Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: William F. Bainbridge to Walt Whitman, 23 August 1865

Date: August 23, 1865

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00192

Source: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. 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), 108. 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, Vanessa Steinroetter, Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Kathryn Kruger, and Nick Krauter





My Dear & Esteemed Freind

I take the present opporutnity to write you these few lines to inform you that i am well and in good health at Present time and i truly hope when these few lines reach you that they may find you enjoying good health. i answered your last letter1 and not having recivd any answer i think it very Strange i recived these two pictures and give one to wilson,2 and kept one my self and i was very glad to recive them for i would rather see your face than your picture at all wilson wrote the same time that i did and not having Recived any answer and wilson says he can not think What the reason is that he does not get and answer from you. Me and wilson expecty to come through there this fall and we will come and see you if ever you have the opportunity of calling around richmond please to call around Camp Grant and see us. please excuse this Short Letter Write soon good by I remain your Freind


Notes:

1. The letter to which Bainbridge refers has not been found. [back]

2. Bainbridge most likely refers to Benton Wilson, a former soldier with whom Whitman developed a friendship. See Wilson's letters of November 11, 1865 and December 16, 1866[back]


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