. . . As to me, I lead rather a dull life here. I wish you were nearer, that we might be together frequently.1 I do not associate much with the department clerks, yet many appear to be good fellows enough. The contest between Congress and the President is quite exciting. I go up to the Capitol and listen to the speeches and arguments. Sometimes I feel as if one side had the best of it and then the other. Well, my dear comrade, I believe I have told you all the news—of Eicholtz,2 the German sergeant with the bad compound fracture, of Frazee3 and Dr. Smith.4
Notes
- 1. Apparently Anson Ryder,
Jr., left Armory Square Hospital and, accompanied by another injured soldier
named Wood (probably Calvin B. Wood; see NUPM 2:673),
returned to his family at Cedar Lake, New York. [back]
- 2. Hugo Eicholtz was listed
in the Washington Directory of 1869 and in one of Whitman's address books (The
Library of Congress # 109). He evidently lived with his mother, a
dressmaker. [back]
- 3. Sergeant Hiram W. Frazee,
Second New York Artillery, was wounded in "one of the last battles near
Petersburg" (Richard Maurice Bucke, ed., The Complete Writings
of Walt Whitman [New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902], 6:236). [back]
- 4. Probably Dr. Thomas C.
Smith, a Washington physician. [back]