April 8 Friday – Sam spoke at the Union Veterans Association of Maryland Banquet, Hotel Rennert, Baltimore, Maryland – “An Author’s Soldiering” Published in Mark Twain Speaking, p.219-21. Fatout’s introduction (italics are his):

Harking back to his brief service as an irregular Confederate soldier, Mark Twain produced a variant for Union Veterans of Maryland. In this version, as in others, fiction no doubt played a prominent role. It is worth noting, however, that at a time when bitterness engendered by the war was still rampant, he could be very much in earnest as he preached the gospel of peace and reconciliation.

When your secretary invited me to this reunion of the Union Veterans of Maryland, he requested me to come prepared to clear up a matter which he said had long been a subject of dispute and bad blood in war circles in this country — to wit, the true dimensions of my military services in the Civil War, and the effect which they had upon the general result. I recognize the importance of this thing to history, and I have come prepared. Here are the details. I was in the Civil War two weeks. …when I look about me and contemplate these sublime results, I feel, deep down in my heart, that I acted for the best when I took my shoulder out from under the Confederacy and let it come down.

Charles Webster wrote to Sam objecting to having to deal with, “my partner in business through the intervention of an agent,” meaning Frederick J. Hall. Webster characterized their relationship as “strained,” and felt Sam was “neglecting to come to the office and talk matters over with me and be intelligently informed…” He hoped to see Sam during the next week [MTP].