“Give the Book to Clemens”: December 2000 American History Feature

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Charles Webster retired in 1888 and sold his interest to Fred Hall, who had joined the company two years earlier. The Panic of 1893 proved to be the last straw for the struggling firm. Banks and businesses across the country closed by the score, and creditors filed claims against the foundering Charles L. Webster Company for almost $80,000. The company failed in 1894, and Clemens filed for bankruptcy. Embittered by his publishing experience, Clemens blamed all of his company’s problems on Hall and Webster, whom he had grown to hate. After several years of writing and lecturing he managed to pay off his remaining debts and reestablish his substantial annual income, which in 1902 amounted to more than $100,000.

In his autobiography, published posthumously in 1924, Clemens described his brief and rather comical Civil War career. He had lasted just two weeks in the Confederate service in 1862 before claiming he was "incapacitated by fatigue" and "resigning." It is remarkable that Clemens, who claimed to know "more about retreating than the man who invented retreating," ever became friends with the iron-willed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. Ultimately, however, he decided that Grant was like himself, "just a man, just a human being, just an author."

Craig E. Miller is a retired history teacher from Pennsylvania.

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