May 3, 1865.
P. Eckler:1
As I remitted $20 May 1st, which I suppose you duly received, I herewith enclose $14.85, as payment in full.
Deliver the sheets to A. Simpson, 8 Spruce street, & send me his receipt. Leave the copy of "Leaves of Grass," with Mrs. Louisa Whitman, Portland av. 4th door north of Myrtle, Brooklyn. If you have the plates of the two cancelled pages, I wish you would take three impressions of each page & enclose to me.
Walt Whitman
Washington
D. C.
I will trouble you also to send me Mr. Alvord's receipt for my plates, in his vault.
Notes
- 1. On April 1, 1865, Whitman
signed a contract with Eckler to stereotype 500 copies for $254.00: "The
workmanship is to be first class in every respect & to be completed, &
the printed sheets delivered within one month from this date" (F. DeWolfe
Miller, ed., Drum-Taps [Gainesville, FL: Scholars'
Facsimiles & Reprints, 1959], xxxv). The contract called for "one hundred
& twenty pages," but since the book contained only 72 pages, Eckler
submitted on April 22 a bill for $192.85, of
which $138.00 had been paid. According to Whitman's notations on the
statement, he paid $20.00 on April 26 and again on May 2. Whitman sent this letter in answer to Eckler's request of May 1 that the balance be paid. On May 4, Eckler issued a receipt for $34.85, and
included a receipt from Coridon A. Alvord, printer, for the stereotype plates,
which he had placed in his vault. On April 26,
Eckler had informed Whitman that the book was "now to press" and would "be ready
for the Binders next Monday morning." For details on the printing history and
organization of Drum-Taps see Ted Genoways, "The
Disorder of Drum-Taps," Walt
Whitman Quarterly Review 24 (Fall 2006/Winter 2007),
98–116. [back]