January 12 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Jan. 8 from General Oliver Otis Howard (1830-1909).

Dear General Howard:

You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking me to preside, & it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since that object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln Memorial University.

The Endowment Fund will be the most fitting of all the memorials the country will dedicate to the memory of Lincoln, serving, as it will, to uplift his very own people.

I hope you will meet with complete success, & I am sorry I cannot be there to witness it & help you rejoice. But I am older than people think, nearly twice as old as I used to be; & besides I live away out in the country & never stir from home, except at geological intervals to fill left- over engagements made in Mesozoic Times when I was younger & indiscreeter.

You ought not to say sarcastic things about my “fighting on the other side.” General Grant did not act like that. General Grant paid me compliments. He bracketed me with Zenophon—it is there in his memoirs for anybody to read. He said if all the confederate soldiers had followed my example & adopted my military arts he could never have caught enough of them in a bunch to inconvenience the Rebellion. General Grant was a fair man & recognized my worth; but you are prejudiced, & you have hurt my feelings.

But I have an affection for you, anyway. / Mark Twain [MTP]. Note: Howard, a Union General, suffered defeats at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, was also Commandant of West Point 1881- 2 during one of Sam’s visits there. He later served out West and won surrender of Chief Joseph, and was a commissioner in the Freedman’s Bureau. He was also instrumental in the founding of Howard University.

Wilfred A. French for Photo-Era (The American Journal of Photography), Boston, Mass. wrote:

My dear Mr. Clemens; / I suppose, during your numerous and make-believe lawsuits—you are the cleverest advertiser that ever lived, even surpassing the war-lord of Germany, himself—you have, naturally and with justifiable neglect, overlooked your renewal to the finest and best magazine ever published—I believe you said so. My office instructions are to send you the magazine, just the same, right along; in fact, it is a life sentence, which I hope you will bear with your usual equanimity. …

P.S. I hear that Miss Clara and my sister, Miss Marie, are having tolerably good success in the West [MTP].

Harry Johnston wrote from Scotland to Sam. “By enclosed syllabus [not in file] you will observe that the writer is down to give a few ‘extracts from Mark Twain’. Might I be excused for asking you to give me a ‘message’ for my paper?” [MTP].

Charles W. Moore wrote to ask Sam if he had read J.A. Wylie’s History of Protestantism. If not, Moore wanted to send a set [MTP]. Note: “Thank him very much, but I take no interest in ecclesiastical history”