August 12 Sunday – In Elmira Sam wrote to the three editors of the Century Magazine: Richard Watson Gilder, Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence C. Buel, addressing it to “whichever Hellion is in command.” Evidently Mary Duncan had been pestering him about her manuscript and Sam claimed he’d written her “about thirty-five times” about the needs of an “honest autobiography or journal of an intelligent slave girl.” (See also Aug. 14.)

I have told her that there is not enough of the MS by a good deal more than a damsight for a subscription book, & so I cannot use it; & have cursed her & told her that if she would send the dam thing to you for inspection it would be as safe as in the hands of Providence. But it don’t do no good, goddammer. Now will you? [MTP]. Note: Sam made such an offer to perhaps benefit Mary Duncan, a poor, sick Tennessee woman.

Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore; only the envelope survives, postmarked this date [MTP].