Attorney General's Office,
Washington.
Tuesday noon,
Jan. 29, 1867.
Dearest mother,
I wrote to Han last Saturday. I hope you manage to keep comfortable this cold
winter—it must be pretty tough up there on that bleak hill—It has been
very cold here, but I have not minded it—My thick overcoat that Nelson1 made comes in first-rate this winter—it is
quite good yet—I have not bought any new clothes for a long
while—suppose I must get some next spring.
There is a Bill before Congress to give extra pay to the clerks—if it passes I
shall have something extra, too—but I make no calculations on it, for I think
it quite uncertain. The debates in Congress now are quite exciting—sometimes
they hold their sessions quite late in the night, & things get to be quite
stormy. William Hunter (who is in the House, from Brooklyn, to fill out James
Humphrey's term)2
called a Republican member "a liar"—so the Speaker had Mr. Hunter up before
him & gave him a formal reprimand—it was last Saturday. Mrs. Mix3 went that cold Friday night, twelve days ago—I have
not heard from her. It was a bad night for a journey, & the track was blocked
with snow.
I receive letters from the soldiers every now & then. Within a week I have had
two invitations—one is from a young fellow named Alfred Pratt.4 I knew him in one of the hospitals two years ago,
& more. His folks are farming people out in northwestern New York, near the
shores of Lake Erie—he writes half the letter, & his father & mother
write the other half, inviting me to come there & pay them a visit—the
parents say they "will do every thing they can to make a country visit
agreeable"—the letter is very old fashioned, but very good. Then I had
another invitation, from a Michigan boy. He has got married, & has a small farm,
not far from Detroit.
Do you remember Lewis Brown,5 the Maryland boy, who had such a time
with his leg, & had it amputated at last in Armory Square hospital? He is quite
well otherwise, & has got a place in the Treasury Dep't. I send the
advertisement of the new book about the Ninth Corps—if George wants it, I
think he can find it at the American News Co. 121 Nassau st. New York6—We have ill luck among the clerks &c in
our office—I send a little slip from the Washington Star7—then another
clerk, Mr. Rowland,8 is lying very sick. It is doubtful if he recovers. Wm. O'Connor has just
been in to see me—He is well & flourishing.
Walt.
Mother, no letter from you the past week—
Notes
- 1. There were two tailors by
this name in the Brooklyn Directory of 1865–1866: Andrew, 372 Myrtle
Avenue, and N., 739 Atlantic Avenue. [back]
- 2. John Ward Hunter
(1807–1900), not William, was elected to complete the term of James
Humphrey (1811–1866), who was a Congressman from 1859 to 1861, and, after
two unsuccessful attempts, was elected for the second time in 1864. [back]
- 3. Mary Mix lived with her
daughter, Juliet Grayson, who operated the boardinghouse at 468 M North, where
Walt Whitman lived between late January 1865 and February 1866. After her
daughter's death on January 7, 1867 (which Whitman reported to his mother on
January 15, 1867), Whitman wrote in a January 22, 1867 letter to his mother that Mix
would be leaving Washington to live with her granddaughter, Mrs. Samuel S.
Haskell, Jr. [back]
- 4. All that is known about
Alfred Pratt is contained in this letter and those of June 10, 1865, August 7, 1865, August 26, 1865, September
27, 1866, July 25, 1867, October 28, 1867, July 1,
1869, and January 20, 1870. [back]
- 5. Lewis Kirke Brown
(1843–1926) was wounded in the left leg near Rappahannock Station on
August 19, 1862, and lay where he fell for four days. Eventually he was
transferred to Armory Square Hospital, where Whitman met him, probably in
February 1863. In a diary in the Library of Congress, Whitman described Brown on
February 19, 1863, as "a most affectionate fellow, very fond of having me come
and sit by him." Because the wound did not heal, the leg was amputated on
January 5, 1864. Whitman was present and described the operation in a diary
(Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman, The Library of Congress,
Notebook #103). Brown was mustered out in August 1864, and was employed in the
Provost General's office in September; see Whitman's letter of September 11, 1864. The following September he
became a clerk in the Treasury Department and was appointed Chief of the
Paymaster's Division in 1880, a post which he held until his retirement in 1915.
(This material draws upon a memorandum which was prepared by Brown's family and
is now held in the Library of Congress.) [back]
- 6. The book in question is
Augustus Woodbury, Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps: A
Narrative of Operations in North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio,
Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee (Sidney S. Rider & Bros.,
Publishers, Providence, R.I.). Walt Whitman pasted on the advertisement of the
book. He had previously written of Jeff's potential interest in the book in his
January 22, 1867 letter to Louisa Van Velsor
Whitman. [back]
- 7. The clipping from the Star read: "Accidents.—On Tuesday morning, as Mr.
J. Hubley Ashton, Assistant Attorney General, was leaving his residence, corner
of 14th and F streets, he fell and cut his face so badly as to confine him to
his room for a few days. On the following day, Mr. F. U. Stitt, the pardon clerk
of the same office, received a fall, by which his left arm was badly injured."
Ashton actively interested himself in Walt Whitman's affairs and obtained a
position for the poet in his office after the Harlan fracas. [back]
- 8. John A. Rowland, a clerk
in the Attorney General's office, substituted for Walt Whitman when he was on
leave in 1870. [back]