Esmeralda, Sept. 9, 1862.
Dear Billy:
Orion enclosed your letter to me, and informed me also that you were elected to [represented ] Humboldt County in the Legislature. Bully for Humboldt, and bully for you, my boy! This is well, so far—but it is only the beginning. If you do not represent the State of Nevada in the U.S. Senate in the year of its birth you ought to be damned for a worthless cuss—the malediction might be modified, though, if you went to the Lower House.1
But, it appears to me that the very existence of the United States is threatened, just now. I am afraid we have been playing the game of brag about as recklessly as I have ever seen it played, even on an Arkansas steamboat—“going blind” and “doubling the pot” and “straddling” and “calling” on hands without a “pair,” or even an “ace at the head.” D—n it! only to think of this sickening boasting—these miserable self-complacent remarks about “twenty-four hours more will seal the fate of the bastard [ c Confederacy]—twenty-four hours more will behold the United States dictating terms to submissive and groveling rebeldom!” Great God! and at that very moment the national army were inaugurating a series of retreats more disastrous than bloody defeats on the [battle-field]! Think of it, my boy—last week the nation were blowing like school-boys of what [they were ]going to do—this week they are trembling in their boots and whining and sniveling like threatened puppies—absolutely [frantic ]with fear. God! what we were going to do!—and last night’s dispatches come to hand—we all rush to see what the mountain in labor hath brought forth, and lo! the armies have fled back to [ w Washington]; its very suburbs are menaced by the foe; Baton Rouge is evacuated; the rebel hosts march through Kentucky and occupy city after city without firing a gun; Nashville is threatened; Memphis is threatened; Louisville quakes like an aspen; Cincinnati is stricken as with a palsy; Baltimore holds her breath and listens for the tread of the forty thousand; [ p Pennsylvania ]shivers with a panic! Oh Christ! touching the clay of the sleeping Lazarus— invoking a blush upon the crystal waters: behold the miracle [ than that ]man hath wrought!
Let us change the disgusting [subject. Let ]us close our eyes and [ ev endeavor ] ‸to‸ discover in these things profound, mysterious wonders of “strategy!” Ah me—I have often thought of it—what a crown of glory it would be to us to slip quietly out of Washington some night and when the rebels entered it in the morning, overwhelm them with the bitter humiliation that the whole transaction was a masterpiece of “strategy!” Strategy be d—d—all these astonishing feats of strategy which we have been treated to lately, and which we stared at with a stunned look, and dimly felt that it was a big thing—a wonderful thing—and said so in deadened tones bereft of inflection, although, to save our souls from being eternally damned we couldn’t distinctly “see it”—all these “strategic” feats are beautiful—beautiful as early dawn—yet, like unto the [ mill mild ]and lovely juvenile show, “six pins admittance,” they don’t amount to a damn when the “shore-nuff” circus comes to town.
Strategy will bust this nation yet, if they just keep it up long enough, my boy.
Well, [ les let’s ]make another effort to change the disgusting subject. For more than two [weeks ]I have been slashing around in the White Mountain District, partly for pleasure and partly for other reasons. And old Van Horn was in the party. He knows your daddy and the whole family, and every ‸old‸ citizen of Keokuk. He left there in ’53.2 He built parson Hummer’s Pavilion3—and parson Williams’ house,4 and a dozen others. He says he used to go with your father when he stumped the district, and sing campaign songs. He is a comical old cuss, and can keep a camp alive with fun when he chooses. We had rare good times out there fishing for trout and hunting. I mean to go out there again before long.
I saw a man last June who swore that he knew of rich placer diggings within 100 miles of Humboldt City. What became of our placers, that we intended to visit last May?
Have you still a good opinion of those claims in Santa Clara?
Billy, I can’t stand another winter in this climate, unless I am obliged to. I have a sneaking notion of going down to the Colorado mines 2 months from now.5
Remember me to Dad6 and the boys.
Enclosed please find that power of Attorney.7
Times have never grown brisk here until this week. I don’t think much of the camp—not as much as I did. Old fashioned winter & snow lasted until the middle of June.
Your old friend
Sam L C.
[in ink:] Hon. Wm. H. Clagett, | Unionville |[Humboltdt ]Co. |Nevada Ter’y. [top part of the envelope torn away: postmaster’s usual entry is presumably lost] [three-cent U.S. postage stamp, canceled with a pen]
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
From what I saw of the Pike’s
Peak country, I am impressed with the belief that the Territory
of Colorado is just now ready to burst forth into a season of
blooming prosperity. . . . In the Colorado mines capital will find
a fine and profitable field, while in the valleys of the country
the poor man may build him up a happy home, and eventually as
fine a fortune as a man of moderate desires could wish to
possess. Those who imagine the Pike’s Peak mines to
be played out, are very much mistaken; their development is just
now about to be commenced. (William Wright 1863,
2:33) Although Clemens still hoped to make his fortune as a miner, by late
September he was in Virginia City, working as local reporter for the Territorial Enterprise. His earliest extant
articles for that paper appeared on 1 October 1862 (see ET&S1, 389–91).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L1, 238–241; “Two Civil War Letters,”
American Heritage 8 (Oct 1957): 62, with
omissions; Fatout 1964, 67, excerpt paraphrased.
Provenance:deposited at ViU on 23 Apr 1960.
Emendations and textual notes:
represented • [‘ed’ doubtful]
c Confederacy • [‘C’ over ‘c’]
battle-field • battle-|field
they were • they they were
frantic • fracntic [‘n’ over ‘c’]
w Washington • [‘W’ over ‘w’]
p Pennsylvania • [‘P’ over ‘p’]
than that • that n [‘t’ over ‘n’]
subject. Let • subject.— |Let
ev endeavor • evndeavor [‘n’ over ‘v’]
mill mild • milld [‘d’ over ‘l’]
les let’s • lest’s [‘t’s’ over ‘s’]
weeks • w‸eeks‸ hi [‘ee’ over ‘hi’]
Humboltdt • [‘d’ over ‘t’]
