I shall return on Monday next, in the 12:30 train from Jersey city—(the train I usually come in)
Pete I have rec'd your letter of 26th2—Mother3 seems to-day full as well as usual—
loc.01540.002_large.jpgI continue all right—I have been on to New Haven, about 75 miles from here—a former friend of mine4 is in a dying condition there, from consumption & expressed such a strong desire to see me, that I went on—I thought he would die while I was there—he was all wasted to a skeleton, faculties good, but voice only a low loc.01540.003_large.jpg whisper—I returned last night, after midnight
—Well bub, my time here is short—I have had a good quiet visit—the best in some respects yet—& I feel satisfied
—My darling son we will very soon be together again
Your loving comrade Walt. loc.01540.004_large.jpgCorrespondent:
Peter Doyle (1843–1907) was
one of Walt Whitman's closest comrades and lovers, and their friendship spanned
nearly thirty years. The two met in 1865 when the twenty-one-year-old Doyle was
a conductor in the horsecar where the forty-five-year-old Whitman was a
passenger. Despite his status as a veteran of the Confederate Army, Doyle's
uneducated, youthful nature appealed to Whitman. Although Whitman's stroke in
1873 and subsequent move from Washington to Camden limited the time the two
could spend together, their relationship rekindled in the mid-1880s after Doyle
moved to Philadelphia and visited nearby Camden frequently. After Whitman's
death, Doyle permitted Richard Maurice Bucke to publish the letters Whitman had
sent him. For more on Doyle and his relationship with Whitman, see Martin G.
Murray, "Doyle, Peter," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia,
ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing,
1998).