Title: Walt Whitman to David F. Wright, 13 March 1865
Date: March 13, 1865
Whitman Archive ID: med.00308
Source: Location of original letter manuscript is unknown. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 5:285. 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, Vanessa Steinroetter, and Alyssa Olson
Washington,
March 13, 1865
My dear Sir:1
Would you do me the favor, if convenient, immediately on receiving this, of enclosing the sketch by Capt. Sims,2 and directing it, Capt. George W. Whitman, Portland Av. near Myrtle, Brooklyn New York—
How are you getting along in New York and how is your brother, Major Wright?3—I send him best regards. I am still here in Washington, and nothing new.
Yours, etc.
Walt Whitman
1. David F. Wright wrote
to Walt Whitman on January 4, 1865, relating
his attempts to arrange for the exchange of George, who was in a Confederate
prison at that time; see Whitman's letter to William D. O'Connor of January 6, 1865.
In Whitman scholarship, this letter traditionally has been identified as "to
Dana F. Wright," based on Wright's signature at the end of his January 4, 1865 letter to Whitman. Descendants
of Wright as well as military roster and census data confirm Wright's first
name as David. [back]
2. Captain Samuel H. Sims, a member of George's regiment, was killed on July 30, 1864, at Petersburg. [back]
3. Major (later Colonel) John Gibson Wright was taken prisoner with George; see Whitman's letters of September 11, 1864 and May 25, 1865. [back]