The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Walbridge A. Field, 11 May 1870
Date: May 11, 1870
Whitman Archive ID: nar.03604
Source: National Archives & Records Administration. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 2:98. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Kenneth M. Price, Elizabeth Lorang, Zachary King, and Eric Conrad
The hurt on my hand has not healed.3 Allow me to take permission till Saturday next. I shall try to report at the office on Monday next.
Respectfully
Walt Whitman
By A. H. P.4
Notes:
1. The letter, now in the National Archives, is docketed: "Walt Whitman | Brooklyn, N. Y. | May 11. Recd May 12, 1870 | Asks extension of his leave | of absence— | May 12. Answered unofficially." [back]
2. Walbridge A. Field (1833–1899) was the Assistant Attorney General from 1869 to 1870. Later he was Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. [back]
3. Late in April or early May 1870, Walt Whitman cut his thumb, which became infected, and he returned to Brooklyn for about two weeks. [back]
4. Abby H. Price wrote both this letter and Walt Whitman's May 11, 1870 letter to William D. O'Connor. [back]