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

To John Sherman
20 September 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: DNA, UCCL 01484)

Click to add citation to My Citations.

slc/mtfarmington avenue, hartford.

Sept. 20/77.

Sir: I have the honor to submit to you a copy of a telegram which I this day sent to the President; also his Excellency’s reply; & finally a newspaper article which explains both.1 I was most honestly & sincerely sorry to add a grain to the President’s burdens, which are heavy enough already, & am as sorry to add one to yours; but I hope that my object will in some degree justify me in both cases.

With great respect,

Samℓ. L. Clemens

‸P. S. The Colfax searched once but was defeated by fog., as the latest telegrams explain.‸

The Hon. the Sec’y
of the Treasury.
Washington.

[enclosure 1:]

(Copy of Telegram.)

———

Hartford, Sep. 20.

To His Excellency

The President:

The “Jonas Smith” can be found in a little while if your Excellency will order the cutter Colfax to search again.2 The crew are good men, subjects of a friendly power, (England), & are only starving, not committing crime. The Smith is a sailless, chartless, foodless, unmanageable hulk, & has been drifting from Bermuda helpless for four months from Bermuda, begging her bread as she goes. I know the ship & her history. Our government has moved to the relief of distress like this before, hence I am emboldened to make this appeal.

With great respect,

Samℓ. L. Clemens

[enclosure 2, per Telegraph Operator, copy received:]

blank no. 1.

the western union telegraph company.

this company transmits and delivers messages only on conditions, limiting its liability, which have been assented to by the sender of the following message.

errors can be guarded against only by repeating a message back to the sending station for comparison, and the company will not hold itself liable for errors or delays in transmission or delivery of unrepeated messages.

this message is an unrepeated message and is delivered by request of the sender under the conditions named above.

a. r. brewer, sec’y. william orton, pres’t.

137215

dated Chattonooga Tenn 1877

received at 640Sep. 20

to Samℓ L. Clements

Despatch received Please communicate with Secy. of Treasy at Washington & the proper course will be taken.

R. B. Hayes

17 Coll

read the notice at the top.

[letter docketed:] C. 189, vol. 20. R.M.3

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1The enclosed “newspaper article”—Clemens’s letter of 19 September to the editor of the Hartford Courant—survives with the present letter in the National Archives. Its text is transcribed in full as printed in the Courant of 20 September, and is therefore not duplicated here.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2John Sherman (1823–1900), brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman, served as secretary of the treasury from 1877 to 1881. On 22 September he replied through his secretary, on Treasury Department letterhead, that on Sunday, 16 September, the crew of the steamship Colfax had boarded the Jonas Smith off the coast of South Carolina and found that “she did not appear to need assistance.” It was therefore “deemed unnecessary to send out the ‘Colfax’ again” (CU-MARK).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

The letter was stamped “treasury department received sep 22 1877” and filed with the following description:

Hartford, Sept. 20/77

Saml L. Clemens

Submits copy of telegram to the President and his reply, together with a newspaper article which explains both.

2 Encl. & newspaper slip

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, DNA.

glyph Previous publication:

MicroPUL, reel 1.