against Alabama, but he made no secret of his pro-Union views and wrote to various members of the Lincoln administration and the United States War Department advising them on how best to mollify the South peaceably and how to deal with Reconstruction upon the Confederacy's inevitable defeat. His death from natural causes on May 21, 1865, came too soon for him to take an active role in the reconciliation of the nation. Novels Clemens was most famous outside of Alabama during his lifetime as a novelist. Bernard Lyle (Philadelphia, 1853) and Mustang Grey (1857) were at least partly autobiographical novels set in the Texas War of Independence and the Mexican–American War and both received critical acclaim at the time of their release. The Rivals (1859) was a novelization of the enmity between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. His final novel, Tobias Wilson, published posthumously in 1865, was an account of Unionist partisans who fought during the Civil War in the mountains of Alabama near Clemens' hometown of Huntsville. He was engaged in the preparation of a history of the war, giving an insight into the character, causes, and conduct of the war in northern Alabama, but it was left unfinished at his death. Family Jeremiah Clemens was a distant cousin of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. References Attribution External links Jeremiah Clemens at Encyclopedia of Alabama 1814 births 1865 deaths Politicians from Huntsville, Alabama Writers from Huntsville, Alabama American people of English descent Democratic Party United States senators from Alabama Democratic Party members of the Alabama House of Representatives Alabama Secession Delegates of 1861 United States Attorneys for the Northern District of Alabama American male novelists 19th-century American novelists 19th-century American male writers University of Alabama alumni Transylvania University alumni People of Alabama in the American Civil War American military personnel of the Mexican–American War United States Army colonels