September 10 Saturday – The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“Curiosities,” “A Philanthropic Nation,” “Race for the Occidental Hotel Premium,” “Discharged,” and “Doing a General Business” [Branch, C of Call 298].

The Golden Era announced that Bret Harte was editor of the magazine. Harte would be editor until Nov. 19, 1864; and again from Dec. 9 to 30, 1865 [Benson 119].

Note: Twain’s relationship to Harte was complex and long. In his June 14, 1906 A.D. Clemens wrote of Harte’s literary beginnings, of being pulled away from typesetting while working for the Golden Era and being given a private secretaryship for Robert B. Swain, who put him on a salary but with free time to develop his literary talents. Twain continued to give an in-depth description and opinion of Harte. In part:

Bret Harte was one of the pleasantest men I have ever known. He was also one of the unpleasantest me I have ever known. He was showy, meretricious, insincere; and he constantly advertised these qualities in his dress. He was distinctly pretty, in spite of the fact that his face was badly pitted with smallpox. In the days when he could afford it—and in the days when he couldn’t—his clothes always exceeded the fashion by a shade or two. He was always conspicuously a little more intensely fashionable than the fashionablest of the rest of the community.
…
He hadn’t a sincere fibre in him. I think he was incapable of emotion, for I think he had nothing to feel with. I think his heart was merely a pump, and had no other function [AMT 2: 119]. Note: see also p 415-30.