A Twain story for Memorial Day. When he moved upstairs in Mrs. Murphy's boarding house in Carson City Nevada Territory in August 1861, among the men he lived and dined with were two who had been under enemy gunfire. William H. (Will) Wagner was with Col. Frederick W. Lander in 1860 when they encountered a group of Paiute Indians during the Pyramid Lake War in 1860. Shots were fired at Lander and Wagner. Subsequently, Col. Lander negotiated peace with the tribe. The other veteran was there recovering from an arm wound received a few weeks earlier, at Bull Run near Manassas in the first major battle of the Civil War. Captain James E. Coulter commanded a company in the 79th New York Infantry, called The Highland Guard, and led his company downhill into the withering fire of Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's troops on July 21, 1861. In the system of the Civil War, he was furloughed, meaning leave without pay, while he recovered, and had come to the Territory with Territorial Gov. James W. Nye, his friend of many years, to begin recovery. He resigned his commission and returned to his family in New York City late in 1861.