Mark Twain in Nevada

When Clemens came to Virginia City, he began boasting that he had been a first lieutenant in the regular Confederate Army.[10] It was soon found out that he had been merely a second lieutenant in a self-organized militia of Missouri farm boys.[10] Because of this boast, Clemens offended people on both side of the issue, including his brother's boss, Territorial Governor James W. Nye, who called him a "damned secessionist."[10][15] Humboldt County judge G.T. Sewall swore he would whip Clemens for his sympathies if he ran across him.[10] In a letter to his friend William H. Clagett, Clemens complained of the news that "they" (Union troops) had "thrashed" and defeated "our Missourians".[10]

William H. Clagett received letters from Twain that indicate his shifting sympathies about the Civil War.

Clemens's behavior became an increasing embarrassment to his steadfastly loyal Republican brother Orion, as Samuel was seen as a disloyal troublemaker who spent too much time in saloons.[10] Samuel Clemens's attitude began to change in 1862 as the general opinion became more heavily Union when the Northern armies began winning more battles.[5][10] Clemens began to hedge his Confederate sympathies, and then abandoned them outright.[10] By September 1862, in his letters to Clagett, he began to refer to the Union soldiers as "we".[10]

The scrapbook Clemens kept while in Nevada initially was filled with newspaper articles that hailed secessionist opinions in the West, but by the end of 1862 he began pasting in editorials of leading citizens demanding that Orion purge the government of anyone with Southern sympathies.[10] (Orion did fire a probate judge and notary public for this reason.)[10] Samuel Clemens continued to collect articles about the results of people who expressed Southern sympathies that had just months before been tolerated.[10] In July 1863, after a flag earlier planted on Mt. Davidson by Union supporters (to overlook Virginia City and mock its Southern sympathizers) survived an intense electrical storm, Clemens, now writing under his penname Mark Twain, presented its survival through the lightning strikes as a mystical omen of Union victory. With this, Twain publicly had shown his newly undivided devotion to the Union.[10] He also portrayed an incident in San Francisco as an omen for the fall of the Confederate cause when all the lights suddenly went out at a meeting of Copperheads (Northern Democrats calling for immediate peace).[10] Twain would go on to protest a clause in a proposed Nevada constitution to disfranchise any that voluntarily bore arms for the Confederacy, claiming that, even in his Missouri days, he always had an underlying affection for the Union.[10]

Historian Arthur G. Pettit points out that Twain mentally would separate his Southern values from his Confederate values, for "When loyalty to the Confederacy proved a handicap in the face of shifting Western opinion—especially when it began to interfere with Clemens's main business in the West, which was to make money—it did not take him long to decide that dropping the Confederate South was a small price to pay….Clemens was hardly the neophyte he made himself out to be in Roughing It."[10]

Territorial Governor James W. Nye was often on the receiving end of Twain's roasts when he led the satirical "Third House".

Twain's growing literary reputation and humor were celebrated by "the Third House" who were "an eccentric group of journalists, lawyers, bohemians and businessmen who mocked the legislative process."[2] The group "was bawdy, raucous, and satirical".[16] The Third House met after the adjournment of the actual territorial legislature, so elected legislators could join as well.[16] Sessions were held anywhere from saloons to the First Presbyterian Church.[16] The name mocked the two houses of the legislature of the territorial government while invoking the common term for journalism "the Fourth Estate" (a check on governments to keep them honest).[16] The gatherings of the Third House were in the name of humor; it acted as "a burlesque legislature...with both politicos and their characteristic lingo the butt of the jokes."[16] Because many members of government were present and prepared to be lampooned at the Third House, and as "drink flowed freely, the humor was rough and pointed."[16] With Twain comedically roasting even politicians he respected, all to be repeated shortly in the pages of the Enterprise.

