 | Mark Twain's sketches |  |
6. THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT.
In as few words as possible I wish to lay
before the nation what share, 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 resumé 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 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 head-quarters, 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
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 I 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
furnish 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 a 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 awhile 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 North-West 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 to
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 a 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, 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 I 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
the 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 head-way
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.
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