men that are as ignorant and have as little of an idea of what war is as the narrator. Twain gives an amusing detailed explanation of ...