See The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835-1871, page 127-8
On January 8, 1861, the Alonzo Child departed Cairo for St. Louis, as Captain James O'Neal had engaged a pilot who knew the recent changes in the river. Going up river the Alonzo Child came upon and ran past a “good deal of ice floating in the river” all the way to St. Louis. When the Alonzo Child arrived in St. Louis the pilots reported “finding about 4 1/2 feet on the more formidable of the bars below. The Alonzo Child was drawing four feet three inches.” Some years later the pilot whom O’Neal had employed recounted that you “ought to have seen him & me bring the [Alonzo Child] up the river, through the ice, drawing all the water.” This up river trip was the only journey under those conditions the Alonzo Child made from Cairo to St. Louis that winter, arriving on January 11, 1861, and Sam Clemens was her pilot.
Horace Bixby and Sam Clemens parted company at the beginning of the Civil War. They would not meet again for twenty-one years, although they remained on friendly terms and reportedly corresponded "frequently". Bixby is quoted as saying "He [Sam] was in the Confederate service there for a short time, and I went under the old flag - the flag I was born under and expect to die under. I went into the gunboat service under Commodore Foote on the flagship "Benton". (See Loges, Horace Ezra Bixby: "The Life and Times of a Frontier River Pilot")
On January 14, 1861 the Alonzo Child departed St. Louis and headed south for New Orleans, unaware of events down river.
The Alonzo Child arrived at New Orleans on January 24, 1861, taking a long ten days to reach the city. Two days later the people of New Orleans learned that Louisiana had seceded. Clemens later noted that there was great rejoicing, waving the state flag, bands playing Dixie, and the marching of state soldiers. “We lay in New Orleans a week” (actually it was five days).
January 29: Proceeding up river the Alonzo Child passed guns at Vicksburg and Memphis. Tennessee was a state then working on the procedures of secession. At some point during “these stirring times,” Clemens, as well as his home state of Missouri, would have to make a decision whether or not to stay in the Union. Arriving at Cairo on February 5, the Alonzo Child encountered ice that prevented it from reaching St. Louis. Gathering what freight and passengers came down on the cars of the Illinois Central Railroad to Cairo, the Alonzo Child departed on February 8, having an uneventful trip to New Orleans and back up the river free of ice to St. Louis, arriving on February 25. The Alonzo Child was now again at St. Louis after an absence of over a month. During this time Captain DeHaven became sole owner of the Alonzo Child and he again took over the position as master. DeHaven later recalled that the “pilots of the steamboat were paid $250 per month each; and the first engineer $250, and the second $150 per month.”
On his next trip, from February 27 to March 15, Clemens would be taking several young lady friends escorted by his mother, Jane Lampton Clemens, on a pleasure trip from St. Louis to New Orleans. Also on board was a large group of young couples from Boonville on the Missouri River, once the home of Captain DeHaven. “They were a gay party, and came in a body as a special compliment to Captain D. DeHaven, who has just resumed command of his fine boat.” Clemens wrote that his mother “was delighted with her trip, but she was disgusted with the girls for allowing me to embrace and kiss them.” The vessel arrived at New Orleans on March 6 and returned to St. Louis March 15.
Sam would make two more round trips between St. Louis and New Orleans. On April 26, Sam boarded the Hannibal City to Hannibal. Sam wrote Orion of his intention to travel to Hannibal to collect a debt (probably the $200 Will Bowen had borrowed). He asked Orion to bring or buy the book, Armageddon by Samuel D. Baldwin.
On April 28 Sam boarded the Die Vernon as a passenger for the return trip to St. Louis, where he spent a few days with his family [MTL 1: 120n2].