Content:
A manuscript containing poetic lines with no known relation to any of Whitman's published work. One of the notes at the bottom of the manuscript, "Photo for Pratt," is likely a reference to Alfred Pratt, a young soldier who Whitman befriended at Armory Square Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1865. In an
August 7, 1865 letter to Whitman
, Pratt requests "potographs of Abe and Washington," and in his
August 26, 1865 reply to Pratt
, Whitman notes that he has sent the picture. If this is the photograph referred to in this manuscript, then the note was written in August 1865, with the poetic lines likely composed slightly earlier (likely the early 1860s). The manuscript is pasted down to a backing sheet, making the verso inaccessible.