Chapter XXIX

_Washington, June 17, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER. I got your letter this morning. This place and the hospitals seem to have got the better of me. I do not feel so badly this forenoon--but I have bad nights and bad days too. Some of the spells are pretty bad--still I am up some and around every day. The doctors have told me for a fortnight I must leave; that I need an entire change of air, etc.

I think I shall come home for a short time, and pretty soon. (I will try it two or three days yet though, and if I find my illness goes over I will stay here yet awhile. All I think about is to be here if any thing should happen to George).

We don't hear anything more of the army than you do there in the papers.

WALT.

Mother, if I should come I will write a day or so before.

_The letter of June 17, 1864, is the last of Whitman's, written from Washington at or about this time, that has been preserved and come down to us. Many, probably many more than have been kept, have been lost; indeed, it is a wonder that so many were saved, for they were sent about from one member of the family to another, and when once read seem to have been little valued. The reader will have noticed a certain change of tone in the later letters, showing that Whitman was beginning to feel the inroads which the fatigues, the unhealthy surroundings of the hospitals, and especially the mental anxiety and distress inseparable from his work there, were making upon even his superb health. Down to the time of his hospital work he had never known a day's sickness, but thereafter he never again knew, except at intervals which grew shorter and less frequent as time went on, the buoyant vigor and vitality of his first forty-four years. From 1864 to the end of 1872 the attacks described in his "Calamus" letters became from year to year more frequent and more severe, until, in January, 1873, they culminated in an attack of paralysis which never left him and from the indirect effects of which he died in 1892._

_But for years, though often warned and sent away by the doctors, during his better intervals and until his splendid health was quite broken by hospital malaria and the poison absorbed from gangrenous wounds, he continued his ministrations to the sick and the maimed of the war. Those who joined the ranks and fought the battles of the Republic did well; but when the world knows, as it is beginning to know, how this man, without any encouragement from without, under no compulsion, simply, without beat of drum or any cheers of approval, went down into those immense lazar houses and devoted his days and nights, his heart and soul, and at last his health and life, to America's sick and wounded sons, it will say that he did even better._

_R. M. B._

_As at thy portals also death,
Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,
To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,
To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,
(I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,
I sit by the form in the coffin,
I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks, the
closed eyes in the coffin;)
To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life,
love, to me the best,
I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,
And set a tombstone here._

_Printed by John Wilson and Son, at the University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A., in December, 1897._

Footnotes:

[1] His brother, Capt. (afterwards Col.) George W. Whitman, born 1829, now (1897) residing in Burlington, N. J.

[2] His favorite sister, Hannah Louisa Whitman (Mrs. C. L. Heyde), born 1823, now (1897) residing in Burlington, Vt.

[3] His brother, Thomas Jefferson Whitman, born 1833, died 1890.

[4] Brig.-Gen. Edward Ferrero, commanding Second Brigade, Second Division, Army of the Potomac, under whose command the 51st Brooklyn Regiment fought at Fredericksburg. George Whitman was a captain in this regiment.

[5] Martha, wife of "Jeff." She died in 1873. "1873.--This year lost, by death, my dear dear mother--and just before, my sister Martha--the two best and sweetest women I have ever seen or known, or ever expect to see" (WALT WHITMAN, "Some Personal and Old Age Jottings").

[6] "Jeff's" little daughter, Mannahatta. She died in 1888.

[7] His brother, Andrew Jackson Whitman, born 1827, died 1863. His other brothers at this time, besides those previously mentioned, were Jesse Whitman, born 1818, died 1870, and Edward Whitman, born 1835, died 1892.

[8] Martha.

[9] Mannahatta.

[10] William Douglas O'Connor, born Jan. 2, 1832. He was a journalist in Boston in early life, went to Washington about 1861, first as clerk in the Light House Bureau, and later became Assistant Superintendent of the United States Life-Saving Service; died in Washington, May 9, 1889. He was one of Whitman's warmest friends, and the author of "The Good Gray Poet."

[11] The Monitor foundered off Cape Hatteras in a gale December 29, 1862.

[12] "Jeff."

[13] A copy of the 1860 (first Boston) edition of "Leaves of Grass," which Whitman used for preparing the next (1867) edition. From various evidence this is the same copy, with his MS. alterations, which Secretary Harlan found in Whitman's desk at the Interior Department in 1865, and which he read surreptitiously before discharging the poet from his position. It is now in the possession of Mr. Horace L. Traubel, of Camden, N. J.

The reference to "Drum-Taps," published in 1865, shows that it had already taken shape in MS.

[14] Andrew Whitman's wife.

[15] Jessie Louisa Whitman.

[16] His sister, Mary Elizabeth Whitman (Mrs. Van Nostrand) born 1821 now (1897) residing in Sag Harbor, L. I.

[17] Mrs. Whitman's maiden name was Louisa Van Velsor.

[18] Mrs. Abby Price, an intimate friend of Whitman, and a friend and neighbor of his mother.

[19] Mrs. Price's son, a naval officer.

[20] Mrs. Price's daughter, and sister of the Helen mentioned later.

[21] Formerly of Thayer & Eldridge, the first Boston publishers of "Leaves of Grass" (1860 Edition).

[22] Jeff's daughter Jessie was originally called California.

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