Book: Sketches New and Old, Part 2.
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Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> Sketches New and Old, Part 2.
"'No; but did you, though?'
"'Yes.'
"'Towed the carkiss ashore and saved it yo'self?'
"'Yes.'
"'Cracky! What did they give you?'
"'Nothing.'
"'W-h-a-t [with intense disgust]! D'you know what I'd 'a' done? I'd 'a'
anchored him out in the stream, and said, Five dollars, gents, or you
carn't have yo' nigger.'"
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT--[Written about 1867.]
In as few words as possible I wish to lay before the nation what's here,
howsoever small, I have had in this matter--this matter which has so
exercised the public mind, engendered so much ill-feeling, and so filled
the newspapers of both continents with distorted statements and
extravagant comments.
The origin of this distressful thing was this--and I assert here that
every fact in the following resume can be amply proved by the official
records of the General Government.
John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey,
deceased, contracted with the General Government, on or about the 10th
day of October, 1861, to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of
thirty barrels of beef.
Very well.
He started after Sherman with the beef, but when he got to Washington
Sherman had gone to Manassas; so he took the beef and followed him there,
but arrived too late; he followed him to Nashville, and from Nashville to
Chattanooga, and from Chattanooga to Atlanta--but he never could overtake
him. At Atlanta he took a fresh start and followed him clear through his
march to the sea. He arrived too late again by a few days; but hearing
that Sherman was going out in the Quaker City excursion to the Holy Land,
he took shipping for Beirut, calculating to head off the other vessel.
When he arrived in Jerusalem with his beef, he learned that Sherman had
not sailed in the Quaker City, but had gone to the Plains to fight the
Indians. He returned to America and started for the Rocky Mountains.
After sixty-eight days of arduous travel on the Plains, and when he had
got within four miles of Sherman's headquarters, he was tomahawked and
scalped, and the Indians got the beef. They got all of it but one
barrel. Sherman's army captured that, and so, even in death, the bold
navigator partly fulfilled his contract. In his will, which he had kept
like a journal, he bequeathed the contract to his son Bartholomew W.
Bartholomew W. made out the following bill, and then died:
THE UNITED STATES
In account with JOHN WILSON MACKENZIE, of New Jersey,
deceased, . . . . . . . . . . Dr.
To thirty barrels of beef for General Sherman, at $100, $3,000
To traveling expenses and transportation . . . . . 14,000
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $17,000
Rec'd Pay't.
He died then; but he left the contract to Wm. J. Martin, who tried to
collect it, but died before he got through. He left it to Barker J.
Allen, and he tried to collect it also. He did not survive. Barker J.
Allen left it to Anson G. Rogers, who attempted to collect it, and got
along as far as the Ninth Auditor's Office, when Death, the great
Leveler, came all unsummoned, and foreclosed on him also. He left the
bill to a relative of his in Connecticut, Vengeance Hopkins by name, who
lasted four weeks and two days, and made the best time on record, coming
within one of reaching the Twelfth Auditor. In his will he gave the
contract bill to his uncle, by the name of O-be-joyful Johnson. It was
too undermining for joyful. His last words were: "Weep not for me--I am
willing to go." And so he was, poor soul. Seven people inherited the
contract after that; but they all died. So it came into my hands at
last. It fell to me through a relative by the name of, Hubbard
--Bethlehem Hubbard, of Indiana. He had had a grudge against me for a
long time; but in his last moments he sent for me, and forgave me
everything, and, weeping, gave me the beef contract.
This ends the history of it up to the time that I succeeded to the
property. I will now endeavor to set myself straight before the nation
in everything that concerns my share in the matter. I took this beef
contract, and the bill for mileage and transportation, to the President
of the United States.
He said, "Well, sir, what can I do for you?"
I said, "Sire, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson
Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted
with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the sum total
of thirty barrels of beef--"
He stopped me there, and dismissed me from his presence--kindly, but
firmly. The next day called on the Secretary of State.
He said, "Well, sir?"
I said, "Your Royal Highness: on or about the 10th day of October, 1861,
John Wilson Mackenzie of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased,
contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the
sum total of thirty barrels of beef--"
"That will do, sir--that will do; this office has nothing to do with
contracts for beef."
I was bowed out. I thought the matter all over and finally, the
following day, I visited the Secretary of the Navy, who said, "Speak
quickly, sir; do not keep me waiting."
