The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Whitelaw Reid to Walt Whitman, 10 July 1876
Date: July 10, 1876
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01859
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.
Editorial note: The annotation, "see notes Aug 26 & 28 1888," is in the hand of Horace Traubel.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Elizabeth Lorang, Eder Jaramillo, John Schwaninger, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Caterina Bernardini, Amanda J. Axley, Erel Michaelis, Jeff Hill, and Stephanie Blalock
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New-York Tribune
New York,
July 10th 1876
Dear Whitman:
I was out of town—returning from the West from the funeral of a near relative—when your note of the 7th1 came. We shall try to publish the poem2 on Monday, and if we get in shall hope to enclose herewith cheque for the amount. If it doesn't come with this it will be because of my being compelled to go down to Washington as a witness in the Impeachment trial.3 If by reason of my absence it should be overlooked, pray remind me of it.
Very Truly Yours,
Whitelaw Reid
Walt Whitman, Esq
431 Stevens
St.
Camden
N. J.
Correspondent:
Whitelaw Reid (1837–1912)
was the editor of the New York Tribune from 1872 to 1905
and also American ambassador to France (1889–1892) and England (1905–1912). He met
Whitman in the hospitals during the Civil War. Of his relations with the poet,
Reid later observed: "No one could fail then [during the War] to admire his zeal
and devotion, and I am afraid that at first my regard was for his character
rather than his poetry. It was not till long after 'The Leaves of Grass' period
that his great verses on the death of Lincoln conquered me completely." See
Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man, Poet and Friend
(Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1915), 213, and Edwin Haviland Miller, "Walt Whitman's Correspondence
with Whitelaw Reid, Editor of the New York Tribune," Studies in
Bibliography 8 (1956): 242–249.
Notes:
1. See Whitman's letter to Reid of July 7, 1876. [back]
2. "A Death-Sonnet for Custer" (later entitled "From Far Dakota's Cañons") appeared in the New York Daily Tribune on July 10, 1876. [back]
3. Reid is referring to the impeachment trial of Secretary of War William Belknap. Belknap was acquitted on August 1, 1876. [back]