In December 1863, the members of the Third House elected Twain their "President of the Convention" as a jibe on the 1863 Nevada Constitutional Convention (working to make a state constitution, a necessary step to be granted statehood).[2] Among those mocked by Twain was lawyer William Morris Stewart, a future U.S. senator and employer of Twain.[2] This also served as a jibe on Territorial Governor James W. Nye, who was often outside the territory trying to gain supporters for Nevada statehood and his own political future. Nye's absences were covered by Orion Clemens acting in his stead, so electing Twain as the head of the Third House highlighted that his brother was forced to act as the head of the real government due to Nye's actions.[15]

Twain's humor was not always appreciated, such as his hoax on October 28, 1863 called "A Bloody Massacre near Carson" (alternatively, the "Empire City Massacre Hoax"), purporting to detail the story of a man who loses "an immense amount in the Spring Valley Water Company of San Francisco" who in a deranged fit kills and scalps his wife and nine children.[15] While the regular indicators were present that the piece was a joke, it was so bloody that it shocked the Enterprise readership and later caused the paper's trustworthiness to be brought into question.[15] Other newspapers in the region, including the Gold Hill News and the San Francisco Bulletin, had picked up the story and presented it as factual.[17][18] Despite Twain's retraction of the piece the next day, his critics held it against him for over a year.[15] Many subscribers to the Enterprise canceled their subscriptions and turned to the Union, a rival newspaper[18] The newspapers that had reprinted it were outraged, with the Bulletin demanding that Twain be fired.[18] 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."[15]

Reuel Colt Gridley and his famous sack of flour

One campaign to raise funds for the sanitary commission was run by Twain's friend Mexican–American War veteran and grocer Reuel Colt Gridley, whom he had known from his school days in Hannibal.[22] The campaigning centered on a flour sack that Gridley carried around from town to town throughout the region. Individuals, groups, and towns would "bid"/donate to the "purchase" of the flour sack trying to out-contribute/"bid" each other, solely for the purpose of civic pride and "the pleasure of outbidding one's rivals, and in the briskly competitive West, this proved a clever incentive to pry open people's pocketbooks."[24] Gridley always maintained possession of the sack and would bring it with him to his next stop in the region.

The flour sack had originally been part of a bet between Gridley and H.S. Herrick of the town of Austin, Nevada. While Gridley supported the Democratic party, his opponent supported the Republican party. The bet was over whose party's candidate would win the mayoral election. Gridley was running as the Democratic candidate and said that, if he lost, he would carry the sack on his back through town with a brass band playing John Brown's Body behind him, but if Herrick's candidate lost, Herrick would carry the sack with the band playing Dixie.[16][25] After Gridley lost and held up his part of the bet, Herrick told him he didn't want the flour, and it was decided that it should be auctioned with the funds going to the sanitary commission. The winner of the first series of bids refused to take possession of the sack and instructed that he auction it again, to which he complied with the situation repeating itself into the night.[25][26] 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.[25][26] Gridley was convinced to stay overnight and the boosters of the sanitary commission made arrangements for greater publicity.[26] The next day, Gridley was driven through Virginia City in an open carriage being led in a parade of city notables in their own carriages and accompanied by musical bands.[26] Despite gathering a crowd, the procession left them in the dust and moved onto nearby villages.[26] The citizens of Virginia City were directed to a public bulletin board being used to record the updates of what their neighbors contributed in an effort to goad civic rivalry.[26]

Twain went out with other reporters to catch up to Gridley and record the events meeting the procession at its first village stop of Gold Hill. He spent the day with Gridley's writing two long pieces for the Enterprise about the events. The sack then traveled to Silver City, Dayton and then was turned around to head back to Virginia City.[25][26] The citizens of Virginia City were now clamoring to beat the amount raised by the smaller towns (having failed to previously).[25] The growing enthusiasm was not limited to the people of Virginia City because, on his way back, Gridley was forced to stop again at Silver City and Gold Hill and let the towns bid again before proceeding to return to Virginia City.[25]

With the local focus on fundraising for the Sanitary Commission, Twain decided to write a piece of satire that combined the story of the progress of the Great Austin Flour Sack with the events surrounding a May 5, 1864 Carson City fancy-dress ball held by prominent society ladies (including Mollie Clemens) to raise funds for the same purpose.

