The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Thomas Jefferson Whitman to Walt Whitman, 12 March 1863
Date: March 12, 1863
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00402
Source: Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Thomas Jefferson Whitman, Dear Brother Walt: The Letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman, ed. Dennis Berthold and Kenneth M. Price (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1984), 35-36. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, Vanessa Steinroetter, Kathryn Kruger, and April Lambert
Brooklyn, N. Y.
March 12th/6[3]
Dear Walt,
I wrote you last Monday1 asking if you could send me any information in regard to George's getting his money in New York. I have not heard from you yet but hope to to-day. I [want you] now, if you possibly can get them to me by or before Tuesday morning next to send me those two shirts for George He wants them very much indeed Nothing that he can buy will make him half as comfortable. The thought just strikes me that perhaps you are using them yourself, if so all right, or if you want one and can send him one why do so. If you are not using them I think it would be a "big thing" for George to get them as they would be very useful both winter and summer. If you send them direct either to George or myself.2
We are all well. George is enjoying himself hugely and I shall feel sorry enough when he has to go back. All send love to you.
affectionately Jeff.
Mother wrote you a letter asking you to send on the shirts but when I left home this morning I forgot it so I wrote this one. will send mothers letter this P. M.3
Notes:
1. See Jeff's letter to Walt dated March 9, 1863. [back]
2. In a letter of March 18, 1863, to Jeff, Walt wrote: "I suppose the bundle of George's shirts, drawers, &c came safe by Adams express. I sent it last Saturday [March 14, 1863], and it ought to have been delivered Monday in Brooklyn." [back]
3. In her letter to Walt Whitman of March 11, 1863, Louisa Van Velsor Whitman asked the poet to send "those flannel shirts" by express because George thought "he could get them better from here than to send them to fortress monroe" (Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University Rare Books, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library). [back]