Friend Walt
I1 received your letter today & was verry glad to hear from you wonse more I have bin wounded again but it has got well it hit me in the right thigh this time I have had A pretty hard time of it this summer A marching & fighting together
dear walt I am so glad to hear from you once more I would like to see you verry much I have drempt of you often & thought of you
oftener still
I expect to leave here tomorrow morning for Carlisle barraks I was to gow this morning but did not & now I am to gow tomorrow morning I guess that they wont put it off anny longer my time is out in eleven days now I have bin home on A furlow I shant have to do anny more fighting I think
Write soon no more at present thew
Smith
Notes
- 1. Christopher and Maria
Smith were the parents of Bethuel Smith, Company F, Second U.S. Cavalry, who was
wounded in 1863 and met Whitman shortly after. He wrote to Whitman on September 17, 1863, from the U.S. General Hospital
at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, "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, 1864 (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, N.Y. 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 Walt Whitman to
Bethuel Smith, December 1874 (Edwin Haviland Miller, ed., The
Correspondence [New York: New York University Press, 1961–77],
2:318–319). [back]