The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Thomas Jefferson Whitman to Walt Whitman, 8 July 1863
Date: July 8, 1863
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00417
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), 63. 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, Tim Jackson, Kathryn Kruger, and April Lambert
[Brooklyn, N. Y.]
July 8th 1863
Dear Walt,
Mr Lane1 is again very anxious about his boy, his name is Horace G. Tarr,2 and is Sergeant Major of the 20th Reg. of Connecticut Vol. If by chance you should hear anything of him will you please write. His Reg. belonged to the 12th army Corps, and I think were in the hottest of the fight. I sent you a letter last week with $14 in it and another yesterday with $10.3 Did you get them both? We are all well at home. The rejoicing in New York is sincere and almost universal and yet a few, (and yet only a few when compared with the immense city) who try to find some reason why Lee should have been whipped. Copperheads are getting out of circulation being laid up for a future contingency. Hope to hear from you soon. Dont forget me.
Yours truly Jeff
Notes:
1. Moses Lane (1823–82) served as chief engineer of the Brooklyn Water Works from 1862 to 1869. He later designed and constructed the Milwaukee Water Works and served there as city engineer. [back]
2. Horace G. H. Tarr (1844–?) had just been promoted from private to sergeant major of Company K. His regiment fought at Chancellorsville, Virginia, May 1–5, 1863, but he was not injured. Evidently, Tarr became a lifelong friend of Jeff and Whitman. [back]
3. The letter that contained fifteen dollars is not extant. For the letter containing ten dollars, see Jeff's letter to Walt of 7 July 1863. [back]