May 22 Tuesday – City of Memphis arrived in St. Louis.
May 24 Thursday – City of Memphis left for New Orleans.
May 27 Sunday – The St. Louis Missouri Republican published “a brief, matter-of-fact river report signed by him [Sam] and Wesley Jacobs, his City of Memphis copilot”
May 31 Thursday – City of Memphis arrived in New Orleans.
June 3 Sunday – City of Memphis left for St. Louis.
June 10 Sunday – City of Memphis arrived in St. Louis.
June 13 Wednesday – City of Memphis left for New Orleans.
June 19 Tuesday – City of Memphis encountered a storm about 11 AM at Terrapin Bend, 28 miles north of Vicksburg.
June 22 Friday – City of Memphis arrived in New Orleans.
June 24 Sunday – City of Memphis left for St. Louis.
June 27? Wednesday – Sam wrote brother Orion while on the City of Memphis (surviving fragments here):
What is a government without energy? And what is a man without energy? Nothing—nothing at all. What is the grandest thing in “Paradise Lost”—the Arch-Fiend’s terrible energy! What was the greatest feature in Napoleon’s character? His unconquerable energy! Sum all the gifts that man is endowed with, and we give our greatest share of admiration to his energy. And to-day, if I were a heathen, I would rear a statue to Energy, and fall down and worship it!
June 28 Thursday – City of Memphis arrived at Cairo [MTL 1: 99 n2].
July 1–2 Monday – City of Memphis arrived in St. Louis.
July 28 Saturday – Sam piloted the Arago (268 tons), co-pilot J.W. Hood, Captain George P. Sloan. The boat left St. Louis on this date bound for Vicksburg.
August 3 Friday – The Arago arrived in Vicksburg.
August 4 Saturday – The Arago Left Vicksburg for Cairo, Illinois.
August 10 Friday – Sam witnessed the aurora borealis (“it was very beautiful, but it did not last very long”) and mentions it in his letter the following day.
August 11 Saturday – The Arago arrived in Cairo. Sam wrote from Cairo, Illinois to Susan I. (Belle) Stotts, sister of Orion’s wife, Mollie.
Dear Belle:
Confound me if I wouldn’t eat up half a dozen of you small girls if I just had the merest shadow of a chance this morning. Here I am, now, about 3 weeks out from Keokuk, and 2 from St. Louis, and yet I have not heard a word from you—and may not, possibly, for 2 or 3 more weeks, as we shall go no further up the river at present, but turn back from here and go to New Orleans.
August 12 Sunday – The Arago left for New Orleans.
August 20 Monday – The Arago arrived in New Orleans.
August 22 Wednesday – The Arago left for St. Louis.
August 30 Thursday – With J.W. Hood, his Arago copilot, Sam wrote “Pilot’s Memoranda,” a burlesque on pilot journaling. The piece was published over a year later in the St. Louis Missouri Republican [ET&S 1: 142]. This date is also given as the Republican publication date [MTNJ 1: 50n1;MTPO].
August 31 Friday – The Arago arrived in St. Louis.
September 8 Saturday – “Special River Correspondence” ran in the St. Louis Missouri Republican but is not now believed to be written by Sam [MTPO notes with Aug. 1, 1876 to Cist].
September 19 Wednesday – Sam piloted the Alonzo Child (493 tons), co-pilots Horace Bixby, Will Bowen, Sam Brown; Captains David DeHaven and James O’Neal. This was the last steamboat that Sam would pilot. The Alonzo Child left on this date for New Orleans.