The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Manville Wintersteen to Walt Whitman, 1 March 1875
Date: March 1, 1875
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00399
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), 227. 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, Cristin Noonan, Marie Ernster, Stephanie Blalock, and Amanda J. Axley
Hampden, Ohio,
March 1, 1875
Kind sir,
I received your card1 was glad to here from a soldiers friend in time of need and if you are the friend that took care of me I am glad to here from you I can not place you as I did not learn your name but havent forgot the kindness I recived while in the Army Square Hospital2 I would like to see you
I draw a small pencion am owing to york St[ate] grafting in a bout 3 weeks
I guess you are the friend that wrote a ltter for me when I first came to the hospital I am glad to here from eny one write again
my respects and good wishes3
Correspondent:
Manville Ellwood Wintersteen (1841–1917),
a Pennsylvania native, was a Union solder during the U. S. Civil War. He served in
the Sixth Ohio Cavalry, was wounded in the left shoulder, and, according to Whitman's
"Notebook: September–October, 1863" (Charles
E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library
of Congress, Washington, D.C.), "came in frozen" from a "cav[alry] fight."
According to Wintersteen's service records and his records from an Ohio National
Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, he suffered a gun shot wound in
the left side of his chest in 1863, in Culpeper, Virginia, during the Battle of Culpeper
Court House. In his hospital notes, Whitman termed
him "a noble sized young fellow" (Charles I. Glicksberg, Walt
Whitman and the Civil War [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1933], 150), and referred to him briefly in Specimen
Days as "Manvill Winterstein" (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1882–1883, 77).
In 1875 Whitman wrote to Wintersteen, who, on March 1, replied: "I can not place
you as I did not learn your name but havent forgot the kindness I recived while
in the Arm[or]y Square Hospital." On March 10 of the same year, Wintersteen acknowledged
receipt of Whitman's picture, and on August 8 described his not-so-prosperous
circumstances. Whitman's letters to Wintersteen have not yet been located.
Notes:
1. This letter has not been located. [back]
2. After being wounded in Virginia, Wintersteen was taken to Armory Square Hospital in Washington, D. C. in September of 1863. According to jottings in Whitman's notebooks, Wintersteen occupied Ward C, bed 21 (Drum Beats: Walt Whitman's Civil War Boy Lovers, ed. Charley Shively [San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1989], 227). [back]
3. No signature is indicated in the transcription. [back]