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. 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". Mrs. Cutler was the only one among the Carson City society ladies that had not ostracized Mollie Clemens, for which Twain thanked her. 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."
