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Autobiographical Dictation, 1 June 1906 ❉ Textual Commentary

Source documents.

TS1      Typescript, leaves numbered 802–9 (altered in pencil to 811–18), made from Hobby’s notes and revised.
TS2      Typescript, leaves numbered 955–62, made from the revised TS1.

Hobby incorporated Clemens’s TS1 revisions into TS2, which was not further revised.

Fridaytextual note, June 1, 1906

Generaltextual note Grant wishes Mr. Clemens’s opinion of the literary quality of his Memoirs—Mr. Clemens places them side by side with Caesar’s “Commentaries”—Depew’s best speech—Buckner’s visit to Generaltextual note Grant—General Grant’s death—Success of the Memoirs, and Webster’s enlarged headtextual note—Webster suspects his bookkeeper, Scott.

Whenever galley-proofstextual note or revises went to General Grant, a set came also to me. General Grant was aware of this. Sometimes I referred to the proofs casually, but entered into no particulars concerning them. By and by I learned, through a member of the household, that he was disturbed and disappointed because I had never expressed an opinion as to the literary quality of the Memoirs. It was also suggested that a word of encouragement from me would be a help to him. I was as much surprised as Columbus’s cook could have been to learn that Columbus wanted his opinion as to how Columbus was doing his navigating. It could not have occurred to me that General Grant could have any use for anybody’s assistance or encouragement in any work which he might undertake to do. He was the most modest of men, and this was another instance of it. He was venturing upon a new trade, an uncharted sea, and stood in need of the encouraging word, just like any creature of common clay. It was a great compliment that he should care for my opinion, and should desire it, and I took the earliest opportunity to diplomatically turn the conversation in that direction and furnish it without seeming to lug it in by the ears.

By chance, I had been comparing the Memoirs with Caesar’s “Commentaries” and was qualified to deliver judgment. I was able to say, in all sincerity, that the same high merits distinguished both books—clarity of statement, directness, simplicity, unpretentiousness, manifest truthfulness, fairness and justice toward friend and foe alike, soldierly candor and frankness, and soldierly avoidance of flowery speech. I placed the [begin page 72] two books side by side upon the same high level, and I still think that they belonged there. I learned afterward that General Grant was pleased with this verdict. It shows that he was just a man, just a human being, just an author. An author values a compliment even when it comes from a source of doubtful competency.

This reminds me of the most telling speech I ever listened to—the best speech ever made by the capable Depewexplanatory note, and the shortest. Although General Grant was a vivacious and interesting talker when none were present but familiar friends, it was his habit to keep his jaws locked when strangers were about. It was difficult to get him to venture even half a dozen words on a public occasion. He would keep his seat, when called upon to speak, and would leave the toast-master to make his excuses for him. That fine speech of Depew’s was made at a banquet in honor of General Grant. Depew always came late to banquets, in those early days, and this time he arrived just as the chairman was finishing an impassioned eulogy of the guest of the occasion. Depew came striding up the centretextual note of the house, and just as he reached the middle the chairman sat down, in the midst of the usual cyclone of cries for “Grant, Grant, General Grant!”textual note

General Grant said “There’s Depew. Let him respond for me.”

Depew stopped where he was, and without pause or hesitation said, with fine impressiveness, in substance, this:

“Respondtextual note for himtextual note ? It is not necessary. No felicity of words can so eloquently speak as can the silence and the visible person of a man whose name will still be familiar upon the lips of men when twenty centuries shall have come and gone.”

That was the substance of what he said, not the words. The language was finished, perfect, moving, flawless. Depew was the prince of after-dinner orators during thirty years. He made some hundreds of happy and distinguished speeches, but I think his briefest one was his best. He is dying now, and under a cloudexplanatory note—a pity, too, that such should be his fate after so long a career of great and uninterrupted popularity.

General Grant wrought heroically with his pen while his disease made its steady inroads upon his life, and at last his work stood completed. He was moved to Mount McGregor, and there his strength passed gradually away. Toward the last, he was not able to speak, but used a pencil and small slips of paper when he needed to say anything.

I went there to see him once, toward the end, and he asked me with his pencil, and evidently with anxious solicitude, if there was a prospect that his book would make something for his family.

I said that the canvass for it was progressing vigorously, that the subscriptions and the moneytextual note were coming in fast, that the campaign was not more than half completed yet—but that if it should stop where it was there would be two hundred thousand dollars coming to his family. He expressed his gratification, with his pencil.

When I was entering the house, the Confederate Generaltextual note, Buckner, was leaving it. Buckner and Granttextual note had been fellow cadets at West Point, about 1840. I think they had served together in the Mexican war, a little later. After that war Grant (then a Captaintextual note in the regular army) was ordered to a military post in Oregon. By and by he resigned and came East and found himself in New York penniless. On the street he met Buckner, [begin page 73] and borrowed fifty dollars of him. In February 1862 Buckner was in command of the Confederate garrison of Fort Donelson. General Grant captured the fortressexplanatory note, by assault, and took fifteen thousand prisoners. After that,textual note the two soldiers did not meet again until that day at Mount McGregor, twenty-three years later.

