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Correspondence
Letter from George Washington Whitman to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, 2 October 1864 1
Petersburg Va
Oct 2d/64
Dear Mother,
Here I am perfectly well and unhurt, but a prisoner. I was captured day before yesterday with Major Wright, 2 Lieuts Pooley, 3 Cauldwell, 4 Ackerson, 5 Sims, 6 and nearly the entire Regt. that was not killed or wounded Lieut Butler 7 was badly wounded I am in tip top health and Spirits, and am as tough as a mule and shall get along first rate, Mother please dont worry and all will be right in time if you will not worry I wish Walt, or Jeff would write to Lieut. Babcock 8 of our Regt (who is with the Regt) and tell him to send my things home by express, as I should be very sorry to lose them. 9
G. W. Whitman
Lieut Pooley is here and unhurt.
About the Text
The text presented here is derived from Jerome M. Loving, ed., The Civil War Letters of George Washington Whitman (Durham, North Carolina: Duke State University Press, 1975). For a detailed description of discrepancies between this electronic edition and the print source, see our statement of editorial policy .
The manuscript of this letter, dated October 2, 1864, is held in the Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library .
For more information on the letters of George Washington Whitman, see Jerome M. Loving's introduction to the print edition.
Notes
1. George Whitman was captured on September 30, 1864, at Poplar Grove Church, Virginia. Almost the entire Fifty-First New York Regiment was lost in killed (2), wounded (10), and captured or missing (332). Also suffering severe losses in captured or missing was the Forty-Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment (see Letter from George Washington Whitman to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, 9 August 1864). Both regiments, along with the Thirty-Fifth and Fifty-Eighth Massachusetts regiments, suffered heavy reduction in ranks when, as the first line of defense in the battle near Pegram house, they were cut off from the other half of their outfit—the First Brigade of the Second Division in the Ninth Army—commanded by Colonel John I. Curtin. (Back)
2. John G. Wright. (Back)
3. Samuel M. Pooley. (Back)
4. William C. Caldwell; see the Introduction, p. 21. (Back)
5. William T. Ackerson; see Letter from George Washington Whitman to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, 21 September 1862. (Back)
6. Palin H. Sims. (Back)
7. Frank Butler was killed in action, September 30, 1864. (Back)
8. William E. Babcock. (Back)
9. In his diary for December 26, 1864, Walt Whitman noted that George's trunk had arrived in Brooklyn that day (Manuscripts of Walt Whitman in the Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; reprinted in Walt Whitman's "Memoranda During the War" and "Death of Abraham Lincoln" [1962], edited by Roy P. Basler, p. 16). See Jerome M. Loving's Introduction and Civil War Diary. (Back)
Whitman Archive ID
duk.00363