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Around 1869. M. P. Rice, Washington, D.C. Saunders #29. Courtesy Ohio
Wesleyan University, Bayley Collection. The
first extant photo of Whitman with anyone else, here Peter
Doyle, Whitman's close friend and companion in Washington. Doyle
was
a horsecar driver and met Whitman one stormy night in 1865 when
Whitman,
looking (as Doyle said) "like an old sea-captain," remained the
only passenger on Doyle's car. They were inseparable for the
next eight years. Whitman once dated this photo 1865. In 1889,
Whitman
had a remarkable talk with Horace Traubel and Thomas Harned
about the photo; Traubel recalls the conversation: "I picked
up a picture from the box by the fire: a Washington picture: W.
and Peter Doyle photoed together: a rather remarkable
composition: Doyle with a sickly smile on his face: W. lovingly
serene: the two looking at each other rather stagily, almost
sheepishly. W. had written on this picture, at the top:
'Washington D.C. 1865--Walt Whitman & his rebel soldier friend
Pete Doyle.' W. laughed heartily the instant I put my hands
on it (I had seen it often before)--Harned mimicked Doyle, W.
retorting: 'Never mind, the expression on my face atones for
all that is lacking in his. What do I look like there? Is it
seriosity?' Harned suggested: 'Fondness, and Doyle should be a
girl'--but W. shook his head, laughing again: 'No--don't be
too hard on it: that is my rebel friend, you know,' &c. Then
again: 'Tom, you would like Pete--love him: and you, too,
Horace: you especially, Horace--you and Pete would get to be
great chums. I found everybody in Washington who knew Pete
loving him: so that fond expression, as you call it, Tom, has
very good cause for being: Pete is a master character.' I
said: 'One of your powerful uneducated persons, Walt, eh?' W.
quickly: 'Just that: a rare man: knowing nothing of books,
knowing everything of life: a great big hearty full-blooded
everyday divinely generous working man: a hail fellow well met--
a little too fond maybe of his beer, now and then, and of the
women: maybe, maybe: but for the most part the salt of the
earth. Most literary men, as you know, are the kind of men a
hearty man would not go far to see: but Pete fascinates you by
the very earthiness of his nobility. O yes, you fellows will
know him: you, Horace, must particularly make it your point to
come in relations with him: you will know him--both of you--and
then you will understand that what I say is wholly true and yet
is short of the truth.'"
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