Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Nicholas D. Palmer to Walt Whitman, 24 June 1865

Date: June 24, 1865

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00858

Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. 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, Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Vanessa Steinroetter, and Heidi Bean



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Camp Near Louisville
June 24th, 1865

Mr. Whitman Dear [Friend?]

I concluded I would talk a few words to you through this instrument. I am well and hope the safe arrival of this may find you the same. There is not much talk of the[Vetterans?] getting out yet: if you have any thing in the way of advice to give concerning my imployment when I am Discharged [illegible] talk plain to me Mr. Whitman. I have been [about?] the world more perhaps than you would imagine there are a [great many?] [illegible] [cruel turns?] and there [illegible] a variety of ways of making a liveing. Leaving hard work out of the Books, and I have thought that [illegible] were bigger fools than me making a living very Easy although I admit my Education is Limited. Name any thing you Please and if I Do not Propose to accept: that is as far as it will Go I will blow on no one. What about Such houses as we were talking about and [illegible] if it Should be made agreeable for me to take up Lodgeing in Close Proximity with yours. I Should be Pleased in the Superlative Degree. Please write amediately after you receive this and Give me Some advice No matter what sort. I conclude.

Hopeing to hear from you soon. Until then.

I remain your Friend as Ever
Nicholas D. Palmer Co. E. 80th Regt. 0.1.1. [illegible] 1st Brig 2nd Division 15th A [illegible] 1


Notes:

1. This letter includes a note by Whitman following the closer that reads, "June 25th '65—I have rec'd many curious letters in my time from one & another [illegible] persons (women & others) who have been reading "Leaves of Grass"—& some singular ones from soldiers—but never before one of this description—I keep it as a curiosity. The writer was one of the soldiers in Sherman army last of [illegible]—one of hundreds I talked with, & occasionaly showed some little kindness to—I met him, talked with him some,—he came one rainy night to my room & stopt [with?] me. I am completely in the dark as to 'what such houses as we were talking about,' are—upon the whole not to be answered—(& yet I itch to satisfy my curiosity as to what this young man can really have taken me for.)" [back]


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