[Walt Whitman thanked Wilson for two books, one a gift, the other to be returned; the latter request Whitman would comply with after his return to Camden.]1
Correspondent:
General James Grant
Wilson (see the letter from Whitman to Wilson of May 21,
1879) was an editor, author, and bookseller. He was a Brevet Brigadier
General in the Civil War; later, he served as President of the New York
Genealogical and Biographical Society and as an editor for Appleton's. He was a frequent contributor to periodicals, and he wrote
or edited numerous works, including Bryant and His
Friends (1886), a four-volume Memorial History of New
York (1892–1893), and a biography titled Life
of Fitz-Green Halleck (1869). For more information on Wilson and a more
complete list of his principal works, see "General James Grant Wilson," Makers of New York: An Historical Work Giving Portraits and
Sketches of the Most Eminent Citizens of New York, edited by Charles
Morris (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1894), 103.