Memphis, Tenn., Friday, June 18th, 1858.
Dear Sister Mollie:
Long before this reaches you, my poor Henry,—my darling, my pride, my glory, my all, will have finished his blameless career, and the light of my life will have gone out in utter darkness. O, God! this is hard to bear. Hardened, hopeless,—aye, lost—lost—lost and ruined sinner as I am—I, even I, have humbled myself to the ground and prayed as never man prayed before, that the great God might let this cup pass from [me.—]that he would strike me to the earth, but spare my brother—that he would pour out the fulness of his just wrath upon my wicked head, but have mercy, mercy, mercy upon that unoffending boy. The horrors of three days have swept over me—they have blasted my youth and left me an old man before my time. Mollie, there are grey hairs in my head to-night. For forty-eight hours I labored at the bedside of my poor burned and bruised, but uncomplaining brother, and then the star of my hope went out and left me in the gloom of despair. Then poor wretched me, that was once so proud, was humbled to the very [dust.—]lower than the dust—for the vilest beggar in the streets of Saint Louis could never conceive of a humiliation like mine. Men take me by the hand and congratulate me, and call me “lucky” [ beg because ]I was not on the Pennsylvania when she blew up! [My ]God forgive them, for they know not what they say.1
Mollie you do not understand why I was not on that boat—I will tell you. I left Saint Louis on her, but on [they ] [ was way] down, Mr. Brown, the pilot that was killed by the explosion (poor fellow,) quarreled with Henry without cause, while I was steering—Henry started out of the pilothouse—Brown jumped up and collared him—turned him half way around and struck him in the face!—[ Bro and ]him nearly six feet high—struck my little brother. I was wild from that moment. I left the boat to steer herself, and avenged the insult—and the Captain said I was right—that he would discharge Brown in N. Orleans if he could get another pilot, and would do it in St. Louis anyhow.2 Of course both of us could not return to St. Louis on the same boat—no pilot could be found, and the Captain sent me to the A. T. Lacey, with orders to her Captain to bring me to Saint Louis.3 Had another pilot been found, poor Brown would have been the “lucky” man.4
I was on the Pennsylvania five minutes before she left N. Orleans, and I must tell you the truth, Mollie—three hundred human beings perished by that fearful disaster.5 Henry was asleep—was blown up—then fell back on the hot boilers, and I suppose that rubbish fell on him, for he is injured internally. He got into the water and swam to shore, and got into the flatboat with the other survivors.6 He had nothing on but his wet shirt, and he lay there burning up with a southern sun and freezing in the wind till the Kate Frisbee came along. His wounds were not dressed till [ M he] got to Memphis, 15 hours after the explosion. He was senseless and motionless for 12 hours after that.7. But may God bless Memphis, the noblest city on the face of the earth. She has done her duty by these poor afflicted creatures—especially Henry, for he has had five—aye, ten, fifteen, twenty times the care and attention that any one else has had.8 Dr. Peyton, the best physician in Memphis (he is exactly like the portraits of Webster,) [ st sat ]by him for 36 hours. There are 32 scalded men in that room, and you would know Dr. Peyton better than I can describe him, if you could follow him around and hear each [ o man ]murmur as he passes—“May the God of Heaven bless you, Doctor!”9 The ladies have done well, too. Our second Mate, a handsome, noble-hearted young fellow, will die. Yesterday a beautiful girl of 15 stooped timidly down by his side and handed him a pretty bouquet. The poor suffering boy’s eyes kindled, his lips quivered out a gentle “God bless you, Miss,” and he burst into tears. He made them write he[r] name on a card for him, that he might not forget it.10
Pray for me, Mollie, and pray for my poor sinless brother.
Your unfortunate Brother,
Samℓ. L. Clemens.
P. S. I got here two days after Henry.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
We witnessed one of the most affecting scenes at
the Exchange yesterday that has ever been seen. The brother of Mr.
Henry Clemens, second clerk of the Pennsylvania, who now lies
dangerously ill from the injuries received by the explosion of that
boat, arrived in the city yesterday afternoon, on the steamer A. T.
Lacy. He hurried to the Exchange to see his brother, and on
approaching the bedside of the wounded man, his feelings so much
overcame him, at the scalded and emaciated form before him, that he
sunk to the floor overpowered. There was scarcely a dry eye in the
house; the poor sufferers shed tears at the sight. This brother had
been pilot on the Pennsylvania, but fortunately for him, had
remained in New Orleans when the boat started up. (“A Sad
Meeting,” St. Louis News and
Intelligencer, 19 June 58, reprinting the Memphis Eagle and Enquirer, 16 June 58, clipping in
Scrapbook 1:7, CU-MARK)
The passengers were very slow in embarking at
first, many being more anxious to save their property than to assist
others to get on board. Fortunately the fire did not break out for
some thirty or forty minutes (perhaps longer) after the explosion.
