5 The manuscript of the enclosure is not known to survive. The text is supplied here from Clemens’s clipping from the Louisville Courier-Journal of 16 October 1874, doubtless sent by Watterson. Clemens inscribed it “Louisville Courier-Journal
S. L. Clemens” (“A Card from Mark Twain,” 2, clipping in CU-MARK).

6 McKinney had written (CU-MARK):

McKinney’s language suggests that he may have been a journalist or printer (“one of the craft”); his connection with the Marion Machine Works has not been explained. The source of the documents Bonner showed him, with the “printed heads” of Clemens’s publisher, conceivably was Thomas Belknap, who in 1876 would publish her book, The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and Travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez, Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, Confederate States Army (Velazquez). Belknap was one of the founders, in 1865, of the American Publishing Company, and an independent publisher as well. His direct connection to the American Publishing Company had ended by 1870, but by 1871 he was associated with Francis C. Bliss, the brother of Elisha Bliss, in a subsidiary, Belknap and Bliss. That association ended by 1872, and Belknap was again an independent publisher, with no declared connection to the Blisses. By 1875 he had joined two other apparently independent houses which shared an address with the American Publishing Company and another of its known subsidiaries, the Columbian Book Company. Although the firms were now at 284 rather than 116 Asylum Street, they had not moved: in the spring of 1874 Asylum and seventeen other Hartford streets were renumbered (Trumbull, 1:624; “Hartford Residents,” Bliss family, 1; Geer: 1869, 423, 495; 1870, 435, 507; 1871, 123, 226, 282; 1873, 291; 1874, 6, 227; 1875, 227, 295; L4, 217 n. 2, 449 n. 2).

7 On 31 August 1874 the Louisville Courier-Journal had published a lengthy account of the adventures of Bonner as a Confederate soldier (“A Confederate Amazon,” 1, reprinting “An Adventurous Lady,” Mobile [Ala.] Register, 25 Aug 74, 1). Although the article noted that Bonner was writing a book about her experiences, it did not report a claim that Mark Twain was her collaborator, or otherwise mention him. Clemens might have sent a “word of warning” to the Register as well as the Courier-Journal, but no such letter has been found in the Mobile newspaper. The Courier-Journal published additional pieces about Bonner on 6 and 7 September 1874 (“An Interesting Visitor,” 4; “Arnold’s Difficulty,” 4), but neither mentioned Mark Twain. For Bonner’s belated response to Clemens’s disclaimer, see the next letter, n. 2.