The career of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) as a river pilot ended when
the Civil War stopped steamboat traffic on the Mississippi. He then
joined his brother, who was going to Carson City, Nevada, to be
secretary to the governor of the territory. The brothers took a
steamboat to St. Joseph, Missouri, where they caught the Overland Stage.
Sam Clemens’ account of his trip to Nevada is a memorable picture of
stagecoach travel across the prairies and mountains just eight years
before the railroads made the Overland Stage obsolete. Here is a
selection from _Roughing It_: