Clemens had known William Horace Clagett in Keokuk, Iowa, and encountered him again in Nevada in 1861. Clagett figured in chapter 27 of Roughing It as one of Clemens’s companions on the trip to the Humboldt mining district. In August 1871, while reading over the printer’s copy in Hartford, Clemens added to chapter 27 a parenthetical reference to Clagett’s recent election to Congress. Clagett served as a Republican delegate from Montana Territory from December 1871 to March 1873 ( L1 , 123 n. 1, 240 n. 1; RI 1993 , 180, 627, 868).

Thomas Nast had been a staff artist with Harper’s Weekly since 1862, but preferred to work out of his home studio. In 1871, uneasy about threats he had received because of his attacks on the Tweed Ring, he relocated his family to Morristown, where in March 1872 he bought a house. In December he would mention to Clemens that he came in to the New York editorial offices only once a week ( L4 , 373 n. 1; Paine 1904, 84, 120–21, 179–81, 206; 17 Dec 72 to Nast, n. 1click to open letter). The copy of Roughing It sent to Nast was inscribed on the flyleaf, probably by one of the Blisses rather than by Clemens himself: “Thomas Nast | With warm regards | of the Author | June 1872” (Anderson Auction Company 1911, lot 33; see L4 , 216 n. 3).