Your brother
SAM.
Among other things, we gather from this letter that Orion Clemens
had faith in his brother as a newspaper correspondent, though the
two contributions from Cincinnati, already mentioned, were not
promising. Furthermore, we get an intimation of Orion's unfailing
confidence in the future of the “land”--that is to say, the great
tract of land in Eastern Tennessee which, in an earlier day, his
father had bought as a heritage for his children. It is the same
Tennessee land that had “millions in it” for Colonel Sellers--the
land that would become, as Orion Clemens long afterward phrased it,
“the worry of three generations.”
The Doctor Kane of this letter is, of course, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane,
the American Arctic explorer. Any book of exploration always
appealed to Mark Twain, and in those days Kane was a favorite.
The paragraph concerning Henry, and his employment on the
Pennsylvania, begins the story of a tragedy. The story has been
fully told elsewhere,--[Mark Twain: A Biography, by same author.]
--and need only be sketched briefly here. Henry, a gentle, faithful
boy, shared with his brother the enmity of the pilot Brown. Some
two months following the date of the foregoing letter, on a down
trip of the Pennsylvania, an unprovoked attack made by Brown upon
the boy brought his brother Sam to the rescue. Brown received a
good pummeling at the hands of the future humorist, who, though
upheld by the captain, decided to quit the Pennsylvania at New
Orleans and to come up the river by another boat. The Brown episode
has no special bearing on the main tragedy, though now in retrospect
it seems closely related to it. Samuel Clemens, coming up the river
on the A. T. Lacey, two days behind the Pennsylvania, heard a voice
shout as they approached the Greenville, Mississippi, landing:
“The Pennsylvania is blown up just below Memphis, at Ship Island!
One hundred and fifty lives lost!”
It was a true report. At six o'clock of a warm, mid-June morning,
while loading wood, sixty miles below Memphis, the Pennsylvania's
boilers had exploded with fearful results. Henry Clemens was among
the injured. He was still alive when his brother reached Memphis on
the Lacey, but died a few days later. Samuel Clemens had idolized
the boy, and regarded himself responsible for his death. The letter
that follows shows that he was overwrought by the scenes about him
and the strain of watching, yet the anguish of it is none the less
real.
To Mrs. Onion Clemens:
MEMPHIS, TENN., Friday, June 18th, 1858.
DEAR SISTER MOLLIE,--Long before this reaches you, my poor Henry my
darling, my pride, my glory, my all, will have finished his blameless
career, and the light of my life will have gone out in utter
darkness. (O, God! this is hard to bear.) Hardened, hopeless,--aye,
lost--lost--lost and ruined sinner as I am--I, even I, have humbled
myself to the ground and prayed as never man prayed before, that the
great God might let this cup pass from me--that he would strike me to
the earth, but spare my brother--that he would pour out the fulness of
his just wrath upon my wicked head, but have mercy, mercy, mercy upon
that unoffending boy. The horrors of three days have swept over me--they
have blasted my youth and left me an old man before my time. Mollie,
there are gray hairs in my head tonight. For forty-eight hours I labored
at the bedside of my poor burned and bruised, but uncomplaining brother,
and then the star of my hope went out and left me in the gloom of
despair. Men take me by the hand and congratulate me, and call me
“lucky” because I was not on the Pennsylvania when she blew up! May God
forgive them, for they know not what they say.
Mollie you do not understand why I was not on that boat--I will tell
you. I left Saint Louis on her, but on the way down, Mr. Brown, the
pilot that was killed by the explosion (poor fellow,) quarreled with
Henry without cause, while I was steering. Henry started out of the
pilot-house--Brown jumped up and collared him--turned him half way
around and struck him in the face!--and him nearly six feet high--struck
my little brother. I was wild from that moment. I left the boat to steer
herself, and avenged the insult--and the Captain said I was right--that
he would discharge Brown in N. Orleans if he could get another pilot,
and would do it in St. Louis, anyhow. Of course both of us could not
return to St. Louis on the same boat--no pilot could be found, and the
Captain sent me to the A. T. Lacey, with orders to her Captain to bring
me to Saint Louis. Had another pilot been found, poor Brown would have
been the “lucky” man.
I was on the Pennsylvania five minutes before she left N. Orleans, and I
must tell you the truth, Mollie--three hundred human beings perished by
that fearful disaster. Henry was asleep--was blown up--then fell back
on the hot boilers, and I suppose that rubbish fell on him, for he is
injured internally. He got into the water and swam to shore, and got
into the flatboat with the other survivors.--[Henry had returned once
to the Pennsylvania to render assistance to the passengers. Later he had
somehow made his way to the flatboat.]--He had nothing on but his wet
shirt, and he lay there burning up with a southern sun and freezing in
the wind till the Kate Frisbee came along. His wounds were not dressed
till he got to Memphis, 15 hours after the explosion. He was senseless
and motionless for 12 hours after that. But may God bless Memphis, the
noblest city on the face of the earth. She has done her duty by these
poor afflicted creatures--especially Henry, for he has had five--aye,
ten, fifteen, twenty times the care and attention that any one else has
had. Dr. Peyton, the best physician in Memphis (he is exactly like the
portraits of Webster) sat by him for 36 hours. There are 32 scalded men
in that room, and you would know Dr. Peyton better than I can describe
him, if you could follow him around and hear each man murmur as he
passes, “May the God of Heaven bless you, Doctor!” The ladies have done
well, too. Our second Mate, a handsome, noble hearted young fellow, will
die. Yesterday a beautiful girl of 15 stooped timidly down by his side
and handed him a pretty bouquet. The poor suffering boy's eyes kindled,
his lips quivered out a gentle “God bless you, Miss,” and he burst into
tears. He made them write her name on a card for him, that he might not
forget it.
Pray for me, Mollie, and pray for my poor sinless brother.
Your unfortunate Brother,