The committee for the Sanitary Ball had held a debate about whether to send the funds raised to the Western Sanitary Commission of St. Louis or the U.S. Sanitary Commission of New York.[25] Some members of the Ball committee did not like the idea of sending money to the St. Louis organization as a portion of the funds would be given to support the Freedmen's Aid Society.[25] Twain learned of the debate either from his sister-in-law Mollie or his brother Orion.[25]

On May 16, 1864 with editor Joe Goodman out of town Twain's unsigned piece (entitled the "Grand Ball at Los Angeles Plata"[18]) made its way into the hands of the printer for the Enterprise and appeared in the paper on May 17. The piece asked why the Great Austin Flour Sack had not been taken to Carson City to raise funds there; it claimed "that the reason the Flour Sack was not taken from Dayton to Carson was because it was stated that the money raised at the Sanitary Fancy Dress Ball, recently held in Carson for the St. Louis Fair, had been diverted from its legitimate course, and was to be sent to aid a Miscegenation Society somewhere in the East; and it was feared the proceeds of the sack might be similarly disposed of."[16][22] The piece added cryptically that the claim was "a hoax, but not all a hoax, for an effort is being made to divert those funds from their proper course."[22]

There was already a worry around collections for the Sanitary Fund; that they might be fraudulently collected and not being used for their stated purpose. Such suspicions even fell upon Reuel Gridley the organizer of Flour Sack fund drive, this despite the fact that his efforts were leaving him destitute. Even with such worries, it was Twain's use of the term "miscegenation" that made his statement so controversial. Despite the strong support of the idea that the Union must be preserved to preserve democracy itself, the idea of racial equality and sexual relations with members of a different race was seen as outrageous in Nevada as it was throughout most of the Union. At the time Nevada had a law fining "Cohabitation with Indians, Chinese, or Negroes" proscribing fines between 100 and 500 dollars or imprisonment from one to six months.[16] Historian Ron Powers writes "The Emancipation Proclamation was less than two years old in the spring of 1864…Sentiment toward Negros, even on the "emancipating" side, was saturated with animosity, superstition, sexual fears and resentment: the liberators would soon have to compete with former slaves for work. Union-"secesh" tensions rippled through Washoe; fights erupted, shootings occurred over the question. Even though Union sympathy prevailed, few people accepted the notion that Negroes were equal to whites. Many pro-Union whites still resented black slaves for having made the war inevitable."[22]

The term "miscegenation" had only recently been coined by Copperheads. The term first appeared in a pamphlet fraudulently claiming to be written by Lincoln supporters and crafted to try and discredit him during his bid for re-election. By the time of Twain's own miscegenation comment the fact that the pamphlet was a hoax was publicly known, "and Clemens used the term knowing its connections to Copperheadism."[16]

Historian Joe B. Fulton points out that Twain's miscegenation comment was printed during the tense run up to the November 1864 elections. Fulton quotes Major G.W. Ingalls who recorded that at this time Lincoln's supports called the other side "traitors, 'secesh' [secessionists], and 'copperheads'" and the McClellan's supporters calling their opponents "'black Republicans,' 'abolitionists,' and 'nigger worshippers'".[16] Twain would later claim that he had been intoxicated when he wrote the piece, but historian Fulton states "his article is best understood in the context of election year Copperhead hoaxes and of his own early efforts such as "A Bloody Massacre Near Carson," "Petrified Man," and his reporting for the Third House."[16]

Historian James Melville Cox points out that by being willing to bring the Sanitary Fund's reputation into question and linking it to miscegenation this was a "somewhat "confederate" accusation…revealing that Mark Twain's humor still showed a native if not a partisan Southern cast."[27] Historian Arthur G. Pettit states that in Twain's shift to support the Union "He was probably relieved to learn that coming down on the winning side did not require revision of his views about black people. Nevada Territory, like most of the West and the North, was anti-black as well as antislavery and enjoyed the usual nigger jokes. With his Southern background, vernacular skill, and tendency to search out off-color subject matter, Mark Twain was quickly attracted to this kind of humor. …The most notorious example was the so-called Sanitary Fund episode, probably the most damaging incident of Mark Twain's Western career."[10] Historian Louis J. Budd also holds Twain's "latent Southern racism made possible his fatally clumsy wisecrack that local money for the Sanitary Fund would go to a "miscegenation society."[5]

Historian Ben Tarnoff writes "Twain had located a sore spot in the collective psyche" the idea of sexual relations between the races "wasn't simply taboo; it also tapped an anxiety about the ultimate aim of the Civil War. …When Twain joked that the money meant for the Sanitary Commission would instead be used for miscegenation, he articulated an awful fear festering in white minds throughout the Union: that the war would result in full equality for blacks, who would soon be taking white jobs, white land, white women."[24]

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'".[4] Historian Ron Powers points out "Like his mother, the youthful Sam could be racially callous in the abstract--as in his miscegenation slur--but he could never stand the sight of racial cruelty."[22] While Twain wrote the piece as a harmless joke, he would soon find out that the ladies of the Ball and their supporters took the matter with deadly seriousness.

