Byron Sutherland to Walt Whitman, 8 April 1870

Correspondent:
Noah Byron Sutherland (1846–1915?) was born in New York; he was the son of John G. Sutherland (b. 1798), a farmer, and Anna (Anny) Sutherland (1807–1880). Byron Sutherland was a Union soldier during the U. S. Civil War, and he served in the 145th Pennsylvania Infantry. He met Whitman in Washington, D. C., and the two began corresponding on August 26, 1865. Sutherland did farm work in Pennsylvania after the Civil War, and he also studied law and teaching (among other subjects) at the State Normal School in Erie County, Pennsylvania. In April 1870, Sutherland was teaching in Jamestown, New York. In reply to Whitman's request for further information about his life, the former soldier observed on April 8, 1870: "You remember me in 1865 a green vain (?) lad of Eighteen—without, even, an imperfect knowledge of the rudimentary English branches, I came home from Washington and applied myself, as soon as possible, to school and to study . . . My life since we parted that July day upon the Treasury steps, has been one of hard work and little recreation—I find on looking back to that time, that I am not so pure or trusting—that the world isint quite so fair and beautiful as it seemed then—That the world is not precisely a green pasture for unsophistocated human lambs to skip in—That I like dreaming less, and work or excitement better—That I have lost a great deal of Ambition, and gained a like quantity of stupidity—That I dont know nearly so much as I once supposed I did." By 1877, Sutherland had moved to Minnesota, where he married Sarah Raymond Brown Peck (1848–after 1915?), practiced law, and worked as a farmer.