Editing Character:Mark Clemens (section)

== Background ==
Born into a poor, north-eastern family. At the age of 18, recently married and newly a father, Mark Clemens found himself conscripted into the Union army.

For the next 5 years, he took part in a number of campaigns, fighting as a foot-soldier up and down the Union/Confederacy border.

His luck held, and he went by unwounded, writing letters to Emily back home and waiting to see his son Sam. Then, during an otherwise unremarkable battle in Missouri, he was wounded in the right arm. Though the ball was removed soon afterward, the wound became gangrenous and the sawbones amputated at the shoulder.

As if his luck wasn't already bad enough, while recuperating in the army hospital camp, he developed a cough. Returning home to his family in Michigan, the cold weather aggravated it and it soon became apparent that it was consumption.

Shunned and unemployed, he packed up a few of his belongings and hopped a train. Eventually his wanderings found him in the Disputed Lands, where he heard rumours of the work of one Thomas Melquist. Figuring that a noble death would be better than dieing in a ditch somewhere, he signed on with his agency -- the better to prove that there's still some use in him.