Historian Stephanie LeMenager notes that by linking "the local women's fear of fiscal contamination by the Freeman's Society" to fear of a contamination by miscegenation "the hoax makes Carson City, Nevada, the first staging ground for Mark Twain's disruption of American racial manners."[28]

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.[25][29]

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."[26]

That night Twain wrote a letter to his mother and sister from the offices of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise.[25] He told them that there was a competition between his paper and the Virginia City Daily Union to "outbid" each other for the sack.[25] He said he had strict orders from "the proprietors always to 'go them a hundred better'", and his paper was in the lead when he left to file his report.[25] He had gotten word that a representative of the Union had returned and increased their bid by a hundred dollars. He wrote, "It was provoking. …But I guess we'll make them hunt their holes yet, before we are done with them."[25]

The piece Twain filed that night appeared on May 18, under the title "Travels and Fortunes of the Great Austin Sack of Flour."[25][30] At the time, the paper's editor Joe Goodman was away and had put Twain in charge.[22][25] With no oversight Twain felt free to goad his paper's rivals, publishing his unsigned letter asking, "How Is It?—While we had no representative at the mass meeting on Monday evening, the UNION overbid us for the flour…we are told that the Union (or its employees, whichever it is,) has repudiated the bid. We would like to know about his matter, if we may make so free".[25] If the piece was supposed to be a joke, the staff of the Union were not amused and would soon be letting Twain know of their displeasure.

Historian Louis J. Budd points out that previously Twain was "usually following the line marked out by the Enterprise editorials…[while] he crisply judged the factional moves within the Union party", but by the time of Twain's remarks about the Daily Union, "Nevadans [had] started drifting away from Union party harmony and toward Democratic and Republican poles" with the Daily Union and Enterprise in opposition to each other.[5]

While Twain was calling the honor of the staff of the Union into question in the May 18, 1864 issue of the Enterprise, the president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary of the Sanitary Ball committee sent a letter to his paper denouncing his article as "a tissue of falsehoods…made for malicious purposes."[16][19][22][24] When it arrived at the Enterprise, Joe Goodman having returned decided to ignore the letter in hopes that the uproar would defuse of its own accord.[22] Just as he did during the fallout from Twain's "A Bloody Massacre near Carson" hoax, Goodman continued to stand by Twain.[15]

The Union responded to Twain's piece wondering if they had rescinded their donation by publishing their own angry letter (presumably written by its co-owner and editor James L. Laird) on May 19 entitled "How Is It? – How It Is"[22] signed "Printer."[25] It was full of harsh words for Twain's piece, saying, "Such an item could only emanate from a person whose employer can find in his services a machine very suitable to his own manliness."[22] The piece also accused Twain of dealing in "Unmanly public journalism."[25] Historian Jerome Loving points out that Twain's problems in Virginia City occurred when he was acting editor-in-chief for an absentee, mirroring the difficulties he got himself into when working in Hannibal for Orion's newspaper and publishing a controversial piece mocking the editor of a rival paper[15] (resulting in a situation that would've ended in a duel except for Twain's youth[25]).

On May 20, 1864, the same day as his final piece about the travels of the Flour Sack appeared in a piece that was picked up by San Francisco Bulletin (as the campaign had indeed moved to Carson City before widening its sights to include California[31]), the angry letter from the ladies of the Sanitary Ball of Carson City arrived at the Enterprise.[25] Now aware of the mounting opposition to him in Carson City, Twain wrote his sister-in-law Mollie Clemens.

