Benton H. Wilson to Walt Whitman, 27 January 1867

 loc_vm.01477_large.jpg Syracuse Jan 27th/1867 1 Dear Friend2

your letter of the 10th of January3 was received more than a week ago and should have been answered before this time but I have not been in the humor of writing and have kept putting it off till some more convenient season but I will try to be more punctual in the future.

Father4 is staying with me again and he borrowed "Leaves of Grass," for me of Dr. Hawley5 for a few days and was very much interested in it, but I  loc_vm.01478_large.jpg will be candid with you.

I think on the start I was more interested in it because it was your work, than for the good sentiments it contained, but as I got more acquainted with it I liked it for its own value, although I can not understand all of it I can not find anything indecent about it. But my kind Old Friend you must not think that because I wrote to you and mentioned it, that I wish you to send me the Book for that is not what I intended for you to think.

Drum Taps6 I have not seen yet nor is it to be found at any of the stores in Syracuse. Dr. Hawley has been trying to get a copy of it for about a  loc_vm.01479_large.jpg month but all that was here were taken as soon as they arrived.

We have splendid sleighing here now, and have had for about, two or three weeks or more.

You say you wish me to write how I am situated what I am doing &c.

I wrote to you a year and more ago that I was married but did not receive any reply so I did not know but you was displeased with it.

I was married to a New York Lady, Daughter of the late I.L. Gage of the firm of Gage, Sloans & Dater7 No 83 Chamber​ St and 65 Reed​ St but like many others they went down in the crisis of 18578  loc_vm.01480_large.jpg I went into Business with a partner at manufacturing Parlor Brackets a little over a year ago and continued at it about six or Seven months and lost about one thousand dollars and found myself in debt six hundred dollars and finally came to the conclusion that it was time I closed up my business, so I did so about the first of July last, and am now at work at my trade in a Piano Forte & Melodeon9 Manufactory and find that it pays me better than business on my own book. Now I think I have given you a good statement of my situation and hope it will be to your satisfaction

 loc_vm.01483_large.jpg

If you come to New York next summer on a visit I shall expect you to take a short trip up here to see me (if I am here) and I will pay your fare and take as good care of you as we possibly can. Now if you come to New York, you must not fail to let me know it.

Hamilton10 has returned from the west, his Brother11 is gaining slowly, he sends his love to you and says he will write to you.12

Father13 is living with me now, he says he wrote to you a few days ago14

My Wife15 wants me to send her love to you for she says she loves any body that I love  loc_vm.01484_large.jpg I devote some of my leisure to reading and writing but I have not had any History except what we have got in the house, because I have not had access to the Libraries, but if you will write what history I shall get, I will get a library ticket and try to get them. History is my favorite reading

I do not know as this letter will be very interesting to you so I will close for this time hoping to hear from you again soon.

I remain as ever Your Boy Friend with Love Benton H. Wilson  loc_vm.01481_large.jpg B.H. Wilson, Jan 27 ans. Jan 31, '67 Atty Genls  loc_vm.01482_large.jpg

