July 23 Thursday – General Ulysses S. Grant died. Sam took a ten-hour train ride to New York City, arriving in the early evening [July 24 to Livy].
From Sam’s notebook:
On board train, Binghamton, July 23, 1885,—10 a.m. The news is that Gen. Grant died about 2 hours ago—at 5 minutes past 8.
The last time I saw him was July 1st & 2d , at Mt. McGregor. I then believed he would live several months. He was still adding little perfecting details to his book—a preface, among other things. He was entirely through, a few days later…He was a very great man—& superlatively good [MTNJ 3: 168].
Sam wrote from Quarry Farm to Howells, the first page of the letter is lost, so it is assumed the letter was written this day.
General Grant will probably die today, & lack of space will protect me from the Advertiser (Boston) for awhile. If they start in on me again, later, it will be fair proof of malice.
Webster & Goodwin are to have a talk when the latter gets back to New York [MTHL 2: 534-5].
Note: Perry claims Sam was at Quarry Farm when Grant died [227]. MTHL gives the place of the fragment letter as Hartford, while the more recent copy in MTP lists it as “unknown place.” If the letter was indeed written on the day of Grant’s death, and Perry is correct, then it was written at Quarry Farm.
Note: The Boston Advertiser had attacked Huckleberry Finn, and before was highly critical of Sam for the 1877 Whittier Birthday speech. Sam’s famous “prefatory remark” ascribing the source of Huck and Tom Sawyer’s nature to editors of the Advertiser and the Springfield Republican had been squelched by Livy. Also, Goodwin (above) refers to Nat Goodwin; Webster was to talk with him about playing Colonel Sellers as a Scientist.
James W. Paige wrote that both he and an expert could not figure out why the dynamo failed, but would apply Sam’s thousand to the typesetter [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Failure of the dynamo machine / The $1000 to apply on the setter”
July, after the 23rd – Sam sent another note to Richard R. Bowker, saying it was a pity he hadn’t attended to getting Grant to sign the petition himself, because he knew “General Grant felt the injustice wrought by the absence of international copyright” [MTP]. (See July, before the 23rd entry.)