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

A Bibliography and Timeline on the Occasion of the Civil War Sesquicentennial

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Timeline

1861. April 18

Six days after Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumpter and initiated 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 the following letter addressed to him at Pfaff’s, the bar on the corner of Bleeker Street and Broadway.

Tuesday Mar 25 1862

Walt Whitman

My dear Mr. Whitman

I fear you took me last night for a female privateer. It's true that I was sailing under false colors.—But the flag I assure you covered nothing piratical—although I would joyfully have made your heart a captive.

Women have an unequal chance in this world. Men are its monarchs, and "full many a rose is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness in the desert air." 2

Such I was resolved should not be the fate of this fancy I had long nourished for you.—A gold mine may be found by the Divining Rod but there is no such instrument for detecting in the crowded streets of a great city the [unknown?] mine of latent affection a man may have unconsciously inspired in a woman's heart. I make these explanations in extenuation not by way of apology. My social position enjoins precaution & mystery, and perhaps the enjoyment of my friend's society is heightened which in yielding to its fascination I preserve my incognito; yet mystery lends an ineffable charm to love and when a woman is bent upon the gratification of her inclinations—She is pardonable if she still spreads the veil of decorum over her actions. Hypocrisy is said to be "the homage which sin pays to virtue," and yet I can see no vice in that generous sympathy with which we share our caprices with those who have inspired us with tenderness,—

I trust you will think well enough of me soon to renew the pleasure you afforded me last P.M., and I therefore write to remind you that there is a sensible head as well as a sympathetic heart, both of which would gladly evolve wit & warmth for your direction & comfort.—You have already my whereabouts & my hours—It shall only depend upon you to make them yours and me the happiest of women.

I am always

Yours sincerely,

Ellen Eyre

Scholars have long argued about the true identity of Ellen Eyre, many of them assuming that the writer was a female. But in 2009, Ted Genoways provided evidence that Eyre was a man. A note on the website of the Whitman Archive explains:

"Ellen Eyre" was one of conman William Kinney's various pseudonyms. In 1862 Kinney managed to establish a fraudulent medical practice on Broadway between 8th and 9th under the name "Dr. B. Coffin." Running his scam as Dr. Coffin during the day, Kinney's evenings were spent posing as "Mrs. Ellen Eyre." As Eyre, Kinney would send letters to prominent men in New York; the men would agree to meet Eyre at the time and place appointed by her in the letter. As Ted Genoways notes, "What exactly transpired thereafter is veiled in niceties of the period, but the letters from several suitors, published later in the Sunday Mercury, are highly suggestive. One invited Eyre for some 'twilight entertainment,' another thanked her for 'your "loving kindness" at our last meeting.' One man, offended at being asked for money, wrote that he never considered 'our tender relations in the light of a financial operation.'" Kinney was eventually arrested after a sting operation exposed Ellen Eyre's true identity: Kinney performing sexual favors dressed as a woman and later blackmailing men to keep the affair discrete.

Eyre's interest in Whitman (and Whitman's interest in Eyre) remains unclear. Genoways summarizes some of the questions raised by Whitman and Eyre's encounter: "Is 'Ellen Eyre' attempting to elicit an admission from Whitman that he saw through the disguise, or is the young conman intent on extending his deception? If the latter, how complete could the deception have been? If Whitman clearly recognized his attire as a disguise, did he also recognize that 'Ellen Eyre' was attempting to disguise not just his identity but his gender? Was Whitman's interest, in other words, in the young woman 'Ellen Eyre' or the young man who arrived at Pfaff's under the shadowy light of the cellar's torches in the garb of a woman?" See Genoways, 154–159.

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 recorded, "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 Forty-fourth Street: "told me he had never been in a fight and did not drink at all." Spencer had joined the Second 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 recorded: "slept with me."

1862, August 24

The history of the Civil War includes "individuals who defy classification, like this one from a Pennsylvania muster roll: 'Sgt. Frank Mayne; deserted Aug. 24, 1862; subsequently killed in battle in another regiment, and discovered to be a woman; real name, Frances Day.'”

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 left 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."

1863

General Philip H. Sheridan: Two she-dragoons in the Union Army, 1863

1863, July 25

Fincher's Trades Review: An Advocate of the Rigihts of the Producing Classes, publishes "A Curious Married Couple," discussing the "Thirty-four years of pretended matrimony" of Mary East/James How and her "wife."

To be continued.

Bibliography

Blanton, De Anne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook. They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War. Paperback: Vintage, September 9, 2003. ISBN-10: 1400033152, ISBN-13: 978-1400033157

Genoways, Ted. Walt Whitman and the Civil War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

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

Notes

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