Mark Twain - Reporter: Day By Day

May 15 Sunday – The first meeting in Virginia City for the “Sanitary Fund” was trumpeted from the Virginia City Union:
To-day, at 2 o’clock, the long deferred mammoth Sanitary meeting will be held at the Opera House. The announcement ought to fill the house, but when it is remembered that sweet singers, eloquent orators, pretty ladies, and a fine brass band will be in attendance, who can stay away? Turn out for the honor of Nevada! [Benson 106]. Note: the Enterprise no doubt ran similar fare.

May 16 Saturday – Sam wrote to the Territorial Enterprise, “Letter from Mark Twain.” The sketch anticipated the fictional “Mr. Brown” and “Mr. Twain” of his 1866 Sandwich Islands Letters to the Sacramento Union [MTL 1: 256n1; ET&S 1: 248-9].

May 16 Monday – Joe Goodman was again away from Virginia City, and Sam was in editorial charge of the Enterprise [Benson 107]. Sam drafted a “joke” about the funds for the Carson City Ball going to a miscegenation society back East. He showed it to De Quille, who agreed with Sam that it shouldn’t be printed. Sam later guessed the foreman, needing filler, picked it up and printed it [Powers, MT A Life 137].
Sam’s article, “History of the Gold and Silver Bars—How They Do Things in Washoe,” ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.].

May 17 Tuesday – In Virginia City, Sam wrote to his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister Pamela about raising money for relief of sick and wounded Union soldiers, called the “sanitary fund.” The Enterprise and the Union bid against each other to raise funds. Sam related Reuel Colt Gridley’s efforts at hauling a flour sack from town to town for the people to bid on as a means of raising funds. This letter was published (and it appears written for publication) in an unidentified St. Louis newspaper [MTL 1: 281-287].

May 18? Monday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to his mother, and sister Pamela. Two MS pages are missing with about 400 words. The remaining:

May 18 Wednesday – Sam’s EDITORIAL “How Is It?” ran in the Enterprise:
How is it that The Union outbid us for the flour Monday night and now repudiate their bid? How it is that Union employees refused to pay their subscriptions when they fell due? Did they pledge themselves for a big amount solely to make a bigger display than The Enterprise? Had they any other idea than to splurge? [Schmidt: reprinted in The Saga of the Comstock Lode, George D. Lyman, (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957), p. 294, quoting Virginia City Daily Union, May 19, 1864].

May – Sometime during May, Sam’s article “Burlesque Life of Shakespeare” ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.].

May 19 Tuesday­ – The Fresno Mining Co. issued ten shares of stock to “Samuel L. Clemmens” [sic] in Aurora, Esmeralda mining district. The company was incorporated on Jan. 22, 1863 [Spink Shreves Galleries Sale 121 Lot 487, 2010]. Note: see insert.

May 19 Thursday – Four ladies on the Carson City Sanitary Ball Committee drafted a letter of protest to the Enterprise over Sam’s miscegenation editorial. Joe Goodman, back at his desk, tried to ignore the uproar [Powers, MT A Life 138].

May 19–21 Thursday – The “Letter from Mark Twain” written on May 16 was printed in the Enterprise sometime during this period. This is the first letter extant from San Francisco to the paper. I meant to say something glowing and poetical about the weather, but the Unreliable has come in and driven away refined emotion from my breast. He says: “Say it’s bully, you tallow brained idiot! that’s enough; anybody can understand that; don’t write any of those infernal, sick platitudes about sweet flowers, and joyous butterflies, and worms and things, for people to read before breakfast.

May 20 Friday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to his sister in law, Mollie Clemens, explaining and apologizing for the appearance of the “joke” of May 17. Sam’s confessed he was not sober when he wrote the miscegenation editorial, and had never intended it to be published. He theorized that after sharing it with Dan De Quille he left it in the office and the foreman found it, thinking it was to be published [MTL 1: 287-290]. Another Enterprise editorial continuing the feud with the Union is attributed to Sam [Schmidt].