So soon as the fire did break out, they then began to tumble in
pell-mell, by which some were hurt. Some already on board were
slightly hurt by trunks being thrown upon them. When the fire broke
out, it spread with the greatest rapidity. We remained along side of
the burning mass until it was with the greatest difficulty that we
extricated the wood-boat from her perilous situation. Had we
remained one minute longer it would have been impossible to have
escaped. The heat was most intense as we passed around the stern of
the burning and floating mass, and made a landing on a towhead just
below. . . . On board the wood-boat, as near as we could ascertain,
were from 180 to 200. (Harrison, 2) The burned-out hulk of the Pennsylvania sank
several miles below the point of explosion, near the Mississippi shore
and above Austin, Mississippi, and Ship Island—a location
that remained memorable to Clemens (see N&J2, 536). His fullest account of the disaster is in chapters
18–20 of Life on the Mississippi,
although his narrative of the destruction of the Amaranth in chapter 4 of The Gilded Age
also draws heavily on the Pennsylvania disaster.
For a detailed reconstruction of the event, see Branch 1985, 11–25.
Henry’s stateroom was directly over the boilers, and he
was asleep when the explosion occurred. He was never able to give an
account of the matter himself, but from what others have said, and
also from the nature of his injuries, it is supposed that he was
thrown up, then fell back on the heated boilers, and some heavy
substance falling upon him, injured him internally. His terrible
burns did not seem as if they had been caused by steam or boiling
water. After extricating himself, he escaped on a mattrass to a raft
or open wood boat, where he lay exposed (with a hundred others,) to
the wind and the scorching rays of a Southern sun, for eight hours,
when he was taken on board the Kate Frisbee and conveyed to Memphis.
He arrived there in a senseless, and almost lifeless condition. He
lingered in fearful agony seven days and a half, during which time
he had full possession of his senses, only at long intervals, and
then but for a few moments at a time. His brain was injured by the
concussion, and from that moment his great intellect was a ruin. We
were not sorry his wounds proved fatal, for if he had lived he would
have been but the wreck of his former self. (SLC [1858], 1:15) Clemens later presented a different scenario in chapter 20 of Life on the Mississippi. There he claimed that
after Henry was flung in the river by the force of the explosion he
returned to the burning boat to help others before finally succumbing to
his injuries
What I do remember, without the least trouble in the world, is, that
when those sixty scalded and mutilated people were thrown upon her
hands, Memphis came forward with a perfectly lavish outpouring of
money and sympathy, and that this did not fail and die out, but
lasted through to the end. . . . Do you remember how the physicians
worked?—and the students—the
ladies—and everybody? I do. If the rest of my wretched
memory was taken away, I should still remember that.
(“‘Mark Twain.’ A Sad Incident of
His Early Life Recalled,” Memphis Avalanche, 5 Nov 76, 4, clipping in Scrapbook 8:13, CU-MARK) Clemens’s belief that Henry received special attention is
borne out by the Avalanche, which observed:
“Every one had been attracted by this young boy Henry, whose
youth and slight physique were called upon to endure so much, and whose
refined, graceful manner made it a gladness to do for him what could be
done in the absence of a mother and sister for whom his heart grew
sick.”
The free use of white lead in linseed oil, such as is used in
ordinary painting, and covering the part well with soft carded
cotton, kept on until signs of sloughing, then remove, and re-apply
to all parts not deeply injured, to the deep sloughs; apply fine
olive oil and lime water, equal parts, on soft linen, and as the
wound heals dress twice daily, with ointment of the sub-acetate of
lead. (“The Treatment Generally Pursued with the
Sufferers by the Steamer Pennsylvania,” St. Louis Missouri Republican, 18 July 58, 2, clipping
in Scrapbook 1:7, CU-MARK)
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L1, 80–85; MTB, 1:141–42, with omissions; MTL, 1:39–41.
Provenance:see Moffett Collection, p. 462.
Emendations and textual notes:
me.— • [dash over period]
dust.— • [dash over period]
beg because • begcause [‘c’ over possible ‘g’]
My • [sic; MTL reads ‘May’]
they • [sic; ‘y’ canceled in pencil, probably not by Clemens]
was way • way s [‘y’ over ‘s’]
Bro and • [‘and’ over ‘Bro’]
M he • [‘he’ over partly formed ‘M’]
st sat • stat [‘a’ over ‘t’]
o man • [‘m’ over ‘o’]
