March 12 Monday – Sam’s letter of Mar. 1 ran in the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal as a featured article, “Special Correspondence.” Sam wrote about the killing of Benjamin Brand, Deputy Marshall, by Bob O’Blennis, a wealthy gambler and livery-stable owner.

Bob O’Blennis has long been celebrated as the most abandoned and reckless outlaw in St. Louis—and but for his money, would have been roasting in the infernal regions long before this. Mr. Brand is not the first man he ever killed. If all the curses I have heard heaped up on his head to-day were to go into effect, I almost doubt if a place could be invented hot enough for him [MTL 1: 54].

Note: No letters are known to survive for the next fourteen and a half months [MTL 1: 58].