December 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens, hoping she was healthier and telling of Livy’s plans for the family to visit Keokuk in the spring, if possible [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Julian Hawthorne, responding to a Dec. 11 letter asking his advice on running the Author’s Club. Sam recommended starting a new club, that “that sort of procedure has already ruined” the club.

“It is no more an Author’s club than it is a horse-doctor’s club. Its name is a sarcasm” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Charles Webster, strategizing about paying Gerhardt off in the death mask controversy, and gaining a contract from Julia Dent Grant for the volumes of letters from the General. Gerhardt owed Sam “nine or ten thousand dollars,” and Sam suggested he’d forgive this debt and assume his outstanding obligations. The Grant letters volumes wouldn’t be published for two years, but whoever bought them would also want the Memoirs. Above all, Sam wished to avoid scandal, and changed his mind about bringing or encouraging a lawsuit [MTP]. Sometime just after this date, Sam sent a clipping to Webster from the New York Evening Post, directing him to add the lines to the prospectus on the Grant book and put it first. The clipping read:

The general verdict upon General Grant’s Memoirs is that THE BOOK AT ONCE TAKES ITS PLACE

AMONG THE GREAT HISTORIES OF THE WORLD. The best Critics say that he has, without knowing it, Found a style which many famous historians have sought in vain. It is straightforward [MTP].

Willam T. Sherman wrote to Sam: “I was delighted as always to receive your most [illegible word] letter of Dec 15” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “General Sherman’s opinion of Gen.Fry & his North American Review article / also his opinion of General Grant’s admirable book”