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To
Adam Badeau
15 June 1873 • London,
England
(MS: MH-H, UCCL
00927)
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Edwards Hotel, June [
13 15. ]
Dear Gen. Badeau—1
Mrs. Clemens was frankly & sincerely sorry she
had to deny herself the pleasure of seeing you, (she being very
greatly fatigued because of [sight-sieeing ])—& yet she would have cheerfully dressed
& appeared, but that she feared to make such a draft upon your time.
I wish to call upon you, & will hunt out your
office in town—for I judge I shall be more likely to catch you there
than at your house.2
Ys Very Truly
Samℓ. L. Clemens.
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1
Badeau (1831–95) had been the American consul general in
London since May 1870, and he remained so until 1881. Born in New
York City, he wrote dramatic criticism for the
Sunday Times and Noah’s Weekly Messenger, which
he collected in 1859 as
The Vagabond. In 1862
he enlisted with the Union forces and was made an aide on the staff
of General Thomas W. Sherman. Wounded in 1863, he became Ulysses S.
Grant’s military secretary in 1864, the beginning of a
close friendship that lasted almost until Grant’s death
in 1885. In 1868 he published the first of three volumes in his
Military History of Ulysses S. Grant
(1868–81). In 1869 President Grant appointed him
secretary of the legation in London, later raising him to consul
general. The quarrel that ended his friendship with Grant concerned
Badeau’s role in helping to complete Grant’s
memoirs (see
N&J3, 107, 127, 142, 205, 270).
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2
Badeau’s office was in the United States Consulate, at 1
Dunster Court, Mincing Lane. The street address of his home, known as
Little Boston House, has not been found (
London
Directory, 130, 279; Moran, 35:231).
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Source text(s):
MS, Houghton Library (Autograph file), Harvard University (
MHH).
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Previous publication:
L5, 382.
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Provenance:
bequeathed to MH by Evert Jansen Wendell (1860–1917), a Harvard
alumnus and collector of theater memorabilia (Dickinson, 332–33).
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Emendations and textual notes:
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13 15 •
135
sight-sieeing •
sight-|sieeing