April 22 Friday – In his Autobiography, Sam wrote of his attempt at a duel with James L. Laird, editor of the Virginia City Union and how it all came about:

…inasmuch as it was the 22d of April, 1864, the next morning it would be the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s birthday—and what better theme could I want than that? I got the Cyclopaedia and examined it, and found out who Shakespeare was and what he had done, and I borrowed all that and laid it before a community that couldn’t have been better prepared for instruction about Shakespeare than if they had been prepared by art. There wasn’t enough of what Shakespeare had done to make an editorial of the necessary length, but I filled it out with what he hadn’t done— which in many respects was more important and striking and readable than the handsomest things he had really accomplished. But next I was in trouble again. There was no more Shakespeares to work up. There was nothing in past history, or in the world’s future possibilities, to make an editorial out of suitable to that community; so there was but one theme left. That theme was Mr. Laird, proprietor of the Virginia Union [MTA 1: 354-5]. Note: It’s doubtful that Sam needed to “look up” Shakespeare by this time.