I said, "Your Royal Highness, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861,
John Wilson Mackenzie of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased,
contracted with the General Government to General Sherman the sum total
of thirty barrels of beef--"
Well, it was as far as I could get. He had nothing to do with beef
contracts for General Sherman either. I began to think it was a curious
kind of government. It looked somewhat as if they wanted to get out of
paying for that beef. The following day I went to the Secretary of the
Interior.
I said, "Your Imperial Highness, on or about the 10th day of October--"
"That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you before. Go, take your
infamous beef contract out of this establishment. The Interior
Department has nothing whatever to do with subsistence for the army."
I went away. But I was exasperated now. I said I would haunt them;
I would infest every department of this iniquitous government till that
contract business was settled. I would collect that bill, or fall, as
fell my predecessors, trying. I assailed the Postmaster-General;
I besieged the Agricultural Department; I waylaid the Speaker of the
House of Representatives. They had nothing to do with army contracts for
beef. I moved upon the Commissioner of the Patent Office.
I said, "Your August Excellency, on or about--"
"Perdition! have you got here with your incendiary beef contract, at
last? We have nothing to do with beef contracts for the army, my dear
sir."
"Oh, that is all very well--but somebody has got to pay for that beef.
It has got to be paid now, too, or I'll confiscate this old Patent Office
and everything in it."
"But, my dear sir--"
"It don't make any difference, sir. The Patent Office is liable for that
beef, I reckon; and, liable or not liable, the Patent Office has got to
pay for it."
Never mind the details. It ended in a fight. The Patent Office won.
But I found out something to my advantage. I was told that the Treasury
Department was the proper place for me to go to. I went there. I waited
two hours and a half, and then I was admitted to the First Lord of the
Treasury.
I said, "Most noble, grave, and reverend Signor, on or about the 10th day
of October, 1861, John Wilson Macken--"
"That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you. Go to the First Auditor
of the Treasury."
I did so. He sent me to the Second Auditor. The Second Auditor sent me
to the Third, and the Third sent me to the First Comptroller of the
Corn-Beef Division. This began to look like business. He examined his
books and all his loose papers, but found no minute of the beef contract.
I went to the Second Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division. He examined
his books and his loose papers, but with no success. I was encouraged.
During that week I got as far as the Sixth Comptroller in that division;
the next week I got through the Claims Department; the third week I began
and completed the Mislaid Contracts Department, and got a foothold in the
Dead Reckoning Department. I finished that in three days. There was
only one place left for it now. I laid siege to the Commissioner of Odds
and Ends. To his clerk, rather--he was not there himself. There were
sixteen beautiful young ladies in the room, writing in books, and there
were seven well-favored young clerks showing them how. The young women
smiled up over their shoulders, and the clerks smiled back at them, and
all went merry as a marriage bell. Two or three clerks that were reading
the newspapers looked at me rather hard, but went on reading, and nobody
said anything. However, I had been used to this kind of alacrity from
Fourth Assistant Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from the
very day I entered the first office of the Corn-Beef Bureau clear till I
passed out of the last one in the Dead Reckoning Division. I had got so
accomplished by this time that I could stand on one foot from the moment
I entered an office till a clerk spoke to me, without changing more than
two, or maybe three, times.
So I stood there till I had changed four different times. Then I said to
one of the clerks who was reading:
"Illustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk?"
"What do you mean, sir? whom do you mean? If you mean the Chief of the
Bureau, he is out."
"Will he visit the harem to-day?"
The young man glared upon me awhile, and then went on reading his paper.
But I knew the ways of those clerks. I knew I was safe if he got through
before another New York mail arrived. He only had two more papers left.
After a while he finished them, and then he yawned and asked me what I
wanted.
"Renowned and honored Imbecile: on or about--"
"You are the beef-contract man. Give me your papers."
He took them, and for a long time he ransacked his odds and ends.
Finally he found the Northwest Passage, as I regarded it--he found the
long lost record of that beef contract--he found the rock upon which so
many of my ancestors had split before they ever got to it. I was deeply
moved. And yet I rejoiced--for I had survived. I said with emotion,
"Give it me. The government will settle now." He waved me back, and
said there was something yet to be done first.
"Where is this John Wilson Mackenzie?" said he.
"Dead."