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Notes

• 1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman Esq. | "Atty" Gens Office | Washington | D.C. It is postmarked: SYRACUSE | JAN | 28 | 67; CARRIER | JAN | 29 | 1867 | 7 P.M. [back]
• 2. The friendship between Whitman and Wilson, a former U. S. Civil War soldier, can be reconstructed from Wilson's letters (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). On July 18, 1869, Wilson recalled his confinement in Armory Square Hospital (as mentioned in Whitman's November 8–9, 1863, letter to Lewis K. Brown), "when your kind face & pleasant words cheered the soldier Boys & won their hearts. I never shall forget the first time you came in after David & I got there. We Loved you from the first time we spoke to you." In Wilson's first letter, written on November 11, 1865, he began: "I suppose you will think that I have forgotten you long before this time but I have not, your kindness to me while in the hospital will never be forgotten by me." After a lapse in the correspondence, he wrote on December 16, 1866: "I wish if aggreeable to yourself to keep up a regular correspondence between us ... I think it will be of benefit to me morally, and perhaps will not be of any detriment to you." In this letter he admitted that he had just discovered that Whitman was a poet. On January 27, 1867, he informed Whitman that he had been reading Leaves of Grass, but complained: "I wrote to you a year and more ago that I was married but did not receive any reply, so I did not know but you was displeased with it"; he concluded the letter: "I remain as ever your 
    Boy Friend 
    with Love 
    Benton H. Wilson." Walt Whitman replied (lost), and sent The Good Gray Poet, which Wilson acknowledged on February 3, 1867. On April 7, 1867, after he informed Whitman that his wife had gone to the hospital for her first confinement (the child was to be named Walt Whitman), Wilson complained: "I am poor and am proud of it but I hope to rise by honesty and industry. I am a married man but I am not happy for my disposition is not right. I have got a good Woman and I love her dearly but I seem to lack patience or something. I think I had ought to live alone, but I had not ought to feel so." On April 21, 1867, Wilson acknowledged Whitman's reply of April 12, 1867: "I do not want you to misunderstand my motives in writing to you of my Situation & feelings as I did in my last letter or else I shall have to be more guarded in my letters to you. I wrote so because you wanted me to write how I was situated, and give you my mind without reserve, and all that I want is your advice and Love, and I do not consider it cold lecture or dry advice. I wish you to write to me just as you feel & express yourself and advise as freely as you wish and will be satisfied." On September 15, 1867, Wilson wondered why Whitman had not replied. In his letter of December 19, 1869, Wilson reported that he had moved to Greene, N. Y., but was still selling melodeons and sewing machines. On May 15, 1870, Wilson informed Whitman of his father's death two weeks earlier and related that his son "Little Walt . . . is quite a boy now . . . and gets into all kinds of Mischief." Evidently Wilson wrote to the poet for the last time on June 23, 1875, when he wanted to know "what I can do to contribute to your comfort and happiness." [back]
• 3. This letter has not been located. [back]
• 4. Henry Wilson (1805–1870) was the father of Benton H. Wilson—a former U. S. Civil War soldier and one of Whitman's correspondents (for Benton Wilson, see Whitman's letters of April 12, 1867, and April 15, 1870). On May 15, 1870, Wilson informed Whitman of his father's death two weeks earlier; Benton's father, who "was insane at times," had written to Whitman on January 17, 1867, and on March 30, 1868. [back]
• 5. Wilson may be referring to Dr. William A. Hawley (1820–1891), a homeopathic physician in Syracuse, New York. An October 24, 1888, letter from Whitman, with which Whitman sent Hawley one of his books, has not been located; neither has a letter that Whitman sent on February 6, 1890, according to his notebooks. [back]
• 6. Whitman's Drum-Taps, a volume that consisted of fifty-three Civil War poems, was published in 1865. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln occurred while Drum-Taps was being printed, and Whitman promptly added the short poem "Hush'd be the Camps To-day," with a note about Lincoln's death to the final signature of the book. Whitman then decided to stop the printing and add a sequel to the book that would more fully take into account Lincoln's death. Copies of the volume were withdrawn so that the sequel could be added. Whitman hastily composed several poems, adding eighteen new poems to those that appeared in Drum-Taps, and all of these poems were published in a second edition Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865–1866). Later, these poems were folded into Leaves of Grass, and by the time the final arrangement of Leaves of Grass was printed in 1881, the "Drum-Taps" cluster that Whitman included in that volume contained forty-three poems. For more information on the printing of Drum-Taps (1865), see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and Commentary (Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa, 2005). For more on the poems of Drum-Taps and their arrangement in Leaves of Grass, see Huck Gutman, "Drum-Taps," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
• 7. Gage, Sloans & Dater was listed as a drygoods store in Trow's New York City Directory (1856/1857), with locations at 83 Chambers and 65 Reade. The store went out of business in the Panic of 1857. [back]
• 8. On August 24, 1857, the New York branch of the Ohio Lfie Insurance and Trust Company failed which sparked a ricochet effect and led to the collapse of banks across the nation. With embezzlement in the mix, this event became the catalyst for the Panic of 1857, of which would be known as the most severe ecomnic crises in U.S. history. Years later, The Report of the Clearinghouse Committee articulated the following events of heightening concern: the British withdrew captial from U.S. banks, grain prices fell, Russian undersold U.S. coton on the open market, manufactured goods lay in surplus, railroads overbuilt and some defaulted on debts, land scheems and projects dependent on new rail routes failed. Magnifying the predicament, the SS Central America, lugging millions of dollars in gold from the new San Francisco Mint to create a reserve for eastern banks, was caught in a hurricane and sunk in September 1857 ("The Panic of 1857," Library of Congress). [back]
• 9. A melodeon was a type of reed organ common in the United States in the nineteenth century, before the Civil War. [back]
• 10. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
• 11. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
• 12. As yet we have no information about these people. [back]
• 13. Henry Wilson (1805–1870) was the father of Benton H. Wilson—a former U. S. Civil War soldier and one of Whitman's correspondents (for Benton Wilson, see Whitman's letters of April 12, 1867, and April 15, 1870). On May 15, 1870, Wilson informed Whitman of his father's death two weeks earlier; Benton's father, who "was insane at times," had written to Whitman on January 17, 1867, and on March 30, 1868. [back]
• 14. See Henry Wilson's letter to Walt Whitman of January 17, 1867. [back]
• 15. Nellie E. Gage (1841–1892), daughter of Ichabod Lewis Gage, married Benton H. Wilson in 1865 or 1866. She had two children from a previous marriage: Lewis and Eva Morrell, and she and Benton were the parents of five children. Wilson named his first child "Walter Whitman Wilson," after the poet; their other children were Austin, Irene, Georgie, and Kathleen Wilson. [back]