Mollie, still grieving over the death of her only child, had found herself ostracized from Carson City society, as the ladies had figured out that Twain was the author of the miscegenation hoax.[22][24] Historian Ron Powers points out that Twain wrote an anguished letter to Mollie "not to apologize for the mortification he'd caused, nor to promise that he would assume public responsibility. He was preoccupied with the damage that the committee women's letter could do to him."[22] Twain told Mollie that he "had nothing but trouble & vexation since the Sanitary trip, & now this letter comes to aggravate me a thousand times worse. It if were from a man, I would answer it with a [dueling] challenge, as the easiest way of getting out of a bad scrape, although I know I am in the wrong & would not be justified in doing such a thing."[25]

Dan DeQuille questioned the wisdom of Twain publishing the hoax.

The composing table of the Territorial Enterprise preserved at the Mark Twain Territorial Enterprise Museum in Virginia City, NV

In the letter, Twain admitted he wrote "the squib" but claimed he had heard the "rumor" at the auction when it was "said in drunken jest" by people he refused to name.[25][32] 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?"[25][32] When told it was, De Quille said "he would not like such a joke as that to be perpetrated upon him, & that it would wound the feelings of the ladies of Carson. He asked me if I wanted to do that, & I said, 'No, of course not.'"[25][32] Twain had placed the piece on the editing table and he and De Quille forgot about it as they made plans and then proceeded to the theater.[15][25][32] Twain theorized that it was found by the foreman of the printing press while looking to see if there was a further copy to print.[22][25][32] The foreman seeing that the piece was not only about "the Sanitary spree" surrounding the Flour Sack, but was written in the hand of the acting editor in chief, so he published it without Twain's knowledge.[25][32] As he did not bother to read the Enterprise every day, Twain told Mollie he had no knowledge that the piece had made the paper until the paper received the angry reply from the ladies of Carson City.[25][32] Twain told Mollie he was stuck and unable to do anything to resolve the situation, for he couldn't admit "that I & all concerned were drunk. No—I'll die first."[25][32] He asked Mollie to "Either satisfy those ladies that I dealt honorably by them when I consented to let Dan suppress that article…or else make them appoint a man to avenge the wrong done them, with weapons in fair & open field. They will understand at a glance that I cannot submit to the humiliation of publishing myself a liar".[25][32]

The next day, May 21, 1864, Virginia City's Union editor Laird let loose again, saying Twain "had no gentlemanly sense of professional propriety" conveying with "every word, and in every purpose of all his words, such a groveling disregard for truth, decency and courtesy, as to seem to court the distinction only of being understood as a vulgar liar."[16][25] Laird said Twain was one of those men who "prefers falsehood; whose instincts are all toward falsehood; whose thought is falsification; whose aim is vilification through insincere professions of honesty".[25] That afternoon Twain formally challenged Laird to a duel.[25] Twain who had begun carrying a pistol again sent Laird a note, verifying that he was the author of the piece the Union railed against, and demanded he publicly retract his paper's "insulting" response.[22] Historian Roy Jr. Morris states that "although he could scarcely hold a pistol in his hand without threatening to shoot himself in the foot, he felt honor-bound to reply in kind to Laird's inflammatory words."[33]

Thomas Fitch, previous editor for the Virginia Daily Union, had been recently crippled in a duel with the editor of the Enterprise.

Laird was incensed to receive such a demand from Twain, from (as historian Ron Powers puts it) "the reigning loudmouth of Washoe, still infamous from the Carson massacre hoax".[22] This was especially irritating as eight months earlier the regular Enterprise editor-in-chief Joe Goodman had gotten into a heated war of printed words with one of Laird's Union editors (Thomas Fitch) and crippled his knee in a pistol duel at Stampede Valley.[22][33] Throughout that day and into the night private correspondence traveled between the Union and the Enterprise addressing the issue of insulted dignity and proceeded further along in the protocol towards a formal duel.[22] J.W. Wilmington a printer for the Union and a war veteran who had seen action at the Battle of Shiloh[16] wrote Twain claiming it was he not Laird who had written the piece that threw Twain's manhood into question.[16][22] Twain ignored this and wrote back to Laird "...any further attempt to make a catspaw of any other individual and thus shirk a responsibility that you had previously assumed will show that you are a cowardly sneak. I now peremptorily demand of you the satisfaction due to a gentleman--without alternative."[22] Laird responded saying "Mr. Wilmington has a prior claim upon your attention. When he is through with you, I shall be at your service."[24] He also accused Twain of a "groveling disrespect for truth, decency, and courtesy."[22] Twain responded, writing "...[I]f you do not wish yourself posted as a coward, you will at once accept my peremptory challenge, which I now reiterate."[22] Historian Fred Nixon points out the escalation Twain invoked by his choice of words, "Whereas the first challenge was an 'alternative' challenge, which could be satisfied by an apology, this one [a peremptory challenge] could be satisfied only on the field of honor."[34]

