Friend Walt I1 take my pen in hand to let you now where I am I am at Carlisle barracks in the hospittal I am getting along verry well now we stop in tents here & it looks verry loansome here to me
Write soon Direct your letters to Bethuel Smith, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania
Notes
- 1. Bethuel Smith, Company F,
Second U.S. Cavalry, was wounded in 1863. He wrote to Whitman on September 17, 1863, from the U.S. General Hospital
at Carlisle, Pennsylanvia, "I left the armory hospital in somewhat of A hurry."
He expected, he explained on September 28, 1863,
to rejoin his regiment shortly, and was stationed near Washington when he wrote
on October 13, 1863. He wrote on December 16, 1863, from Culpeper, Virginia, that he
was doing provost duty, and on February 28, 1864,
he was in a camp near Mitchell Station, Virginia, where "the duty is verry
hard." He was wounded again on June 11 (so his parents reported to Whitman on
August 29, 1864), was transported to
Washington, and went home on furlough on July 1. He returned on August 14 to
Finley Hospital, where, on August 30, 1864, he
wrote to Whitman: "I would like to see you verry much, I have drempt of you
often & thought of you oftener still." He expected to leave the next day for
Carlisle Barracks to be mustered out, and on October 22,
1864, he wrote to Whitman from Queensbury, New York. When his parents
communicated with Walt Whitman on January 26,
1865, Bethuel was well enough to perform tasks on the farm. Smith was one
of the soldiers to whom Whitman wrote ten years later; see Whitman's letter to
Bethuel Smith, December 1874 (Edwin Haviland Miller, ed., The
Correspondence, 6 vols. [New York: New York University Press,
1961–77], 2:318–319). [back]