Title: Walt Whitman to Abby H. Price, 21 April 1871
Date: April 21, 1871
Whitman Archive ID: pml.00030
Source: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 2:120. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Janel Cayer, Kenneth M. Price, Ashley Lawson, Elizabeth Lorang, Zachary King, and Eric Conrad
Washington
April 21, 1871.1
Dear Abby,
I have seen Major Saxton,2 & handed him your note, & the accompanying paper—he said he knew the 4th Auditor personally, & would see him about it, & would probably write to you within three or four days. So Arthur3 is home, & you are all well—what with the baby4 & all you women—what jolly times you must have—I wish I could just drop in and take part in them—
With me, nothing very new or special—I am well & hearty—feel first-rate the greater part of the time—and as to streaks of the other kind of feeling, I am thankful they are so few—for you know I am getting to be an old fellow—though my temperament for buoyancy & fun I believe increases instead of diminishes—I shall take my vacation considerably earlier than usual, this summer—so it wont be long before I shall see you all.
Love to all—not forgetting the baby.
Walt.
Abby, Willard Saxton's address is 1st Comptroler's office Treasury Dep't.
1. This letter's envelope bears the address, "Mrs. Abby H. Price | 331 East 55th street | bet 1st and 2d av's. | New York City." It is postmarked: "Washington | Apr | 22 | D.C." [back]
2. Major Samuel Willard Saxton, who served in the Union Army from 1862 to 1866, was employed in the Treasury Department. [back]
3. Arthur Price, who was in the Navy, is also mentioned in Whitman's October 27, 1866 letter to Abby Price. [back]
4. Emily Price's baby; Whitman reported the birth in his August 2, 1870 letter to William D. O'Connor. [back]