August 11 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Richard S. Tuthill, at this time District Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago). Tuthill had sent an invitation for Sam to come and break bread with some of his old Midwest friends.

“I would give anything in the world if I could go; for that is true which you have said: the boys are growing old & passing away—did not we deliver to the rest & peace of the grave the greatest, noblest, the chiefest of them all, three days ago?”

August 10 Monday – Sam left New York in the morning for the long train ride to Elmira. He telegraphed from Portland, Penn. to Theodore W. Crane: “Shall arrive at the usual / S L Clemens” [MTP]. Portland was en route to Elmira.

August 9 Sunday – Sam had arranged “business…with Hartford people” on Tuesday (Aug. 11), but moved it up to Sunday so he might return to Elmira the next day [Aug. 15 to Johnson]. The nature of his business with Hartford people is unknown. It is possible that the Hartford people referred to came to New York.

August 8 Saturday – Grant’s funeral and procession included 60,000 members of the military assigned by President Cleveland. Sam was not in the funeral, but took a place in the window of Webster & Co. overlooking Union Square. He stood for five hours watching as the procession worked its way north through the City, passing along 14th Street toward Fifth Avenue [Perry 231]. Kaplan says 40,000 military. A lot, anyway.

August 7 Friday – Over 300,000 people passed by Grant’s casket in New York City Hall [Perry 229]. The New York Times reported Sam staying at the Hotel Normandie [p.4 “Personal Intelligence”].

August 6 Thursday – After lying 24 hours in the Capitol at Albany, Grant’s casket, was put on a train for the six-hour ride to New York City. The train slowed passing West Point for the cadets to salute. Once in the city, where tens of thousands waited, the casket was taken to City Hall, where it lay in state another 24 hours [Perry 229].

August 5 Wednesday – From Sam’s Aug. 6 to Livy for this day:

August 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote from New York City to Livy, describing the black draped buildings and how much more so the City was for Grant than it had been for Garfield.

“I think I have seen a thousand big portraits of the General, set in the centre of a desert of black, on store-fronts” [MTP].

August 3 Monday – Tisdale & Davis, “mfg and dealers in tobacco & cigars”, Hannibal, Mo., for 500 “Old Fish” cigars. Sam wrote on this bill: ‘These are first-rate S.L.C.” No paid date [MTP]. Only Sam would enjoy a cigar named “Old Fish.”

August 2 Sunday – Beginning this night or the next, Sam stayed seven nights at the Normandie Hotel, returning home Aug. 10 (see that entry).

E.V. Satterfield wrote from Mt. Vernon, Illinois, agreeing with Sam about the final resting place of Gen. Grant being in NYC. “P.S. Mt Vernon Ills. is away down in Egypt and the writer of this is a printer by trade and a lawyer by profession and practice, and never have been known as a very ‘shining light’ at either” [MTP].