Benton H. Wilson to Walt Whitman, 21 April 1867

 loc_vm.01461_large.jpg Syracuse1 April 21st 1867 Dear Friend2 Walt Whitman,

I was very much pleased a few days ago to receive your prompt answer of April 12th to my letter3 & I will try and be as prompt in return.

Father4 has gone to church this morning as usual with him Sundays and I am left alone to write without interruption.

I recd a letter from my wife5 about the middle of last week she had arrived safely and was enjoying herself very well.6

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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 mor​ guarded in my letters to you.7 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.

I am inclined to take things about as they come  loc_vm.01463_large.jpg and consider all things for the best although we may not see it sometimes

I have long since learned that contentment is the only real hapiness​ .

I would like it very much if we could be together if only for a few days so that we might understand each other better and perhaps we can some of thes​ days when we are a little differently situated.

I must close this for the present as I have several other letters to write today.

With Love I remain your Boy Friend B. H. Wilson.  loc_vm.01464_large.jpg  loc_vm.01459_large.jpg Benton H. Wilson April 22, 1867  loc_vm.01460_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 | APR | 22 | 67. [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. See Whitman's letter to Benton H. Wilson of April 12, 1867. [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. 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]
• 6. In his last letter to Whitman of April 7, 1867, Benton H. Wilson reported that his wife had gone to New York City to stay with her sister during the latter's confinement. "Confinement" or "lying-in" is a traditional postpartum practice during which the mother and baby bond, and the mother heals from childbirth. [back]
• 7. Whitman had alluded in his April 12, 1867, response to Wilson's letter of April 7, 1867 that Wilson might have mixed feelings about his present situation: "contentment with one's situation in life does not depend half so much on what that situation is, as on the mood & spirit in which one accepts the situation & makes the best of it." That, and Whitman's statements regarding his desire to spend time with Wilson may have struck a nerve with the latter. [back]