Several visitors were present, and there was a good deal of chaffing and joking, some of it at Buckner’s expense. Finally General Buckner said,

“Itextual note have my full share of admiration and esteem for Grant. It dates back to our cadet days. He has as many merits and virtues as any man I am acquainted with, but he has one deadly defect. He is an incurable borrower, and when he wants to borrow he knows of only one limit—he wants what you’ve got. When I was poor he borrowed fifty dollars of me; when I was rich he borrowed fifteen thousand men.”textual note

General Grant died at Mount McGregor on the 23dtextual note of July.

In September or October the Memoirs went to press. Several sets of plates were made; the printing was distributed among several great printing establishments; a great number of steam presses were kept running night and day on the book; several large binderies were kept at work binding it. The book was in sets of two volumes—large octavo. Its price was nine dollars in cloth. For costlier bindings the price was proportionately higher. Two thousand sets in tree-calf were issued at twenty-five dollars per set.

The book was issued on the 10th of December, and I turned out to be a competent prophet. In the beginning I had told General Grant that his book would sell six hundred thousand single volumes, and that is what happened. It sold three hundred thousand sets. The first check that went to Mrs. Grant was for two hundred thousand dollars; the next one, a few months later, was for atextual note hundred and fifty thousand. I do not remember about the subsequent checks, but I think that in the aggregate the book paid Mrs. Grant something like half a million dollarsexplanatory note.

Webster was in his gloryexplanatory note. In his obscure days his hat was No. 6¼; intextual note these latter days he was not able to get his head into a barrel. He loved to descant upon the wonders of the book. He liked to go into the statistics. He liked to tell that it took thirteen miles of gold leaf to print the gilt titles on the book backs; he liked to tell how many thousand tons the three hundred thousand sets weighed. Of course that same old natural thing happened:textual note Webster thought it was he that sold the book. He thought that General Grant’s great name helped, but he regarded himself as the main reason of the book’s prodigious success. This shows that Webster was merely human, and merely a publisher. All publishers are Columbuses. The successful author is their America. The reflection that they—like Columbus—textual notedidn’t discover what they expected to discover, and didn’t discover what they started out to discover, doesn’t trouble them. All they remember is that they discovered America; theytextual note forget that they started out to discover some patch or corner of India.

A Mr. Scott was Webster’s bookkeeper. Back in the summer, when the subscription money had begun to pour in in a great and steady stream of bank-bills, sent by express, Webster told me he was suspicious of Scott and was going to lay a trap for him. He was going to pass some marked bank notestextual note through his hands and see if they would stick.

Textual Notes Friday, June 1, 1906
  Friday ●  Thursday Friday  (TS1-SLC?)  Friday (TS2) 
  General ●  Gen. (TS1, TS2) 
  General ●  Gen. (TS1, TS2) 
  Success of the Memoirs, and Webster’s enlarged head ●  Success of the Memoirs, and Webster’s enlarged head (TS1)  not in  (TS2) 
  galley-proofs ●  galley proofs (TS1, TS2) 
  centre ●  center (TS1, TS2) 
  Grant!” ●  Grant. !period mended to an exclamation point  (TS1-SLC)  Grant!” (TS2) 
  this: [¶] “Respond ●  this: [¶] “Respond (TS1-SLC)  this: [¶] “Respond (TS2) 
  him  ●  him ‘him’ underscored  (TS1-SLC)  him  (TS2) 
  and the money ●  and the money  (TS1-SLC)  and the money (TS2) 
  General ●  general (TS1, TS2) 
  1840  ●  (1840) (TS1, TS2) 
  Grant ●  the General Grant  (TS1-SLC)  Grant (TS2) 
  Captain ●  captain (TS1, TS2) 
  1862  ●  (1862) (TS1, TS2) 
  that, ●  that,  (TS1-SLC)  that, (TS2) 
  said, [¶] “I ●  said, ¶“I (TS1-SLC)  said, [¶] “I (TS2) 
  men.” ●  million. men.”  (TS1-SLC)  men.” (TS2) 
  23d ●  23rd (TS1, TS2) 
  a ●  one a  (TS1-SLC)  a (TS2) 
  6¼; in ●  6¼; . I in period mended to a semicolon; ‘I’ marked for lowercase with a slash and ‘l.c.’  (TS1-SLC)  6¼; in (TS2) 
  happened: ●  happened. : period mended to a colon  (TS1-SLC)  happened: (TS2) 
  —like Columbus— ●  —like Columbus—  (TS1-SLC)  —like Columbus— (TS2) 
  America; they ●  America; . T they period mended to a semicolon  (TS1-SLC)  America; they (TS2) 
  bank notes ●  bank-notes (TS1, TS2) 
Explanatory Notes Friday, June 1, 1906
 

most telling speech I ever listened to . . . by the capable Depew] This speech has not been identified with certainty, but Depew (see the note at 72.23–25) himself described an occasion bearing some resemblance to the one that Clemens recalls here.

