Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Justus F. Boyd to Walt Whitman, 27 April 1863

Date: April 27, 1863

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00122

Source: Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. 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), 112. 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, Kathryn Kruger, Vanessa Steinroetter, and Nick Krauter





Friend Whitman

I1 havent rec'd any letter from you yet and I begin to think you have forgoten to write but I will try once or twice more and if I dont get an answer I surely shall think something is up I have written this makes three times to you and no ans yet.

My health is some better than it was when I left the Hospital, but I am not well by a good deal and I dont know as I ever shall be able to work on a farm again I am now in a store. I cant tell how long I shall stay but I think some of staying all summer The place where I am in now is a pleasnt little village called Byron its a very pleasnt place. Well now how do you get along in Washington. I suppose you still go to the Hospital well that is all right but I havnt seen such a thing since I left Washington Now how much do you think I could get a month down where you are or couldnt I get any thing Please excuse Bad writing & poor spelling and write as soon as you get this I am not a going to write much this time for it may never get to you if I get an Ans to this I will write longer next time


Notes:

1. Justus F. Boyd was a soldier in the 6th Michigan Cavalry. Whitman wrote the following entry on Boyd in a notebook that he kept shortly after his appointment to the Christian Commission, January 20, 1863 ("Walt Whitman Soldier's," Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman, The Library of Congress, Notebook #99, sheets 1098–1133): "Corp. Justus F. Boyd bed 22 co. D 6th Michigan cavalry been in five months, four sick, affection of kidneys and pleurisy—wants some paper and envelope and something to read gave him 12 sheets paper, & 12 envelopes & three of them franked by Sumner." [back]


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