February 28 Sunday – Sam wrote from Rochester, New York finishing the Feb. 27 letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks. He also wrote to Livy:

For the first time, I had to dismiss an audience last night [Lockport] without lecturing. It was a fearful storm, & the people could not get out. Not more than a hundred were present. Perhaps I ought to have gone on & lectured, but then the gentlemen of the Grand Army of the Republic had treated me so well (& besides there was a much-prized old California friend or so among them,) that I hated to see them lose money, & so I said I would foot the expense-bills & dismiss the house—but they wouldn’t permit me to pay anything, or depart without my regular salary—& I rebelled against that. So we compromised—that is, I talked to the audience a minute or two about the weather & got them to laughing, & so dismissed them in a good humor & invited them to come back Wednesday night & hear “the rest of the discourse”—an invitation which nearly all of them accepted, for they took their tickets back, as they went out, instead of their money [MTL 3: 126].