Mark Twain Project :: Letters :: : an electronic text

To John Gibbon
1 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: MdHi, UCCL 01202)

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slc farmington avenue, hartford.

Mch. 1.

Dear Sir:1

I thank you heartily for writing me the letter—as heartily as you would thank the Commander-in-Chief for not only approving a military movement of yours which newspapers had condemned, but for taking the trouble to say so. The newspapers handled the “Gilded Age” pretty roughly, a year ago, when it first issued; but here lately several thoughtful men have, like yourself, sent me their private commendations of the book, & these I naturally value more than I do the opinions of the mass of newspaper men—especially since I am rather more than half persuaded that if we never had had our present style of “journalism” we should never have seen our social & political morals sink to quite their present degradation.2

Truly Yours

Samℓ. L. Clemens.

John Gibbon, Esq, U.S.A.,
Military Headquarters
Fort Shaw
Montana Ter’y. [postmarked:] hartford ct. mar 1 6pm

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1 Colonel John Gibbon (1827–96) was the commander of the Military District of Montana, stationed with the 7th Infantry at Fort Shaw, eighty miles north of Helena. Although at this time his troops were engaged primarily in preventing the local Indians from obtaining liquor and arms from Canadian traders, in 1876 they fought in the war against the Sioux that led to George Armstrong Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn. Clemens may have been familiar with Gibbon’s Civil War record: he was a southerner and a West Point graduate who served with valor in the Union army as commander of the famous Iron Brigade, receiving commendations for gallant and meritorious service in several major battles. Ulysses S. Grant appointed Gibbon one of the three commissioners who negotiated the surrender at Appomattox (Lavery and Jordan, 1–2, 43–67, 126–27, 143–59; Heitman, 452). He wrote Clemens on 15 February (CU-MARK):

I have just laid down your “Gilded Age” and want to thank you not only for the pleasure you have afforded me, but for the benefit which I trust you have conferred upon the American people.

It is not often one meets with works of fiction calculated to do the good which this one of yours aims at, and it is a popular way of reaching the sores of society which is without parallel, so far as I know, unless it is in Jules Verne’s method of conveying philosophical truths. . . . I do not think old Pomeroy—I beg his pardon Dilworthy—himself could fail to recognise his likeness as drawn in the book.

The Gilded Age is not only amusing and interesting, but exceedingly instructive and if it only does one half the good it is calculated to do you ought to be very proud of it, but prouder I hope of the good it works.

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2 For the critical reception of The Gilded Age, see L5, 461–70. In the undated surviving fragment of his response to Clemens’s letter, Gibbon remarked: “I see many complimentary notices of the work as placed upon the stage, and have not seen any of the adverse criticisms to which you refer. You may however, I think, rest satisfied that the Book is amply able to stand up under all the adverse criticisms the paper men may see fit to put upon it” (CU-MARK).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which is in the Gibbon Papers, MS 1284, Manuscripts Department, Maryland Historical Society Library, Baltimore, Maryland (MdHi).

glyph Previous publication: L6, 398–399.