Mark Twain in Nevada

Having deserted the Marion Rangers (a small band of Confederate irregulars) due to a dislike of military life, Samuel Clemens was ready for a clean break with his past.) had stumped for the presidential ticket of Abraham Lincoln in northern Missouri during the election of 1860 alongside St. Louis lawyer Edward Bates (whose law offices Orion had worked in during the 1840s). and was confirmed by the Senate on March 27, 1861. Despite a generous salary, no funds to relocate to Nevada were provided, and without the means to move, Orion struck a deal with Samuel that if he paid for their journey he would serve as Orion's private secretary. Each ticket was $150 (a month's wages from Orion's new job), Samuel paid the sum with money saved from when he was a riverboat pilot. The population of Carson City at the time was 2,000. Despite the fact that the Nevada Directory for 1861-62 listed Samuel Clemens with the prestigious title of assistant secretary of state, the job could not maintain his interest. He felt that there was not enough writing in the job to keep both his brother and him busy. He also bristled at being underneath Orion's authority referring to him in his letters as "his majesty the Secretary". ==Lingering Southern sympathies==

Samuel Clemens before the Civil War had considered joining the Know Nothings but joined the Constitutional Unionists made up of ex-Whigs who supported the Dred Scott decision (and won the majority of Southern border states in the election of 1860). Historian Arthur G. Pettit points out that "Clemens rejected even the moderate Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas, who carried Clemens's own state. Clemens's Southernism, in other words, was a matter of conscious choice as well as regional background." Before the war Clemens held the Whig ideal of having both Union and slavery, but as things progressed he did not have any problem with the idea that states could secede if they felt aggrieved. Pettit relates that, after Clemens's unhappy time in the irregular militia, he was glad to set out for Nevada rather "than to be at once a disloyal Northerner and a treasonous Southerner." Historian Louis J. Budd states that Clemens was hardly alone in escaping the war in this manner: "In fleeing west with his brother, Sam had plenty of company as, throughout the war years, many thousands of able-bodied men crossed the plains in the same direction." Arriving in Nevada did not force Clemens to alter his convictions. While the territory was "aggressively dominated by Union men", there was a loud and well-organized Southern minority whose stronghold was in Virginia City (which had been named by Southerners). These supporters for Nevada secession even claimed victory in defeating a statehood proposal because it would allow entry to free blacks – calling the bills defeat the "slaughter of that free nigger Constitution". As time went on, and the war began to shift for the benefit of Union forces, the weight of popular opinion did as well, and Samuel Clemens soon had to take stock of where he stood on the matter. ==Mining==

After seeing silver ore emerge from one of the mills of the Comstock Lode, Samuel Clemens (tired of working under his brother) began to spend much of his time in the mining districts of Humboldt and Esmeralda. In these areas, Clemens engaged in prospecting and working as a pocket miner with dreams of striking it rich. Clemens, working with an investment made by his brother Orion, took up several partners. Most notably was a partnership with Calvin Higbie (to whom the book Roughing It would be dedicated) and Robert Howland. Despite great dreams of success, none of Clemens' efforts were overly successful. The rush of immigration to strip the area of silver had been ongoing since the spring of 1859, Historian R. Kent Rasmussen notes that there was a promising claim that the partners lost in 1862, and "Though their lost claim later proved valuable, it would not necessarily have made the men millionaires." Rasmussen holds that "He magnified the episode enormously" for comic effect. Having found quartz-mining in search of silver difficult, and not finding enough to support himself, Clemens began working in a quartz mill shoveling tailings for small wages. He was unhappy with the work. ==Correspondent==

In February 1862, Samuel Clemens began to send occasional letters to the major paper in the Nevada Territory, the Virginia City Daily Territorial Enterprise. In a letter dated February 3, 1863 to the Territorial Enterprise from Carson City, complaining about a lavish party that kept him "awake for forty-eight hours" Clemens signed his work "yours dreamily, MARK TWAIN", the first use of the name under which he would become famous. He visited again, alone, in September. During this time, Twain often got his letters re-published in papers throughout the region, and near the end of 1863, began contributing to The Golden Era, a San Francisco literary journal. The Third House met after the adjournment of the actual territorial legislature, so elected legislators could join as well. Despite Twain's retraction of the piece the next day, his critics held it against him for over a year. Many subscribers to the Enterprise canceled their subscriptions and turned to the Union, a rival newspaper The newspapers that had reprinted it were outraged, with the Bulletin demanding that Twain be fired. His offer to resign from the paper was refused by Joe Goodman, and his reputation continued to grow, some giving him the nickname the "Washoe Giant." ==Artemus Ward==

