The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Benton H. Wilson to Walt Whitman, 23 June 1875
Date: June 23, 1875
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00398
Source: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, 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: Gay Sunshine Press, 1989), 225. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Elizabeth Lorang, John Schwaninger, Ashley Lawson, Kevin McMullen, Caterina Bernardini, Amanda J. Axley, Marie Ernster, and Stephanie Blalock
Syracuse, New York,
June 23, 1875
Dear Friend Walt Whitman
I received your papers and the slips with them some days ago and was much pleased to hear from you although in an indirect way. I see by the papers you sent me that your health is not very good1 and I assure you that I am very sorry to hear it. I would like to know how you are situated whether there is any thing that I can do to contribute to your comfort and Happiness. If there is I will do it if it is in my power.
My Wife is quite sick and has been for the past two weeks. The Children are all well as usual.2
With Love I remain As ever Yours,3
Correspondent:
Benton H. Wilson (1843–1914?)
was the son of Henry Wilson (1805–1870)—a harness and trunk maker—and
Ann S. Williams Wilson (1809–1887). Benton Wilson was a U. S. Civil War soldier recovering in Armory Square Hospital
in Washington, D.C., when he met Whitman. Later, Wilson was employed selling melodeons and sewing machines. He also
sold life insurance and may have worked as a pawnbroker. He married
Nellie Gage Morrell Wilson (ca. 1841–1892). Nellie had two children, Lewis
and Eva Morrell, from a previous marriage, and she and Benton were the parents of five children.
Wilson named his first child "Walter Whitman Wilson," after the poet; their other
children were Austin, Irene, Georgie, and Kathleen Wilson. Benton Wilson's
correspondence with Whitman spanned a decade, lasting from 1865 to 1875.
Notes:
1. Whitman suffered a paralytic stroke on February 16, 1875. In Whitman's February 19, 1875, letter to Peter Doyle—one of Whitman's closest comrades and companions—Whitman explained that the stroke affected the "right side" but was "not severe." [back]
2. Benton Wilson was married to Nellie Gage Morrell Wilson (ca. 1841–1892). Nellie had two children, Lewis and Eva Morrell, from a previous marriage, and she and Benton Wilson were the parents of five children. Wilson named his first child "Walter Whitman Wilson," after the poet; their other children were Austin, Irene, Georgie, and Kathleen Wilson. [back]
3. No signature is indicated in the transcription. [back]