Correspondent:
Peter Doyle (1843–1907) was one of Walt Whitman's closest comrades and lovers, and their friendship spanned nearly thirty years. The two met in 1865 when the twenty-one-year-old Doyle was a conductor in the horsecar where the forty-five-year-old Whitman was a passenger. Despite his status as a veteran of the Confederate Army, Doyle's uneducated, youthful nature appealed to Whitman. Although Whitman's stroke in 1873 and subsequent move from Washington to Camden limited the time the two could spend together, their relationship rekindled in the mid-1880s after Doyle moved to Philadelphia and visited nearby Camden frequently. After Whitman's death, Doyle permitted Richard Maurice Bucke to publish the letters Whitman had sent him. For more on Doyle and his relationship with Whitman, see Martin G. Murray, "Doyle, Peter," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes:

1. This letter was cut into pieces and pasted back together. On the back Whitman drafted a letter to Edwin Einstein dated November 26, 1875. [back]

2. Mr. and Mrs. Michael Nash were Washington friends to whom Whitman referred frequently in his letters to Peter Doyle and with whom he often stayed when he visited Washington. Michael Nash was an old resident of the city; Whitman's December 5, 1873, letter to Doyle mentioned a speech Nash gave to the Oldest Inhabitants' Association. [back]