Twain attended many of the plays and entertainments that came to Virginia City and was invited to meet the famous actress Adah Isaacs Menken after a good review he wrote for her, but as the Routledge Encyclopedia of Mark Twain states: "Most importantly, he met Artemus Ward on his week-long visit to Virginia City in December 1863." (Thanks to Ward's assistance Twain was able to publish two stories in the Mercury in 1864, and due to his encouragement Twain would later send his story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County to New York in 1865 where it would become a national success.) Despite Ward's early death in March 1867, The Mark Twain Encyclopedia states: "His style, manner, and mantle…[were] adopted by others, including especially Mark Twain. ...the attitudes and persona of Ward were influential on Twain's literary comedy in both general and specific ways." ==Political sway==

In January 1864, Twain began covering another legislative session in Carson City. Thanks in part to his familial political connections, Twain's political reporting, though still in a humorous vein, raised his reputation in the eyes of his reading audience as an important figure in public affairs. His satire and social criticism was directed at matters of importance for the community. With his growing audience and influence, politicians wished to stay on his good side rather than be ridiculed in the Enterprise. Historian Louis J. Budd points out that, while in later life, Twain "distorted the sober nature of this assignment [of covering the Legislature] by stressing the margin of irreverence with which he had carried it out" this was a comic recasting of reality. For while "His weekly letter for the Sunday trade was often playful and sometimes irresponsible. Day by day however he ground out factual accounts" with none of the comic color. Twain therefore "was deep in day to day realities" of how things got done in the Legislature and "he took side whenever possible". Twain tried to use his influence to aid in the cause to move the capital of Nevada out of Carson City to Virginia City, a move favored by his employer as well. The boosters of Carson City argued against such a move, and both sides "used every fair or foul maneuver" they could to support their cause. Twain's printed work in the Enterprise not only made charges of graft, with identities of the accused thinly veiled, but his positions on other matters also were calculated to support the cause. As historian Louis J. Budd points out, "A neat example of how he shifted tactics as strategy demanded lies in his comments on a bill to grant twenty thousand dollars to the Sierra Seminary, a private school in Carson City with about forty students. On January 14, 1864, he held that the 'money could not be more judiciously expended'; on February 16 he called the school 'a private affair,' hinted at boodling [political graft and fraud], and suggested support for a public mining college instead; on April 25 he had the gall to refer to the Sierra Seminary bill as a 'really worthy measure.'" The capital remained in Carson City, but Twain's treatment of the Sierra Seminary would come back later to haunt him. ==Death of niece==

On January 29, 1864, Twain's niece Jennie (born in 1855) fell ill to spotted fever. Twain, who was very close to the girl, had recently visited her class and written an article about it entitled "Miss Clapp's School"; he would later use the memories of this visit in his book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain, still in Carson City to cover the legislature, joined with his sister-in-law Mollie and his brother Orion at Jennie's bedside, continuously praying with the feverish girl. On February 1, 1864 at 6 p.m., she died when the disease progressed into meningitis. Twain and her parents had remained at her bedside. On February 3, the territorial legislature adjourned to attend the funeral. Orion and Mollie never had another child, and a general depression helped cause his political decline. Twain was grief-stricken over the loss, and remained bitter over it for the rest of his life. At the time, he directed his anger at the profession of undertakers, using his writing to claim they were corrupt. He continued to slam the profession for years to come. While Twain wanted to help Orion with his grief, he could not endure his brother's attempts to father him. ==The Sanitary Affair==

