4 December 1867 • Washington, D.C. (MS: DLC, UCCL 00168)
Dr Sir:—I thought Swinton was going up today, but he has put it off. I wanted him to call & get those three Holy Land Ⓐemendationletters I sent up.1explanatory note I was afraid, myself, that they would not pass muster. I did not suppose I would need them, but ⒶemendationI may. I have a proposition from Richardson’s Hartford publishers, & if I make a move toward getting up a book I can make some sort of use of those three letters. Wherefore, I if they have been condemned, I I will I wish you would order that they be re-mailed to me, else I fear they may be destroyed & the world come to grief in consequence.
That stupid burlesque I sent up has “gone up,” too.2explanatory note No matter. I will strike a serious vein yet, that will corral the Tribune.
I am sorry to trouble you so much, but behold the world is full of sorrows ., & grief is the heritage of man.
P.S.—And at the same time, please have the crazy burlesque returned, also, if it is not destroyed. I wish to deposit it & oblige yrs Truly
William Swinton (1833–92), described by the New York Citizen as “tall, red-whiskered, sedate,” was a special correspondent for the New York Times during the war and became notorious for his overly revealing and critical reports on Union troop movements. In 1864, General Ambrose E. Burnside ordered Swinton shot for his activities, but General Grant intervened, merely banishing him from Union lines (“William Swinton,” New York Citizen, 25 May 67, 3; Grant, 2:143–45). Clemens apparently knew Swinton rather well: later that winter the two men roomed together in Washington (see 21 Feb 68 to JLC and family, n. 1click to open link). In 1906 Clemens recalled that they also cooperated in a “Newspaper Correspondence Syndicate,” for which they wrote “a letter apiece once a week and copied them and sent them to twelve newspapers, charging each of the newspapers a dollar apiece. And although we didn’t get rich, it kept the jug going and partly fed the two of us” (AD, 15 Jan 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 1:323–24). Unfortunately, no evidence has been found to corroborate Clemens’s memory. So far as is known, Swinton was not now working for the Tribune, the Times, or any other newspaper, but he would certainly have been well known to Young. In April 1867 he published The Twelve Decisive Battles of the War: A History of the Eastern and Western Campaigns, in Relation to the Actions That Decided Their Issue, through Dick and Fitzgerald, who later declined Mark Twain’s book about the Sandwich Islands. In his 17 December letter to the Alta, Clemens wrote that A. D. Richardson, with Beyond the Mississippi, “and Swinton (‘Twelve Decisive Battles.’) have published the most saleable books, I believe, that have issued from the press this year” (SLC 1868). For a discussion of the “three Holy Land letters” see 24 Nov 67 to Young, n. 1click to open link.
MS, Papers of John Russell Young, Library of Congress (DLC).
L2 , 125–126.
donated to DLC in 1924 by Mrs. John Russell Young and Gordon R. Young.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.