328 Mickle Street
Camden New Jersey1
Aug. 24 p m
Charles Eldridge2 was here yesterday noon—a pleasant 3
hour visit—went to Atlantic City in the 5 p m train en route for Boston—
Nothing very different with me—I get quite a good many letters from Europe (some
buyers)—rec'd a German (Wisconsin) paper with a long notice of L of G. & me,
to–day—Fine weather here, & I am alone.
Love to you—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is endorsed:
Answ'd Dec 11/86. It is addressed: Wm D O'Connor | Life Saving Service |
Washington | D C. It is postmarked: Camden | Aug | 25 | 6 AM | N.J.; Washington,
Rec'd. | Aug | 25 | 2 30 PM | 1886 | 4. [back]
- 2. Charles W. Eldridge (1837–1903) was one half
of the Boston-based abolitionist publishing firm Thayer and Eldridge, who issued
the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. In December 1862, on
his way to find his injured brother George in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Whitman
stopped in Washington and encountered Eldridge, who had become a clerk in the
office of the army paymaster, Major Lyman Hapgood. Eldridge helped Whitman gain employment in Hapgood's office.
For more on Whitman's relationship with
Thayer and Eldridge, see David Breckenridge Donlon, "Thayer, William Wilde (1829–1896) and Charles W. Eldridge
(1837–1903)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]