The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Elijah Douglass Fox to Walt Whitman, 24 December 1863
Date: December 24, 1863
Whitman Archive ID: tex.00139
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, California: Gay Sunshine Press, 1989), 145. 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, and Nick Krauter
Dear Father & Comrade
I1 received yours of Dec 17th [lost letter] and as always will be the case was glad to hear from you I have delayed answering your last a day or two for this reason. I have been very busy and shall write but little this time as I must go once to a place called West Jersey about ten miles from here to see about buying a house and lot but do not think that because I write but little I am tired of writing to you or wish to stop corresponding with you for I know of no one's letters that are looked for and read with more interest than yours, now that Mary has come. She came down on tuesday she is well though tired when she arrived she sends her love to you give my respects to all friends and write soon I will write again soon yours ever
Notes:
1. Elijah Douglass Fox was a Union soldier in the Third Infantry Wisconsin. At the time of his enlistment in May 1861, he resided in Buena Vista, Wisconsin. According to the "Notebook: September–October, 1863" (Charles E. Feinberg Collection), Fox was brought to Armory Square Hospital on September 26, 1863; it was here where he met Walt Whitman. He was discharged from the Union army on November 10, 1863, due to disability. [back]