As Nevada was still a territory at this time, Twain's newspaper writing covered a political scene that was especially charged, as the regional government "had the delicate task of overseeing the transition to statehood at a time when other states were attempting to secede" and Frederick Law Olmsted. Twain received circulars about the fair from Pamela Moffett, and he wrote pieces for the Enterprise and the San Francisco Morning Call encouraging fundraising efforts for the event. Other communities learning of the event invited Gridley to "auction" the sack at their town, which Gridley did, making his own traveling fundraising campaign for the sanitary commission. On May 15, Gridley proceeded to Virginia City. Despite the size of the city (due to its populace being unprepared for his arrival and the lateness in the day when the "auction" started) less was raised than in the village of Austin. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Mark Twain points out that as miscegenation was seen as a sexual vice and "provided tempting material for smutty humor, and in the earlier stages of his career Twain, not yet the vocal champion of racial justice he would become, tended to approach the subject of interracial liaisons with a measure of virile bawdry…It was a crude suggestion that the proceeds of the ladies' charity ball were to be used to fund a 'miscegenation Society'". Contribution rivalry On May 17, 1864, the same day that Twain's unsigned miscegenation hoax was appearing in the Enterprise, he wrote about the progress of the Great Austin Flour Sack when it was brought to be "auctioned" once again at Virginia City. With the sack again in Virginia City, Twain accompanied Gridley to observe the proceedings. Twain recorded that the second "auction" lasted two and a half hours, and "a population of fifteen thousand souls had paid in coin for a fifty-pound sack of flour a sum equal to forty thousand dollars in greenbacks! …The grand total would have been twice as large, but the streets were very narrow, and hundreds who wanted to bid could not get within a block of the stand, and could not make themselves heard. …This was the greatest day Virginia [City] ever saw, perhaps." At the time, the paper's editor Joe Goodman was away and had put Twain in charge.), the angry letter from the ladies of the Sanitary Ball of Carson City arrived at the Enterprise. He told Mollie he "was not sober" when he wrote the piece and presented it at the Enterprise to Dan De Quille (the pen name of William Wright). De Quille looked it over and asked "Is this a joke?" Wilmington begged off saying that he "had written the communication only in defense of the craft, and did not desire a quarrel with a member of that craft". Twain promised that he would "say a word or two to show the ladies that I did not wilfully and maliciously do them a wrong." Laird's correspondence called Twain "a liar, a poltroon, and a puppy" and called into question his war conduct. Historian Ron Powers sees Twain's behavior concerning Laird not as burlesque but as "dark, deadly stuff", "reckless", and "downright suicidal". He related that he was "open to a challenge from three persons, & already awaiting the issue of such a message to another". Grand Jury foreman Jerry Driscoll, who previously had been a business manager of the Enterprise told Twain that his opponents were going to lodge a criminal complaint about his challenge. He said he had received Cutler's challenge, and "I am ready to accept it. Having made my arrangements—before I received your note—to leave for California, & having no time to fool away on a common bummer like you, I want an immediate reply to this.") he dropped the matter and returned to Carson City. ==Exiting Nevada Territory==

On Sunday May 29, 1864, Mark Twain, having quit the Enterprise, boarded the stagecoach with his friend Steve Gillis and began his journey out of the Nevada Territory to San Francisco; no duel was fought. Historian James Edward Caron notes that outside of his friends and the staff of the Enterprise many were upset at "Clemen's unforgivable habit of conflating news narratives with fictional narratives, presented with the supremely blithe attitude of his alter ego Mark Twain. Some simply could not forgive Clemens for being a newspaper reporter who seemed completely indifferent to telling the truth". Among those expressing such sentiments at the time was the Gold Hill Evening News which was among the papers glad to see him leave. In an editorial appearing on May 30, 1864 they wrote "Among the few immortal names of the departed—that is, those who departed yesterday morning per California stage—we notice that of Mark Twain. We don't wonder. Mark Twain's beard is full of dirt, and his face is black before the people of Washoe. Giving way to the idiosyncratic eccentricities of an erratic mind, Mark has indulged in the game infernal—in short, 'played hell.' …The indignation aroused by his enormities has been too crushing to be borne by any living man, though sheathed with the brass and triple cheek of Mark Twain." ==Later visit to Nevada==