"When did he die?"
"He didn't die at all--he was killed."
"How?"
"Tomahawked."
"Who tomahawked him?"
"Why, an Indian, of course. You didn't suppose it was the superintendent
of a Sunday-school, did you?"
"No. An Indian, was it?"
"The same."
"Name of the Indian?"
"His name? I don't know his name."
"Must have his name. Who saw the tomahawking done?"
"I don't know."
"You were not present yourself, then?"
"Which you can see by my hair. I was absent.
"Then how do you know that Mackenzie is dead?"
"Because he certainly died at that time, and have every reason to believe
that he has been dead ever since. I know he has, in fact."
"We must have proofs. Have you got this Indian?"
"Of course not."
"Well, you must get him. Have you got the tomahawk?"
"I never thought of such a thing."
"You must get the tomahawk. You must produce the Indian and the
tomahawk. If Mackenzie's death can be proven by these, you can then go
before the commission appointed to audit claims with some show of getting
your bill under such headway that your children may possibly live to
receive the money and enjoy it. But that man's death must be proven.
However, I may as well tell you that the government will never pay that
transportation and those traveling expenses of the lamented Mackenzie.
It may possibly pay for the barrel of beef that Sherman's soldiers
captured, if you can get a relief bill through Congress making an
appropriation for that purpose; but it will not pay for the twenty-nine
barrels the Indians ate."
"Then there is only a hundred dollars due me, and that isn't certain!
After all Mackenzie's travels in Europe, Asia, and America with that
beef; after all his trials and tribulations and transportation; after the
slaughter of all those innocents that tried to collect that bill! Young
man, why didn't the First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division tell me
this?"
"He didn't know anything about the genuineness of your claim."
"Why didn't the Second tell me? why didn't the, Third? why didn't all
those divisions and departments tell me?"
"None of them knew. We do things by routine here. You have followed the
routine and found out what you wanted to know. It is the best way.
It is the only way. It is very regular, and very slow, but it is very
certain."
"Yes, certain death. It has been, to the most of our tribe. I begin to
feel that I, too, am called."
"Young man, you love the bright creature yonder with the gentle blue eyes
and the steel pens behind her ears--I see it in your soft glances; you
wish to marry her--but you are poor. Here, hold out your hand--here is
the beef contract; go, take her and be happy Heaven bless you, my
children!"
This is all I know about the great beef contract that has created so much
talk in the community. The clerk to whom I bequeathed it died. I know
nothing further about the contract, or any one connected with it. I only
know that if a man lives long enough he can trace a thing through the
Circumlocution Office of Washington and find out, after much labor and
trouble and delay, that which he could have found out on the first day if
the business of the Circumlocution Office were as ingeniously
systematized as it would be if it were a great private mercantile
institution.
THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER
--[Some years ago, about 1867, when this was first published, few people
believed it, but considered it a mere extravaganza. In these latter days
it seems hard to realize that there was ever a time when the robbing of
our government was a novelty. The very man who showed me where to find
the documents for this case was at that very time spending hundreds of
thousands of dollars in Washington for a mail steamship concern, in the
effort to procure a subsidy for the company--a fact which was a long time
in coming to the surface, but leaked out at last and underwent
Congressional investigation.]
This is history. It is not a wild extravaganza, like "John Wilson
Mackenzie's Great Beef Contract," but is a plain statement of facts and
circumstances with which the Congress of the United States has interested
itself from time to time during the long period of half a century.
I will not call this matter of George Fisher's a great deathless and
unrelenting swindle upon the government and people of the United States
--for it has never been so decided, and I hold that it is a grave and
solemn wrong for a writer to cast slurs or call names when such is the
case--but will simply present the evidence and let the reader deduce his
own verdict. Then we shall do nobody injustice, and our consciences
shall be clear.
On or about the 1st day of September, 1813, the Creek war being then in
progress in Florida, the crops, herds, and houses of Mr. George Fisher,
a citizen, were destroyed, either by the Indians or by the United States
troops in pursuit of them. By the terms of the law, if the Indians
destroyed the property, there was no relief for Fisher; but if the troops
destroyed it, the Government of the United States was debtor to Fisher
for the amount involved.
George Fisher must have considered that the Indians destroyed the
property, because, although he lived several years afterward, he does not
appear to have ever made any claim upon the government.
