April 29 Friday – The New York Times reported on p.4, under “Personal Intelligence” that Samuel L. Clemens was at the Murray Hill Hotel. By the time this report appeared, Sam and Livy were probably on their way or already at West Point, where they “observed an artillery drill with General Sherman, his younger brother John Sherman, and Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling, the inventor of the machine gun that bears his name” [Leon 73]. (Editorial emphasis.)

Edwin L. Turnbull wrote from Baltimore thanking Sam, who then wrote on the envelope, “From a boy to whom I sent a ten-year subscription to his 30-cent newspaper” [MTP].