Twain passed Wilmington's letter to his friend and Enterprise printer Mississippi-born Steve Gillis. Despite being under five feet tall and weighing only 95 pounds, Gillis had a scary reputation as a saloon brawler.[33] Gillis acting as Twain's dueling second, wrote Wilmington saying "A contemptible ass and coward like yourself should only meddle in the affairs of gentlemen when called upon to do so."[33] 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".[21][33]

While still awaiting satisfaction from Laird, Twain tried to repair the damage done to the feelings of the ladies of the Carson City Sanitary Fair. On May 23, 1864 Twain wrote to Ellen G. (Mrs. William K.) Cutler, a signer of the letter blasting the author of the miscegenation hoax.[25] He apologized for not responding sooner to the letter as it "came at a moment when I was in the midst of what ought to have been a deadly quarrel with the publishers of the Union".[19][25] Mrs. Cutler was the only one among the Carson City society ladies that had not ostracized Mollie Clemens, for which Twain thanked her.[35] 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."[22][35]

Trying to put an end to the problems caused by the Miscegenation hoax, on May 24, 1864 Twain published a round-about unsigned apology in the Enterprise.[10][22] Historian Ron Powers quotes portions of the letter in a summary of the piece indicating Twain's attempt to defuse responsibility for the piece: "yes, 'we' published a rumor, and yes, it was a hoax, but 'we' stated as much, 'And it was—we were perfectly right.' 'We' were sorry for the 'misfortune,' and 'we venture to apologize for it,' and so on."[22][35]

That same day having received no response from Laird that satisfied his wounded dignity, Twain also published all of their private correspondence over the matter in the Enterprise.[22] In the now publicly printed correspondence and in an afterword following it Twain called Laird "putrid,..grovleing, vulgar liar", an "ass", inflicted by such a condition through "general principles" and from "natural instinct".[10][36] Laird's correspondence called Twain "a liar, a poltroon, and a puppy" and called into question his war conduct.[10][16] Twain demanded Laird's "craven carcass" apologize at once for being an "unmitigated liar" or give him "the satisfaction due to a gentleman."[10][25][36] In the following days papers from around the territory reprinted the letters, some mocking the originator of the bloody Carson Massacre hoax for getting himself into a situation that would end with his own blood.[22] Historian James Melville Cox puts forward that the newspaper audience aware that there was a law against dueling in the Territory (one that wasn't strictly enforced[15]), likely saw the "journalistic invective…[as] one legal way of retaining the satisfaction of a forbidden ritual…[with] the bombastic exchange of published threats and challenges promising a duel…[as] a burlesque of the duel itself.[27] Thus the 'publication' provided amusement for Enterprise readers", similar to Twain's political burlesques as head of the Third House.[27]

Historian Ron Powers sees Twain's behavior concerning Laird not as burlesque but as "dark, deadly stuff", "reckless", and "downright suicidal".[22] Powers holds that Twain had not blundered along into increasing trouble but that "This was apparently what Sam was looking for: an excuse to unleash the defining ritual of southern manhood, the code duello. …Sam seems to have viewed dueling as a kind of hovering fate, onerous but inevitable, an obligation that must sooner or later be met to confirm his manhood. He was twenty-eight in 1864, a man now, but a man with a 'soft' calling in a violent, obsessively masculine society. …the more apparent his lack of resolve became to him, the more he tried to mask it with belligerent posturing."[22]

The next day May 25, 1864 apparently not satisfied by the half-hearted, unsigned, and tardy apology, the damaging letter from the ladies of the Carson City Sanitary Ball that Twain and Goodman had refused to print in the Enterprise, began a three-day run in the Union as a paid public notice with the title "The Enterprise Libel of the ladies of Carson."[15][22][25][32] Besides questioning Twain's integrity and honesty, the letter stressed "one thing was decided [about the funds raised], that they should go to the aid of the sick and wounded soldiers, who are fighting the battles of our country, and for no other purpose." It also accused Twain and his fellows of being "desirous of acquiring some glory by appropriating the efforts of the ladies to themselves."[32] Historian Jerome Loving points out that in the ladies' response "the subjects of race or slavery never entered the discussion."[15]