In the course of time Fisher died, and his widow married again.
And by and by, nearly twenty years after that dimly remembered raid upon
Fisher's corn-fields, the widow Fisher's new husband petitioned Congress
for pay for the property, and backed up the petition with many
depositions and affidavits which purported to prove that the troops,
and not the Indians, destroyed the property; that the troops, for some
inscrutable reason, deliberately burned down "houses" (or cabins) valued
at $600, the same belonging to a peaceable private citizen, and also
destroyed various other property belonging to the same citizen. But
Congress declined to believe that the troops were such idiots (after
overtaking and scattering a band of Indians proved to have been found
destroying Fisher's property) as to calmly continue the work of
destruction themselves; and make a complete job of what the Indians had
only commenced. So Congress denied the petition of the heirs of George
Fisher in 1832, and did not pay them a cent.
We hear no more from them officially until 1848, sixteen years after
their first attempt on the Treasury, and a full generation after the
death of the man whose fields were destroyed. The new generation of
Fisher heirs then came forward and put in a bill for damages. The Second
Auditor awarded them $8,873, being half the damage sustained by Fisher.
The Auditor said the testimony showed that at least half the destruction
was done by the Indians "before the troops started in pursuit," and of
course the government was not responsible for that half.
2. That was in April, 1848. In December, 1848, the heirs of George
Fisher, deceased, came forward and pleaded for a "revision" of their bill
of damages. The revision was made, but nothing new could be found in
their favor except an error of $100 in the former calculation. However,
in order to keep up the spirits of the Fisher family, the Auditor
concluded to go back and allow interest from the date of the first
petition (1832) to the date when the bill of damages was awarded. This
sent the Fishers home happy with sixteen years' interest on $8,873--the
same amounting to $8,997.94. Total, $17,870.94.
3. For an entire year the suffering Fisher family remained quiet--even
satisfied, after a fashion. Then they swooped down upon the government
with their wrongs once more. That old patriot, Attorney-General Toucey,
burrowed through the musty papers of the Fishers and discovered one more
chance for the desolate orphans--interest on that original award of
$8,873 from date of destruction of the property (1813) up to 1832!
Result, $110,004.89 for the indigent Fishers. So now we have: First,
$8,873 damages; second, interest on it from 1832 to 1848, $8997.94;
third, interest on it dated back to 1813, $10,004.89. Total, $27,875.83!
What better investment for a great-grandchild than to get the Indians to
burn a corn-field for him sixty or seventy years before his birth, and
plausibly lay it on lunatic United States troops?
4. Strange as it may seem, the Fishers let Congress alone for five
years--or, what is perhaps more likely, failed to make themselves heard
by Congress for that length of time. But at last, in 1854, they got a
hearing. They persuaded Congress to pass an act requiring the Auditor to
re-examine their case. But this time they stumbled upon the misfortune
of an honest Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. James Guthrie), and he
spoiled everything. He said in very plain language that the Fishers were
not only not entitled to another cent, but that those children of many
sorrows and acquainted with grief had been paid too much already.
5. Therefore another interval of rest and silent ensued-an interval
which lasted four years--viz till 1858. The "right man in the right
place" was then Secretary of War--John B. Floyd, of peculiar renown!
Here was a master intellect; here was the very man to succor the
suffering heirs of dead and forgotten Fisher. They came up from Florida
with a rush--a great tidal wave of Fishers freighted with the same old
musty documents about the same in immortal corn-fields of their ancestor.
They straight-way got an act passed transferring the Fisher matter from
the dull Auditor to the ingenious Floyd. What did Floyd do? He said,
"IT WAS PROVED that the Indians destroyed everything they could before
the troops entered in pursuit." He considered, therefore, that what they
destroyed must have consisted of "the houses with all their contents, and
the liquor" (the most trifling part of the destruction, and set down at
only $3,200 all told), and that the government troops then drove them off
and calmly proceeded to destroy--
Two hundred and twenty acres of corn in the field, thirty-five acres of
wheat, and nine hundred and eighty-six head of live stock! [What a
singularly intelligent army we had in those days, according to Mr. Floyd
--though not according to the Congress of 1832.]
