25 October 1876 • Hartford, Conn. (Memphis Avalanche, 5 November 1876, UCCL 01379)
Mrs. ——:— Dear Madam—Yes, I am that person, &Ⓐemendation I have been trying to place you, but I have such a disgraceful memory that I can’t quite compass it. It is mainly because that week in Memphis was so terrible that I have never liked to think about it. I could not even think of the many pleasant features of that sojourn without drifting into the others—the dreadful ones.1explanatory note
You will easily believe that I did not want to forget you, or any other of the kind friends who helped me there, & made me forget that I was a stranger—no, the forgetting was the result of the process I have just described. What I do remember, without the least trouble in the world, is, that when those sixty scalded & mutilated people were thrown upon her hands, Memphis came forward with a perfectly lavish outpouring of money & sympathy, & that this did not fail & die out, but lasted through to the end. Even then, neither the purse nor the compassion of Memphis was exhausted; for the “Pennsylvania’s” victims were hardly disposed of before those of the “St. Nicholas” were brought there, & were received & treated with the same splendid generosity.2explanatory note
Do you remember how the physicians worked?—& the students—the ladies—& everybody? I do. If the rest of my wretched memory was taken away, I should still remember that. And I remember the names (& vaguely, the faces) of the friends with whom I lodged, & two who watched with me—& you may well believe that I remember Dr. Peyton. What a magnificent man he was! What healing it was just to look at him & hear his voice!3explanatory note
I have planned a journey down the Mississippi for the spring of 1878, & then I hope I may see him again, & you too.4explanatory note Meantime, I heartily wish you both may be obliged to journey eastward, & that you will do me the real kindness to break bread & eat salt with me in Hartford. You shall have the best rooms in the house—& refurnished, if you require it.
Truly & gratefully yours,
Clemens replied to a Memphis woman who recalled the death of his brother Henry in June 1858, from injuries received in the explosion of the steamboat Pennsylvania. She may have been the Miss Wood who had been on the scene “like a good angel to aid and console” (OC to Wood, 3 Oct 1858, NPV). A moving record of Clemens’s vigil at his brother’s deathbed survives in the letters he wrote at the time (see 15 June 1858click to open letter and 21 June 1858click to open letter to WAM, and 18 June 1858 to MECclick to open letter, L1, 80–86).
The St. Nicholas actually exploded on 24 April 1859, near Helena, Arkansas, a few miles from the scene of the Pennsylvania disaster. The survivors and injured were taken to Louisville and Memphis. It is not known if Clemens was in either city at the time. He persisted in believing that the disaster occurred in 1858: in “A Curious Experience,” published in the Century magazine in November 1881, he reported that the St. Nicholasc“blew up in the neighborhood of Memphis, in ’58” (SLC 1881, 44; “News of the Day,” New York Times, 27 Apr 1859, 4; Way 1983, 413; N&J2 , 536).
Thomas F. Peyton, a leading Memphis physician.
Clemens postponed his return to the Mississippi until the spring of 1882 ( N&J2 , 432–34, 436–37, 464–80).
“‘Mark Twain.’ A Sad Incident of His Early Life Recalled,” Memphis Avalanche, 5 November 1876, 4.
“‘Mark Twain.’ A Sad Incident of His Early Life Recalled,” unidentified newspaper, unknown date, in Covington Collection scrapbook, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio (OOxM); “A Grateful Remembrance,” Hartford Courant, 13 November 1876, 2.