Day By Day Dates

February 5 Wednesday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON, dated Jan. 11, 1867, ran in the San Francisco California Alta. Subtitles: Charles Dickens; Complimentary; Presidential Presents; Jump’s Pictures; Festivities, etc. [MTL 2: 623 1868s].

Jump’s Pictures.

February 8 Saturday – Sam worked for a short time during this year as a special correspondent for the Chicago Republican. His first LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN, dated Jan. 31 from Washington ran and included: “CONGRESSIONAL POETRY,” “MR JUSTICE FIELD,” “KALAMAZOO,” “THE CAPITOL POLICE,” “COLORADO AT THE DOOR,” and “FASHIONS” (a report on the fashions at General Grant’s reception) [Schmidt].

February 9 Sunday – Sam wrote from Washington to Mary Mason Fairbanks, teasing her that he was “tapering off” of using slang. He also had been sick and recently moved to 76 Indiana Avenue in Washington.

“I am bound to wander out of the straight path & do outrageous things, occasionally, & I believe I have got a genuinely bad heart anyhow—but in the course of time I will get some of the badness out of it or break it”[MTL 2: 180-1].

February 10 Monday – Sam wrote from Washington to Emma Beach and began with: “PS.—Don’t skip any of this letter, now—because it is just full of wisdom.” Sam often put his postscripts at the top of his letters. Sam told Emeline he was still sick.

February 11 Tuesday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON, dated Dec. 23, 1867, ran in the San Francisco California Alta. Subtitles: The President and Vice President; The President’s last; The Big Trees; Senatorial; Miscellaneous [Schmidt].

February 13 Thursday – Sam’s article, “The Facts Concerning the Recent Important Resignation” dated Feb. 9, ran in the New York Tribune [Camfield, bibliog.].

February 14 Friday – Sam gave the toast “Woman” to the Press Club Dinner. He revised it to overcome the objections of Mary Mason Fairbanks [MTL 2: 191n1]. Fatout lists the toast as Feb. 18, as does Sam in his letter of Feb. 20 to Mrs. Fairbanks [MT Speaking 649].

February 16 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Thirty-nine” dated Sept. 1867 at “Nazareth” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 248-54].

February 18 Tuesday –MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON dated Jan. 11 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “Stewart’s Speech,” and:

The Political Stink-Pots Opened.

February 19 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Anson Burlingame.

“Don’t neglect or refuse to keep a gorgeous secretaryship or a high interpretership for me in your great embassy—for pilgrim as I am, I have not entirely exhausted Europe yet, & may want to get converse with some of those Kings again, by & bye.”

February 20 Thursday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Mary Mason Fairbanks. In part:

Your most welcome letter is by me, & I must hurry & write while your barometer is at “fair” for it isn’t within the range of possibility that I can refrain long from doing something that will fetch it down to “stormy” again.

February 21 Friday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to his mother, Jane Clemens and family.

“I was at 224 first—Stewart is there yet—I have moved five times since—shall move again, shortly. Shabby furniture & shabby food—that is Washn —I mean to keep moving….I couldn’t accept the Postoffice—the book contract was in the way—I could not go behind that—& besides, I did not want the office” [MTL 2: 195-6].

February 22 Saturday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Mollie Clemens about his book contract and that he expected to go with Anson Burlingame on the Chinese Embassy trip, once he left for Europe [MTL 2: 198-9].

February 23 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-three” dated Sept. 1867 “At Large in Palestine” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 254-60].

February 24 Monday – The Washington Morning Chronicle said that the Feb. 22 audience, “including many of the most prominent persons of Georgetown and this city…was in almost continuous roars of laughter,” the amusing effect heightened by “his peculiarly slow and inimitable drawl” [Fatout, Circuit 86].

February 27 Thursday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, NUMBER VII dated Jan. 30 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “More Westonism,” “Impeachment,” “Harry Worthington,” “Mormonism,” and:

Judge McCorkle.

March 1 Sunday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, NUMBER VIII dated Feb. 5 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “Office Hunting,” “The Man Who Stopped at Gadsby’s,” “Mrs. Lincoln,” “Felix O’Byrne,” and “Stewart’s Speech” [Schmidt].

March 3 Tuesday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN ON HIS TRAVELS, dated Feb. 1, ran in the Alta California . Subtitles: The White Fawn; Hartford; The Charter Oak; and:

March 4 Wednesday – Sam’s satiric poem, “Rock Him to Sleep” ran in the Cincinnati Evening Chronicle [Camfield, bibliog.]. The work ridiculed Alexander M.W. Ball, one of the claimants of authorship for the popular poem, “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother” [Gribben 21].

March 7 Saturday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON,  NUMBER IX dated Feb. 1868 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “Washington Rascality,” “The Delegation,” “Postmaster,” “Sandwich Islands Reciprocity,” “Miscellaneous” (McGrorty,) “Hay,” “Wood,” “Rough,” and

Impeachment.

March 8 Sunday – On or about this date Sam received a negative reply from the editors of the Alta to his request to reuse the Holy Land letters in his new book [MTL 2: 200].

Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-five” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 266-72].

March 8–10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to his mother and family. Paine paraphrases this letter, evidently not extant, about Sam’s decision to travel to San Francisco and talk to “those Alta thieves face to face” [MTB 361]. He knew Colonel John McComb and Frederick MacCrellish well.

March 9 Monday – The Washington Evening Star announced:

“Mark Twain”—Clemens—has left Washington for California to make arrangements for the publication of his work [Muller 137].

March 10 Tuesday – Sam traveled to New York, where he wrote Mary Mason Fairbanks:

“I am so glad of an excuse to go to sea again, even for three weeks. My mother will be grieved—but I must go. If the Alta’s book were to come out with those wretched, slangy letters unrevised, I should be utterly ruined” [MTL 2: 202].

March 11 Wednesday – Sam left New York on the steamer Henry Chauncey, bound for San Francisco [Sanborn 391].

Sam’s undated letter to the editor, “The Chinese Mission” ran in the New York Tribune [Camfield, bibliog.].