In a letter that day to Mollie and Orion (who was the head of the Ormsby County Sanitary Committee), Twain apologized if his actions had caused any decrease in their popularity.[37] He also advised them against "making speeches for the Fund. I am mighty sick of that fund—it has caused me all my d[amne]d troubles--& I shall leave the Territory when your first speech is announced, & leave it for good."[37] He related that he was "open to a challenge from three persons, & already awaiting the issue of such a message to another".[37] He considered the matter of the ladies of the Sanitary Ball closed with the previous day's apology "they got out of me what no man would ever have got…as [far as the letter from the ladies of] Carson is concerned. I shall take no notice of it all, except to mash Mr. Laird over the head with my revolver for publishing it if I meet him today…[as for the Sanitary Ball ladies] I am quits with them. "[25][37]

On May 26, 1864 Twain wrote his brother asking if he could "Send me two hundred dollars if you can spare it comfortably. However, never mind—you can send it to San Francisco if you prefer. Steve & I are going to the States. We leave Sunday morning per Henness Pass. Say nothing about it, of course. We are not afraid of the grand jury, but Washoe has long since grown irksome to us, & we want to leave it anyhow."[38] The route through the pass was the longer less direct one, but it was the one that bypassed Carson City altogether.[33]

Twain's mention of the Grand Jury indicates that all the regional reprints of his dueling challenges to Laird had come to the attention of the governmental authorities. The Nevada Territory had passed a law against dueling in November 1861 (An Act concerning Crimes and Punishments, section 35) making dueling punishable by a sentence of two to ten years imprisonment for the issuer and the receiver of the challenge.[38] 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.[33]

In his letter, Twain told his brother that "thoroughly canvassed the Carson business, & concluded we dare not do anything, either to Laird or Carson men without spoiling our chances of getting away."[38] Despite his haste Twain stated that he would put his plans on hold if challenged to the field of honor by an angry spouse "if there is any chance of the husbands of those [Carson City] women challenging me, I don't want a straw put in the way of it. I'll wait for them a month, if necessary, & fight them with any weapon they choose."[38]

Twain would soon have his chance to duel an angry husband from Carson City, when on May 28, 1864 William K. Cutler arrived at Virginia City and sent him a note issuing a formal duel challenge.[25] Historian Louis J. Budd points out that Mrs. Cutler was one of the founders of the Sierra Seminary that "had suffered from his opinions only weeks before", which may explain Cutler's challenge despite Twain's letter to his wife and the public retraction in the Enterprise.[5] After receiving Twain's personal letter, Mrs. Cutler had also reversed her previous behavior and joined the other high-society ladies in ostracizing Mollie Clemens.[33] Twain wound up pasting four different duel challenges from angry Carson City husbands in his scrap book next to a clipping of the reluctant apology/retraction he made in the Enterprise.[10] In response to the challenge, he sent Steve Gillis to speak to Cutler who was awaiting Twain's response at the hotel.[22] Gillis delivered a letter from Twain saying "Having apologized once for that offensive conduct, I shall not do it again."[39] 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."[33][39] Whether Cutler was mollified by the idea that Twain was leaving or was intimidated by Gillis (as Twain later claimed in his Autobiography[39][40]) he dropped the matter and returned to Carson City.[22][25][33]

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.[15][33] Suddenly six masked men flourishing revolvers emerged from the dark stopping Twain and his companion.[15][33] They shouted things like ""Throttle him! Gag him! Kill him!"[33] The leader of the men held a pistol to Twain's head ordering his accomplices "Beauregard," "Stonewall Jackson," and "Phil Sheridan" to empty their victim's pockets.[33] They took $125 in cash from Twain, his $300 gold watch (the present from the Third House[34]), two jackknives and three lead pencils – leaving his pockets empty.[33] 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.[34] 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.[34] 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."[33] One of the pranksters differed with his take, saying Twain "was the scaredest man west of the Mississippi".[33] Twain did have his possessions returned, but he fired McCarthy as his agent anyway.[34]