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Date: | Mon, 28 Mar 2016 17:19:45 +0000 |
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I have always considered Mark Twain to be, indirectly, President Lincoln’s great gift to American Literature. After reading the diary of President Lincoln’s treasurer, Salmon P. Chase, one must certainly afford him a role in that gift.
Remember that Chase, of Missouri, was mentor to Sam Clemens’ older brother Orion. It was through Chase’s patronage that in March 1861, the President appointed Orion as Secretary of Nevada Territory. The story is well documented of brother Sam financing the trip to Carson City, and accompanying Orion on it. Then, when writing a newspaper column in Carson City in February 1863, Sam adopted the pen-name Mark Twain.
In Chase’s diary in early 1864, Chase notes his satisfaction with Orion’s actions as Territorial Secretary. In the brief entry, Chase writes that he had declined to support Orion’s request to be appointed to a consular post in Germany. Then Chase did propose and support the Presidential appointment of Orion to the post in Nevada Territory.
Consider what course Sam Clemens’ life might have taken had Orion needed his brother’s financial support to relocate to Europe instead of the Territory!
The Chase diary, printed in 1933 by the General Printing Office, is available online. Google it.
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