328 Mickle street
Camden New Jersey1
October 5 18842
I knew Reuben Farwell as a first-class soldier (it was in
1863 or '64)3 of a Michigan Regiment—he was in Ward
A, Armory Square Hospital, Dr Bliss Superintendent4—I was with him off & on some months & remember the case perfectly
well. He had a very bad foot wound, & I should judge it something that would
deteriorate his health & more or less incapacitate him through life
afterward—till his death—& even toward that event—which as I
understand occurred about a year ago.
I strongly recommend the granting a pension to his widow Ann E. Farwell.
Very respectfully,
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
As yet we have no information about
this correspondent.
Notes
- 1. The envelope is
addressed: To the | Commissioner of Pensions | Washington DC. [back]
- 2. Written at the request
of Reuben Farwell's widow, Ann, in support of her application for survivor
benefits. [back]
- 3. Reuben Farwell
(?–1883) was "admitted to Armory Square Hospital on October 12, 1863, and
given Bed Number 33, in Ward A. He remained in the hospital until January 28,
1864, when he was furloughed home for a month, returning again on February 27"
(Murray, 161). [back]
- 4. D. Willard Bliss
(1825–1889) was a surgeon with the Third Michigan Infantry, and afterward
was in charge of Armory Square Hospital. See John Homer Bliss, Genealogy of the Bliss Family in America, from about the year 1550 to
1880 (Boston: John Homer Bliss, 1881), 545. He practiced medicine in
Washington after the war; see the letter from Whitman to Hiram Sholes of May 30, 1867. When a pension for Whitman was
proposed in the House of Representatives in 1887, Dr. Bliss was quoted: "I am of
opinion that no one person who assisted in the hospitals during the war
accomplished so much good to the soldiers and for the Government as Mr. Whitman"
(Thomas Donaldson, Walt Whitman the Man [New York: F. P.
Harper, 1896], 169). [back]