Yesterday's "Sun" of this city contained a notice of the celebration of your seventy-second birth day;1 and called to my mind events which took place at "Armory Square Hospital"2 at the close of the War of the Rebellion.—
I had two wounded brothers there, one Colonel C. K. Prentiss3 of the 6th Maryland volunteers; in the officers ward, and the other, Willie S. Prentiss,4 private from a Maryland loc.03491.002_large.jpg Regt in the Southern Army.
They had both been wounded in the same battle before Petersburgh on the 2nd of April, the two Regts having met face to face.—
I mention these facts in the hope that they might bring the case to your memory.—
They were both desparately wounded, and lay in Wards separated from one another, and I was in attendance upon them both, passing from one to the other as their needs required, and dreadfully anxious for them.
Going into Willie's Ward one day, I found a stranger loc.03491.003_large.jpg seated by his side, in kindly converse with him.(—He had had a leg amputated—)
This gentleman proved to be none other than your self, and I have never ceased to feel deeply grateful to you for your kindness to my dear brother; for your visits to him were repeated again and again, until his death, and I know gave him great pleasure.—
My one object in now writing is to thank you for your Friendship to him with the hope that the loc.03491.004_large.jpg case may not have wholly passed from your memory, and to tell you that the lapse of quarter of a Century has not lessened my appreciation of the attention shown my brother.—
May Gods best belongings rest upon you.
Yours gratefully T. M. Prentiss See p:74 Spec: Days I remember the case wellCorrespondent:
Thomas Melville Prentiss
(1829–1901) was the son of John Prentiss (1818–1861) and his first
wife, Amelia F. Kennedy, of Baltimore, Maryland (d. 1857). Thomas became a
presbyterian minister in Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, New York. He was the older
brother of Clifton Kennedy Prentiss (1835–1865) and William Scollay
Prentiss (1839–1865), who fought on opposite sides during the American
Civil War. Both of Thomas's brothers were wounded in the conflict and both died
as a result of their injuries. Whitman met and cared for Clifton and William at
Armory Square Hospital, where the poet was volunteering. Whitman described his
experiences with the Prentiss brothers in "Two Brothers, One South, One North,"
which was published in Specimen Days & Collect
(Philadelphia: Rees Welsh & Co., 1882: 74–75).