May 21 Saturday – The Virginia Daily Union reacted to the “libelous article” in the Enterprise signed anonymously by “CITIZEN.” Sam’s humor was too raw for these folks, and a full-blown scandal was on. In a further squabble over each newspaper’s contribution to the Sanitary fund, Sam was called “an unmitigated liar, a poltroon and a puppy” in the pages of the Virginia Daily Union. On this same day, Sam wrote to James L. Laird, a partner in the publishers of the Union, demanding a public retraction “of the insulting articles I have mentioned, or satisfaction.”

May 21 Monday – Sam’s eighth letter, dated “Honolulu (S.I), April, 1866: OFF” ran in the Union: At night they feasted and the girls danced the lascivious hula hula—a dance that is said to exhibit the very perfection of educated motion of limb and arm, hand, head and body, and the exactest uniformity of movement and accuracy of “time.” It was performed by a circle of girls with no raiment on them to speak of, who went through with an infinite variety of motions and figures without prompting, and yet so true was their “time,” and in such perfect concert did they move that when they were place

May 22 Sunday – Sam’s article “Washoe” was published in the Golden Era [Walker 54].

May 22 Tuesday – Sam returned to Honolulu on the schooner Kai Moi (The King) [Frear 55; MTL 1: 335n5]. Frear writes, “During the few days between returning from Maui and sailing for Hawaii, he attended the legislature and wrote two letters on that subject” [56].
Sam wrote his sister-in-law, Mollie Clemens, that he had just returned from Maui. He expressed resentment he still felt for Orion’s refusal to take Henry Camp’s offer for the Tennessee Land.
My Dear Sister:

May 23 Monday – Sam wrote Ellen G. Cutler (Mrs. William K. Cutler), president of the Carson City Sanitary Ball committee his apologies for the unintended printing of the “joke.” Sam wrote, “I address a lady, in every sense of the term” [MTL 1: 296]. James L. Laird of the Virginia Daily Union wrote again answering Sam [MTL 1: 295].

May 23 Wednesday – Sam’s tenth letter dated “Honolulu, April, 1866: WHALING TRADE” ran in the Union:

May 23-25 Friday – In the few days between his return from Maui and sailing for the big island of Hawaii, Sam visited the Legislature and wrote two letters about it to the Union [Frear 56].

May 24 Tuesday – Sam printed under the title “Miscegenation,” an article in the Enterprise explained the hoax with an apology to the ladies of Carson City. Sam also printed all of his letters in the scrape with the Union, plus those of Laird, Wilmington, and Gillis in the Enterprise, numbering them I through VII (See Smith 191-6 for text). He then called Laird a coward, liar and a fool.

May 24 Wednesday – An article appeared in the Carson Daily Appeal under “San Francisco Correspondence,” by William Brief, which noted that Sam had been seen arm-in-arm with Peter Anderson, Negro journalist for the Elevator, who was shunned by white journalists [Branch, C of Call 303n47]. Note: such things made news then.

May 24 Thursday – Sam’s eleventh letter dated “Honolulu, April, 1866: PARADISE AND THE PARI (JOKE)” ran in the Union:
THE KING’S PALACE

May 25 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to Orion and Mollie. Orion had been appointed president of the Ormsby County sanitary committee, and Sam wrote, “I am mighty sick of that fund…” Sam expressed a desire for the whole controversy to go away [MTL 1: 298].

May 26 Thursday – Sam wrote Orion asking for $200:

May 26 Saturday – Sam left Honolulu for a three-week visit to the big island Hawaii and Kilauea volcano aboard the little schooner Boomerang [MTL 1: 335n5; Sanborn 285]. Sam’s article, “Mark Twain on His Travels,” (two by this title) ran in the Californian [Schmidt].

May 27 Saturday – Sam’s article, “How I Went to the Great Race Between Lodi and Norfolk,” was printed in the Californian, an account of the trouble Sam met trying to find transportation to an ocean race course for the great race. Also printed was his, “A Voice for Setchell,” a review of a stage comedian who Sam greatly admired. Sam thought of Daniel E. Setchell (1831-1866) in the same exalted appreciation as Artemus Ward, and closely studied each man’s stage technique [ET&S 2: 163,169]. “… every time Mr.