150th Anniversary of the American Civil War: 2011-2015

A Bibliography and Timeline on Sex and Intimacy Between Men on the Occasion of the Civil War Sesquicentennial

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Timeline

1861. April 18

Six days after Conferate forced fired on Fort Sumpter and iniiated the Civil War, Walt Whitmann vowed in his diary to initiate a new bodily regime: "To inaugurate for (myself) a (pure) (perfect) sweet, cleanblooded (robust) body by ignoring all drinks (but) water and pure milk -- and all fat meats [and] late suppers -- a great body -- [a] purged, cleansed, spirtualized invigorated body."

1862, March 25

On March 25, 1862, Walt Whitman received a letter addressed to him at Pfaff’s and signed by "Ellen Eyre." The signature "Ellen Eyre" has long been thought to be the assumed name of an unknown female writer. The note reads as a love letter to the poet from a woman who knows him quite well. Some historians have taken the letter to be evidence of a romantic tryst between Whitman and one of several candidates from the Bohemian circle and New York theatrical communities. Yet others have claimed that the letter is written to Whitman in a code of sorts. What seems, at first glance, to be flirtatious may have been simply an invitation to Whitman to visit the writer at her home.... C. Carroll Hollis presents a compelling argument that identifies Ellen Grey as the writer, citing that she may have known Whitman when they were both living in Brooklyn. He notes that her picture was found displayed among Whitman’s belongings at his home in Camden at the time of his death (24-26).

1862, date to be added

Walt Whitman's diary records that he discussed Eyre with one of the strangers (all men) he picked up in New York City's streets: Frank Sweezey -- brown face, large features, black mustache (is the one I told the whole story to about Ellen Eyre." The "whole story" of Eyre, recounted by the talkative Whitman, created a shared intimacy between himself and Sweezey, who, Whitman recored, "talks little." Sharing the "whole" Eyre story only with Sweezey, apparently, Whitman made this passing stranger a confidant. Once again, a woman cemented the intimacy between men. Whitman's telling Sweezey a tale of romantic or sexual adventure with a woman may well have been his way of raising the subject of sex with this working man and stimulating his erotic imagination."

1862, May 29

Walt Whitman's diary tersely records his meeting the "rather feminine" Daniel Spencer, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fort0fourth Street: "told me he had never been in a fight and did not drink at all." Spencer had joined the Secondd New York Light Artillery, deserted, and then returned to his regiment. Three months after Whitman's and Spencer's first meeting, beside the date "Sept 3d," in the margin of his diary, the poet recored: "slept with me."

1862, October 11

Walt Whitman recorded a Brooklyn, NY, meeting, on a Saturday, with "David Wilson -- night of Oct. 11, '62, walking up from Middagh -- slept with me -- works in blacksmith shop in Navy Yard -- lives in Hamoden st. -- walks together Sunday Afternoon &c night -- is about 19." In this case Whitman was definitely not just providing a homeless young man a place to stay for a night, for Wilson "lives in Hampden st.," within easy walking distance of Middagh, where they met.

1862, October 22

Walt Whitman's diary records his meeting with Horace Ostrander, "about 28 yr's of age," from Otsego County, New York, sixty miles west of Albany. Ostrander "was in the hospital" visiting a friend. Ostrander told the poet that, when he was about twenty-one, in about 1855, he had sailed "on a voyage to Liverpool" and related "his experiences as a greenhand." (Herman Melvile's novel, Redburn, the tale of a young American's virgin sail to Liverpool, inlcudes hints of various exual encoutners, which may suggest some of the experiences Ostranger shared with Whitman. Whitman met Ostranger again on November 22, and a few weeks later reported: "slept with him Dec. 4th '62."

1862, December 16

Walt Whitman and his family read a newspaper report suggesting that brother George Washington Whitman, a Union solder, had been wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg. Whitman immediately leaves Brooklyn for the South, to try to locate and aid his sibling. After locating George and finding his wound safely healing, Whitman stayed in the South, dedicating himself to wartime volunteer work, visiting hospitals and comforting wounded soldiers.

1862, December 22 At the Lacy House, an army hostpital in Virginia, one of the first sights Walt Whitman encountered, "at the foot of a tree, immediately in front," was "a heap" of amputated :feet, legs, arms, and human fragments, cut, bloody, black and blue, swelled and sickinging." In the garden near," he saw "a row of graves . . . a long row of them."

To be continued.

Bibliography

Katz, Jonathan Ned. Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).