May 14 Tuesday – Sam departed New Orleans as a passenger on the Nebraska. Commercial traffic was halted. This was the last boat allowed through the Union blockade at Memphis. Sam’s days as a river pilot were over, though he did not know it at the time. He would later wax nostalgic and eloquent about his idyllic career on the river. Just as his idyllic days of boyhood in Hannibal had abruptly ended, so too did his time on “the best job in the world.” Paine gives the name of the boat as the Uncle Sam: “I’ll think about it,” he said. “I’m not very anxious to get up into a glass perch and be shot at by either side. I’ll go home and reflect on the matter” [MTB 161].
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Editor Note
This from Benjamin Griffin, via the Mark Twain Forum (12/25/24):
In *Mark Twain's Civil War* (pp. 12-13)I gave reasons for doubting that Clemens returned to Missouri on the *Nebraska*, a claim which he never made, and which was arrived at by very dubious means. He said he came back on the *A. T. Lacey,* but that boat had been destroyed in 1860. We don't know how he got back to Missouri from New Orleans.
In *Mark Twain's Civil War* (pp. 12-13)I gave reasons for doubting that Clemens returned to Missouri on the *Nebraska*, a claim which he never made, and which was arrived at by very dubious means. He said he came back on the *A. T. Lacey,* but that boat had been destroyed in 1860. We don't know how he got back to Missouri from New Orleans.