So Mr. Floyd decided that the Government was not responsible for that
$3,200 worth of rubbish which the Indians destroyed, but was responsible
for the property destroyed by the troops--which property consisted of (I
quote from the printed United States Senate document):
Dollars
Corn at Bassett's Creek, ............... 3,000
Cattle, ................................ 5,000
Stock hogs, ............................ 1,050
Drove hogs, ............................ 1,204
Wheat, ................................. 350
Hides, ................................. 4,000
Corn on the Alabama River, ............. 3,500
Total, .............18,104
That sum, in his report, Mr. Floyd calls the "full value of the property
destroyed by the troops."
He allows that sum to the starving Fishers, TOGETHER WITH INTEREST FROM
1813. From this new sum total the amounts already paid to the Fishers
were deducted, and then the cheerful remainder (a fraction under forty
thousand dollars) was handed to then and again they retired to Florida in
a condition of temporary tranquillity. Their ancestor's farm had now
yielded them altogether nearly sixty-seven thousand dollars in cash.
6. Does the reader suppose that that was the end of it? Does he suppose
those diffident Fishers we: satisfied? Let the evidence show. The
Fishers were quiet just two years. Then they came swarming up out of the
fertile swamps of Florida with their same old documents, and besieged
Congress once more. Congress capitulated on the 1st of June, 1860, and
instructed Mr. Floyd to overhaul those papers again, and pay that bill.
A Treasury clerk was ordered to go through those papers and report to Mr.
Floyd what amount was still due the emaciated Fishers. This clerk (I can
produce him whenever he is wanted) discovered what was apparently a
glaring and recent forgery in the paper; whereby a witness's testimony as
to the price of corn in Florida in 1813 was made to name double the
amount which that witness had originally specified as the price! The
clerk not only called his superior's attention to this thing, but in
making up his brief of the case called particular attention to it in
writing. That part of the brief never got before Congress, nor has
Congress ever yet had a hint of forgery existing among the Fisher papers.
Nevertheless, on the basis of the double prices (and totally ignoring the
clerk's assertion that the figures were manifestly and unquestionably a
recent forgery), Mr. Floyd remarks in his new report that "the testimony,
particularly in regard to the corn crops, DEMANDS A MUCH HIGHER ALLOWANCE
than any heretofore made by the Auditor or myself." So he estimates the
crop at sixty bushels to the acre (double what Florida acres produce),
and then virtuously allows pay for only half the crop, but allows two
dollars and a half a bushel for that half, when there are rusty old books
and documents in the Congressional library to show just what the Fisher
testimony showed before the forgery--viz., that in the fall of 1813 corn
was only worth from $1.25 to $1.50 a bushel. Having accomplished this,
what does Mr. Floyd do next? Mr. Floyd ("with an earnest desire to
execute truly the legislative will," as he piously remarks) goes to work
and makes out an entirely new bill of Fisher damages, and in this new
bill he placidly ignores the Indians altogether puts no particle of the
destruction of the Fisher property upon them, but, even repenting him of
charging them with burning the cabins and drinking the whisky and
breaking the crockery, lays the entire damage at the door of the imbecile
United States troops down to the very last item! And not only that, but
uses the forgery to double the loss of corn at "Bassett's Creek," and
uses it again to absolutely treble the loss of corn on the "Alabama
River." This new and ably conceived and executed bill of Mr. Floyd's
figures up as follows (I copy again from the printed United States Senate
document):
The United States in account with the legal representatives
of George Fisher, deceased.
DOL.C
1813.--To 550 head of cattle, at 10 dollars, ............. 5,500.00
To 86 head of drove hogs, ......................... 1,204.00
To 350 head of stock hogs, ........................ 1,750.00
To 100 ACRES OF CORN ON BASSETT'S CREEK, .......... 6,000.00
To 8 barrels of whisky, ........................... 350.00
To 2 barrels of brandy, ........................... 280.00
To 1 barrel of rum, ............................... 70.00
To dry-goods and merchandise in store, ............ 1,100.00
To 35 acres of wheat, ............................. 350.00
To 2,000 hides, ................................... 4,000.00
To furs and hats in store, ........................ 600.00
To crockery ware in store, ........................ 100.00
To smith's and carpenter's tools, ................. 250.00
To houses burned and destroyed, ................... 600.00
To 4 dozen bottles of wine, ....................... 48.00
1814.--To 120 acres of corn on Alabama River, ............ 9,500.00
To crops of peas, fodder, etc. .................... 3,250.00