September 24 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Gov. William W. Belknap, about strategy to obtain an appointment to the Naval Academy for Samuel Moffett. They would try to gain the appointment through Keokuk, Iowa, even though Samuel had never lived there [MTL 6: 244].

On or about this day Livy and Sam wrote a letter to Livy’s mother, Olivia Lewis Langdon. Sam was harried:

Livy appoints me to finish this; but how can a headless man perform an intelligent function? I have been bullyragged all day by the builder, by his foreman, by the architect, by the tapestry devil who is to upholster the furniture, by the idiot who is putting down the carpets, by the scoundrel who is setting up the billiard-table (& has left the balls in New York,) by the wildcat who is sodding the ground & finishing the driveway (after the sun went down), by a book agent, whose body is in the back yard & the coroner notified. Just think of this thing going on the whole day long, & I a man who loathes details with all his heart! [MTL 6: 244-5].