To
Elisha Bliss, Jr. 17 February 1876 • Hartford, Conn.(MS, in pencil: ViU, UCCL01308)
Feb. 17/76
Friend Bliss:
Please send—
Cloth copies of my four books, & also
cloth copies of Everybody’s Friend, Life
Amongst the Modocs, My Captivity Amongst the Sioux, Beyond the Missisppi
Missisppi
sic
, & Field Dungeon & Escape1explanatory note—to
Edward Hastings, Librarian Reading-Room National H Soldiers’ Home, Elizabeth City County, Virginia. (Elizabeth City County, Va. is right.)2explanatory note
Charge to me—as low as you possibly can.
Ys
Clemens
These go to the disabled soldiers of the U.S.
letter docketed: ✓
and Sam’l Clemens | Feb 17″ 76
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):
MS, in pencil, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, ViU.
Previous Publication:
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Provenance:
Deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 15 May 1962.
In addition to The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, The Gilded
Age, and Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old, Clemens ordered the following American
Publishing Company books, issued between 1865 and 1874: Everybody’s Friend, by Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1874); Unwritten History: Life amongst
the Modocs, by Joaquin Miller (1874); and The Secret Service, The
Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape, and Beyond the Mississippi, both by Albert Deane Richardson (1865, 1867). Narrative of My Captivity Among the Sioux Indians, by
Fanny Kelly, was issued in 1871 by the Mutual Publishing Company of Hartford, a
subsidiary of the American Publishing Company (2 Dec 1867 to Bliss, L2, 120–21 n. 4; 16 July 1873, L5, 417 n. 2; Hill 1964, 16).
brig.-gen. john s. cavender, st. louis, mo. maj.-gen. james s. negley, pittsburgh, penn.
the national home for disabled volunteer soldiers.
managers:
the president of the united states. the chief justice. the secretary of
war.—ex officio.
major-general benjamin f. butler, president, lowell, mass.
officers of southern branch:
capt. p. t. woodfin, deputy governor and treasurer.
elizabeth city county, va., February 15 187 6
Samuel. L. Clemens Esq (Mark Twain) Hartford. Conn
Sir,
On behalf of my disabled comrades I very respectfully ask that it may please you to
send to us, as a gift from
yourself, copies of the books you have written, which we will value more
highly for being so received, and which also will associate your name with our welfare
in a manner as agreeable to us as we believe it
will be pleasant to yourself, for we have no doubt that it will please you to use
this opportunity of showing your good-will to us. In
reply to a similar request, I have received most cordial letters of compliance from
Mr Howells, Dr O W Holmes, Geo. W. Curtis & Col Higginson, and I assure you, Sir, that, outside
of the pleasure
our men will receive from your books, they will be proud of the honour you will do
them. I deem it right to say, that though well cared
for as far as our physical comfort is concerned, yet we are badly off for what is
equally necessary to us, viz, some good books; for in
our condition of inaction, which is the consequence of our various disabilities, reading
has become almost a necessity, and I am doing
my best to supply our need. Our comrades of the other Branches of the National Home
are in possession of good libraries, owing to their
having been longer established than this Southern Branch, and also to the successful
begging of their chaplains, who do the work of
librarians in addition to their pastoral duties, while we are without a regular chaplain;—and
we get along very well without
one—and therefore I have assumed the privilege of begging for my comrades, tho’ I
have no more warrant therefor
than zeal for their welfare gives me. We disabled men of this Branch are as much isolated
from the outer world while we remain here, as
we would be on Mount Athos, and for men whose lives before and during the War were
very active, our present existence is nearly
insupportable, and its wearisome monotony would be unbearable but for reading, and
our need in this respect emboldens me to ask that if
you have recently weeded your library you wouldwill send us the weeds in addition to your own books. I ask you to pardon the length of
this letter, and to reply to it when
it is convenient for you to do so. I remain Sir with unfeigned respect
Your obedient servant
Edward Hastings
Librarian
P. S.
We usually receive packages or boxes per Adams’ Express. c.o.d addressed as follows.
Edward Hastings, Librarian
Reading-room, Nat Sold’s Home
Elizabeth City County. Va
A National Asylum of Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, for Union veterans, was established
by Congress in March 1865. Its name was changed in 1873 to substitute “Home” for “Asylum.”
Originally there were Eastern, Central, and Northwestern branches; a fourth, Southern,
branch opened in 1870. While accepting any soldiers who required a temperate climate,
that branch was particularly intended to serve African American veterans and probably
was “the first Federal facility specifically planned and established as an integrated
facility” (National Home 2017a-b). The managers of the National Home were: President
Ulysses S.
Grant; Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite (1816–88);
Secretary of War William W. Belknap (1829–90); Benjamin F. Butler (1818–93), Union general and former Republican Congressman; John H. Martindale (1815–81), lawyer and Union soldier; Frederick Smyth (1819–99), former governor of New Hampshire; Lewis (not Louis) B. Gunckel (1826–1903), lawyer and former Republican congressman; John S. Cavender (1824–86), Union soldier; Hugh L. Bond (1828–93), lawyer, advocate of education for blacks, and federal judge; Erastus B. Wolcott (1804–80), military and civilian surgeon and Wisconsin railroad pioneer;
Thomas O. Osborn (1832–1904), lawyer, Union soldier, and current
minister resident to Argentina; and James S. Negley (1826–1901), Union
soldier and former Republican congressman. Philip Thrasher Woodfin (1826-1901) served
as deputy governor and governor of the Southern branch from 1873 until his death in
1901 (Patterson 2017). Wright and Keyes, the other officers of the Southern branch, have not been further identified. Hastings’s
previous contributors of books were: William Dean
Howells, Oliver Wendell Holmes, author and Harper’s Weekly editor George William Curtis, and author and
Unitarian minister Thomas W. Higginson, former colonel of the first black regiment
in the Union army. On Hastings’s envelope Clemens wrote: “Wants
some books——sent a lot. SLC.” On 17 Februaryclick to open link, he informed Hastings that the
books were ordered (see UCCL 12943). Hastings replied, on the National Home letterhead (CU-MARK):
UCLC32293
the national home for disabled volunteer soldiers.
managers:
the president of the united states. the chief justice. the secretary of
war.—ex officio.
major-general benjamin f. butler, president, lowell, mass.
officers of southern branch:
capt. p. t. woodfin, deputy governor and treasurer.
elizabeth city county, va., February 20 187 6
“Mark Twain”, Hartford, Ct.
Sir,
I have this morning received your frank and cordial letter of compliance with my request
for your books. For my comrades and myself I herewith tender you sincere and
hearty thanks, as much for your letter as for the books, which—you know as well as
I—will be eagerly sought
after. I am only sorry that you did not have them with you, that you might have inscribed
them as coming direct from yourself. They
will be heartily welcome anyhow, and will bring your name so often to our memories
that it will be always fresh and green, and
accompanied with pleasing associations.
I am honoured in subscribing myself, truly,
Your obedient servant
Edward Hastings
Librarian
Reading-room 11. a.m.
On the envelope of that letter Clemens wrote, “Acknowledging receipt of lot of
books.”
MS, in pencil, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, ViU.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 15 May 1962.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.