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The Walt Whitman Archive

Brooklyn 24th Sept 1863

The enclosed $25 is from Joseph P. Davis ¹   making with the $25 sent you last Tuesday $50 from Jo. Now I will give you a statement of the whole affair  Last Monday I received a letter from W. S. Davis, ²   Jo's brother [at?] Worcester, Mass. saying that he had received a letter from Joe directing him to send me $70. $50 to be sent to you and $20 to be expended in buying a present for young "Joe Probasco." ³   The $25 I sent you on Tuesday I borrowed of Mr Lane ⁴   so that I might send it immediately and to day I received a check for the $70. I have paid Mr Lane the $25 and according to Jo's direction send you the remaind[er] of the $50.

Jo's brother, W. S. Davis, is a lawer, in Worcester, ⁵   with a large number of acquaintances and I think liberal. I wrote him a note acknowledging the recipt of the money and telling him that you would write him a long letter, ⁶   detailing the manner, style, &c &c of your dispensing the money (like those you used to write us)  ask him to show it to his friends and get them to give what they can and have him send it to you  He writes me that he wants you to acknowledge the receipt of the money, and also that he would much like to hear from you. I consider it an opportunity for you to make this $50 the father of 100's without in the least seeming like one asking for it

I certainly think Mother is following a mistaken notion of ecomony. ⁷   I think the only decent meals that any of them have had for three months is what they have eaten with Mat and I. As regards Mother I am perfectly willing she should live with us all [the time?] (that is to eat, I mean) but Ed and Jess I cant stand entirely. Dont understand me that they do eat with us, for they dont as much perhaps as they used to. Mother certainly does not, not as much as we wish her to, for we always call her. I notice however that when Jess does eat with us that he does not throw up his victuals. And Andrew too, his trouble comes as much from his mode of living and sleeping  His room for sleeping is without ventilation. the window is coverd with posiness tress. He has no nice little things, [or] all nourishment fixed for him to eat, such as I intended Mat should fix for him. I dont think myself that we have any thing to do with Nancy, she is able enough to make a good living both for herself and the children, if she wasnt so dam'd lazy.

Walt I wish you was home for awhile. I think you would see and think as I do. I have scribbled this to you just as I have thought for a day or two. Ruggles ⁸   says that Andrew cannot be a well man in this town, to be sure even going away may not help him, but he thinks and is almost certain that it will. I wish if you dont come on you would write me also write Andrew. Oh you dont know how down spirited he is

Jeff.

The text presented here is derived from Dennis Berthold and Kenneth Price, eds., Dear Brother Walt: The Letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1984). 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 September 24, 1863, is held in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

For more information on the letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman, see Dennis Berthold and Kenneth Price's introduction to the print edition.

1.  See Letter from Thomas Jefferson Whitman to Walt Whitman, 22 September 1863.  (Back)

2.  The lawyer William S. Davis and his brother Joseph were descendants of a distinguished Massachusetts family (Edwin Haviland Miller, ed., Walt Whitman: The Correspondence [New York: New York Univ. Press, 1961-77], Vol. I, pp. 152-53).  (Back)

3.  Probably a young son of Samuel R. Probasco, an engineer at the waterworks. See Letter from Thomas Jefferson Whitman to Walt Whitman, 13 January 1863.  (Back)

4.  See Letter from Thomas Jefferson Whitman to Walt Whitman, 13 January 1863.  (Back)

5.  Someone, probably WW, set off the first half of this sentence with virgules and underscored "W. S. Davis" and "Worcester."  (Back)

6.  WW wrote to William S. Davis on October 1, 1863 ( Correspondence , I, 152-53).  (Back)

7.  There was much ill will in the Whitman household at this time. Jeff thought that his mother's frugality was endangering the health of his brothers; the mother felt that Jeff and Mattie had themselves been stingy regarding Andrew. On September 15 (?) LVVW complained that Andrew and his wife Nancy expected her to pay their rent: "i suppose martha has told nancy i have got 2 or 3 hundred dollars in the bank  they never gave him one cents worth when he went away not even a shirt....i said to mat the other day in a joke if they had another young one they would be so stingey we wouldent know what to doo but i got the same old retort that it was me that was stingey with my bank book....i told her the other day becaus i had 2 or 3 hu dolla if i used it all i might go to the poor house" (letter to WW [Trent Collection, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University]).  (Back)

8.  See Letter from Thomas Jefferson Whitman to Walt Whitman, 2 April 1863.  (Back)

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