Washington
December 30, 1867
Messrs. Church.1
My dear sirs:
I shall be in New York, & will call upon you, 2d of January. By the way, would
you please have the little piece, the verses "Ethiopia Commenting," put in type,
& a proof taken & ready for me?2
Walt Whitman
Notes
- 1. William Conant Church
(1836–1917), journalist and publisher, was a correspondent for several New
York newspapers until he founded the Army and Navy
Journal in 1863. With his brother Francis Pharcellus (1839–1906),
he established the Galaxy in 1866. Financial control of
the Galaxy passed to Sheldon and Company in 1868, and it
was absorbed by the Atlantic Monthly in 1878. William
published a biography of his life-long friend Ulysses S. Grant in 1897, and
Francis wrote for the New York Sun the unsigned piece
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." See Edward F. Grier, "Walt Whitman, the
Galaxy, and Democratic
Vistas," American Literature, 23 (1951–1952),
332–350; Donald N. Bigelow, William Conant Church
& "The Army and Navy Journal" (New York: Columbia University Press,
1952); J. R. Pearson, Jr., "Story of a Magazine: New York's Galaxy, 1866–1878," Bulletin of the New York
Public Library, 61 (1957), 217–237, 281–302. [back]
- 2. This poem, sent by Walt
Whitman with his September 7, 1867 letter to the
Churches, was never published in the Galaxy. It later
became "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors"; see Edward F. Grier, "Walt Whitman, the
Galaxy, and Democratic
Vistas," American Literature, 23 (1951–1952),
337. Walt Whitman withdrew the poem in his November 2,
1868 letter to Francis P. Church. [back]