The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: James S. Stillwell to Walt Whitman, 27 September 1864
Date: September 27, 1864
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00172
Source: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature at the New York Public Library. The transcription presented here is derived from Drum Beats: Walt Whitman's Civil War Boy Lovers, ed. Charley Shively (San Francisco, California: Gay Sunshine Press, 1989), 195. 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, Kathryn Kruger, Eric Conrad, Nick Krauter, and Nicole Gray
Dear Friend
I1 take this opportunity to write to you to let you know how I am I am well and my wound is A most healed up and I hope that these few lines will find you well I received your letter and was glad to here from you and to here that you was well I havent got transfered to newyork yet I tryed to when I was at home but I could not So I had to come back here the Doctor ask me when I came back if I did not want my discharge I told him that I would rather be transfered to newyork and if I could not that I would like to have my discharge, he said that he would get me transfered or give me my discharge
I walk with crutches yet Thomas flood is well and is ward master of this ward I thing likely that I shall go home Some time this month there was an order in the paper that we was all A goin to be Sent home to vote
So no more at presant from your friend James Stilwell write Soon
Notes:
1. James S. Stilwell, Second New York Cavalry, was confined in Ward C of Armory Square with a gunshot wound in his left leg; see "Notebook: September–October, 1863" (Charles E. Feinberg Collection) and "Hospital Notes" (Henry E. Huntington Library). He recovered slowly from his injury. About the end of May in the following year he was sent to Mower Hospital, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, where he remained until he was granted a furlough in August 1864. He later returned to Mower Hospital when he wrote this letter. See also Stilwell's letters to Whitman from July 5, 1864, and September 2, 1864. He was the brother of Julia and John Stilwell. [back]