Twain would only be able to repair the situation in 1866 when after rising to fame due to his lectures on his travels in Hawaii (also called the Sandwich Islands). After giving his lectures in many California cities and towns, he proceeded back into the young state of Nevada. On October 31, 1866 he performed his humorous lecture before a packed house in Virginia City. Armed robbery prank Twain's triumphant return to Nevada was slightly marred in his estimation due to a surprising incident. On a trip back from Gold Hill (where he had given his lecture on November 10) to Virginia City. Twain and his literary agent Denis McCarthy (a one-time co-proprietor at the Enterprise) were making the five mile journey at night in an area where only two days before a pair of stagecoaches had been robbed at gunpoint.), two jackknives and three lead pencils – leaving his pockets empty. Later it was revealed that the "robbers" were Steve Gillis and some friends, who had let Twain's companion McCarthy in on the joke beforehand. Twain had a restless angry night, before he was told the truth in the morning. Gillis and friends stated that they had merely wanted to give Twain more material, and perhaps get him to give another lecture in Virginia City. Twain who had been shaken and remained seriously upset that they used real revolvers, tried to put on a brave face on the incident in his writing saying "they did not really frighten me bad enough to make their enjoyment worth the trouble they had taken." One of the pranksters differed with his take, saying Twain "was the scaredest man west of the Mississippi". Twain did have his possessions returned, but he fired McCarthy as his agent anyway. ==Final visit==

The last time Twain traveled to Nevada was in 1868 on another lecture tour, this time about his voyage aboard the Quaker City and arrival in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine which he called the Holy Land and which would be the basis for his book The Innocents Abroad. His performances were held in Carson City on April 29 and 30. ==Recollections==

Twain used his memories of his time in Nevada as one of the sources for his book about living in the American West called Roughing It, which was published in 1872. in ''Tom Hood's Comic Annual for 1873'' Krauth notes that despite Twain's effort, he is never quite capable of purging "sexist, racist, and elitist" views of the Victorian culture of his times, (including in Puddn'head Wilson were Twain returned to the subject of miscegenation, where he underlined the absurdity of equating equality with racial purity but in the end re-establishes the acceptability of doing so). When dictating his autobiography for the North American Review (published in 1906-1907) Twain presented the events around his stay in Virginia City and the episode of the duel again in a humorous way. But he did make a remark in his dictation that reflects something else saying "I was ashamed of myself, the rest of the staff were ashamed of me—but I got along well enough. I had always been accustomed to feeling ashamed of myself, for one thing or another, so there was no novelty for me in the situation." Historian Forrest Glen Robinson says this is an example of "what we know about poor Clemens's tyrannical conscience, and his virtual incapacity to forgive himself for any of the real and imagined wrongs that lurked, undying, in his memory." Twain is both humiliated by his participating in the irrational code duello and for not participating in it enough – leaving town; leaving him with nothing but "profound self-contempt…an anguish that needed telling but that was too shameful for direct expression". ==Impact of Nevada==

Twain's stay in Nevada was a formative period in his personal growth in examining his culture and himself, and in his growth as a writer and a professional. Historian Ivan Benson points this out at length, stating that "Even without the editorial Troubles of May 1864 Mark Twain would not have remained on the Comstock Lode indefinitely. …However, the two years on the Comstock Lode as a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise had definitely contributed to Mark Twain's development as a writer." The Enterprise "had given him virtually a free rein" and let him make use of their influence and reputation to gather an audience. Not only did Samuel Clemens invent Mark Twain in his work for Nevada's Enterprise, but it was with their assistance that "he first attracted a reading public beyond his own locality, his work gaining the notice even of Eastern publications." Before coming to Nevada Samuel Clemens had tried three apprenticeships, with none of them panning out as a profession; "When Mark Twain left the Comstock Lode, he had served his final apprenticeship; he had made writing his career." Thanks to his time in Nevada, Twain was able to enter easily into the Bohemian literary society of San Francisco in May, 1864 and "required no apology…His work as a writer on the Territorial Enterprise had given him wide notoriety, and in previous visits to San Francisco he had been treated as a celebrity." Historian Ron Powers states that when Twain left Nevada he "drew the curtain of charity over the wildest, most irresponsible and dangerous period of his life. …But this dangerous interval was also the most important gestative period of his writing life. Sam discovered the true essence of his craft…" ==References==