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Department of Justice
Washington.
May 19, 1871.
Messrs. Church,1
My friends,
If convenient, please remit to me, here, a check for $25 in pay for "O Star of France".
Yours truly
Walt Whitman
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Notes
- 1. William Conant Church
(1836–1917), journalist and publisher, was a correspondent for several New
York newspapers until he founded The Army and Navy
Journal in 1863. With his brother Francis Pharcellus (1839–1906),
he established the Galaxy in 1866. Financial control of
the Galaxy passed to Sheldon and Company in 1868, and it
was absorbed by the Atlantic Monthly in 1878. W. C.
published a biography of his life-long friend U.S. Grant in 1897, and F. P.
wrote for the New York Sun the unsigned piece "Yes,
Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." See E. F. Grier, "Walt Whitman, the Galaxy, and Democratic Vistas,"
American Literature, 23 (1951–1952),
332–350; D. N. Bigelow, William Conant Church & "The
Army and Navy Journal" (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952); J.
R. Pearson, Jr., "Story of a Magazine: New York's Galaxy, 1866–1878," Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 61 (1957),
217–237, 281–302. [back]