I arrived at the dinner late and passed in front of the daïs to my seat at the other end, while General Grant was speaking. He was not easy on his feet at that time, though afterwards he became very felicitous in public speaking. He paused a moment until I was seated and then said: “If Chauncey Depew stood in my shoes, and I in his, I would be a much happier man.”

I immediately threw away the speech I had prepared during the six hours’ trip from Washington, and proceeded to make a speech on “Who can stand now or in the future in the shoes of General Grant?” . . .

The enthusiasm of the audience, as the speech went on, surpassed anything I ever saw. They rushed over tables and tried to carry the general around the room. When the enthusiasm had subsided he came to me and with much feeling said: “Thank you for that speech; it is the greatest and most eloquent that I ever heard.” (Depew 1924, 70–71)

According to another account, Depew used the “felicitous” keynote phrase repeatedly, each time listing another of Grant’s victories, and the “effect was magical” (Marden 1907, 196).

 

Depew . . . is dying now, and under a cloud] Chauncey M. Depew had been a Republican senator from New York since 1899. The life insurance investigation of 1905 resulted in accusations that he used his political influence to promote corporate interests, especially those of the Equitable Life Assurance Society (which paid him a yearly $20,000 retainer) and the Vanderbilt railroad companies. Although he resisted pressure to resign, he did withdraw from many of the seventy-nine companies he served as a director or trustee. Although the newspapers reported that his health was poor, he lived until 1928 and died at the age of ninety-three (Los Angeles Times: “Recall Invoked for Depew,” 3 Jan 1906, 1; “He Won’t Resign,” 4 Jan 1906, 1; “Friends Uphold Depew; Brackett Seeks Cover,” New York Times, 4 Jan 1906, 5; “Senator Depew. Reasons Why He Should Withdraw from Public Life,” San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Jan 1906, 6).

 

When I was entering the house, the Confederate General, Buckner . . . General Grant captured the fortress] Clemens did not encounter Buckner at Mount McGregor, the resort near Saratoga Springs, New York, where Grant spent his last days. When Buckner visited there, on 10 July 1885, Clemens was at Quarry Farm with his family. Two months earlier, he had already recorded in his notebook the anecdote he retails here ( N&J3, 149–50). Simon Bolivar Buckner (1823–1914) of Kentucky attended West Point with Grant and fought in the same division in the Mexican War. After Grant resigned from the army in 1854, he borrowed money from Buckner in New York to pay his hotel bill. When Kentucky sided with the Union in the Civil War, Buckner reluctantly joined the Confederacy. In February 1862 Union forces captured Fort Donelson in Tennessee, the first major victory for the North. Grant’s note to Buckner, “No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted,” earned him the nickname of “Unconditional Surrender” (for “U. S.”) Grant. After the war Buckner edited the Louisville Courier and was governor of Kentucky in 1887–91 (Smith 2001, 89–90, 161–62, 165–66).

 

in the aggregate the book paid Mrs. Grant something like half a million dollars] The net profits on the book were divided between Mrs. Grant (70 percent) and the Webster firm (30 percent). Estimates of the total royalties paid to her vary somewhat, but Clemens’s figure—equivalent in today’s dollars to at least $8 million—is plausible ( AutoMT1 486–87 n. 80.35; see also AD, 2 June 1906, note at 74.38–75.1).

 

Webster was in his glory] In a self-aggrandizing 1887 interview Webster claimed that it was he who first approached Grant about writing his memoirs, several months before the incident that Clemens recalls here:

About the time of the Grant & Ward failure . . . I went to the General and represented that it would be advantageous for him to write a history of his career. He replied that John Russell Young and Adam Badeau had both written him up, and that he did not think, in justice to those gentlemen, he should take up the pen in his own behalf. I continued my solicitations, and the Century company also strove to induce him to write his life. I finally succeeded, and the first volume of the memoirs was given to the public.

He also gave an implausible account of his role in persuading Grant to dictate his book:

He demurred at first, saying that he never had dictated a letter in his life. . . . I finally agreed to go to his house each day with a stenographer, remain while the general dictated for about two hours, go home with the stenographer and remain with him until he had delivered to me not only his notes but the complete text of the general’s remarks. (“The Publisher of Grant’s Book,” Kansas City Star, 25 June 1887, 1)