Walt Whitman Quarterly Review

Back Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 30, no. 1

McKay, Marylin J.

English

Walt Whitman in Canada: The Sexual Trinity of Horace Traubel and Frank and Mildred Bain

Stacy, Jason

Buinicki, Martin T. Walt Whitman's Reconstruction: Poetry and Publishing between Memory and History [review]

Walt Whitman: A Current Bibliography, Spring 2012

Folsom, Ed

Back Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 29, no. 2/3

Kurant, Wendy

"Strange fascination": Walt Whitman, Imperialism, and the South

Back Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 29, no. 4

Walt Whitman: A Current Bibliography, Fall 2011/Winter 2012

Miller, Matt

96
NOTES
WalT WhiTmaN aNd abram S. hEWiTT: a PrEviOuSly 
uNkNOWN CONNECTiON
On the inside cover of an important notebook in which Whitman drafted lines 
later used for new poems in the second edition of Leaves of Grass, the poet made 
the following  note: “hewetts pamphlet ‘on the uses of iron.’” This obscure 
reference, written in tiny, barely legible script squeezed between entries in a 
list of New york street addresses, has not been explored by Whitman scholars, 
who have naturally been more interested in the many early lines for “Sun-down 
Poem” (later “Crossing brooklyn Ferry”) and “broad-axe Poem” (later “Song 
of the broad-axe”) contained in the same notebook. 1 While researching for my 
recent book, Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass, i 
tracked down Whitman’s reference to “hewetts pamphlet,” hoping to find ma-
terial Whitman used for “Song of the broad-axe.” i eventually secured a copy 
of the “pamphlet,” which turned out to be a transcript of a paper “read before 
The american Geographical and Statistical Society” at New york university 
by abram S. hewitt on February 21, 1856.2 
hewitt’s monograph, On the Statistics and Geography of the Production of 
Iron, doesn’t contain any striking examples of Whitman’s collage-like writing 
practice of stealing or adapting text for lines, but it does contain voluminous 
examples of “uses of iron” that may have served as general fodder for “broad-
axe Poem,” as well as rhapsodic praise for iron and for the iron industry that 
recalls Whitman’s own paean. mainly, however, hewitt’s paper is a statistical 
analysis of international iron production, a prediction for the iron industry’s 
future proliferation in the united States, and a defense against proposed tariffs 
on iron then being considered in Congress. his overall thesis seems to be that 
the growth of the iron industry occurs concordantly with overall growth of a 
civilization. most interesting is the text’s conclusion, where, after acknowledg-
ing that “the iron business has not been a successful and profitable branch of 
industry in this country, if measured by the rewards it has brought to those 
who have carried it on,” hewitt offers consolation to unprofitable ironmasters 
by quoting an “eccentric,” unnamed poet: 
have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
i also say it is good to fail—battles are lost in the same spirit as they are won.
i sound triumphal drums for the dead—i fling through my embouchures the loudest 
and gayest music to them—
vivas to those who have failed, and to those whose war vessels sank in the sea,
and to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes, and the  
numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known. (35-36)
97
These lines, an inexact excerpt from the poem eventually entitled “Song of 
myself,” reveal that hewitt must have read Whitman prior to composing the 
text for this speech and was impressed enough to include his poetry in his first 
major public lecture, which also became his first published monograph. There 
are a number of fascinating implications to this for Whitman scholarship and 
nineteenth-century literary history—some speculative, some definite. For one, 
Whitman’s reference to hewitt in the “George Walker” notebook indicates the 
notebook was still in use after hewitt’s pamphlet was published in 1856, which 
helps to date to notebook’s contents.3 it is also further evidence that Whitman’s 
writing process was often informed by research.  indeed, on the bottom of the 
same leaf, Whitman lists other sources that might have served as material for his 
lines and references, including a “map of mountains & rivers,” that apparently 
was available “wholesale” for “90 cts” at a store on Nassau Street; a vaguely 
described “map of the world”; and a publication Whitman referred to as “The 
world’s standards & costumes / charts [writing illegible] sheets.” 
Perhaps more interesting, however, is the fact that someone like abram 
S. hewitt would quote Whitman at all, especially as early as February of 1856. 
Today, hewitt is remembered as a former mayor of New york City (sometimes 
referred to as the “father of the New york subway system”), a u.S. Congressman, 
and as a long-time steward of the board of trustees for the Cooper union in 
manhattan.4 in 1856, he was none of these things, but he was already a highly 
successful entrepreneur, running one of the country’s largest iron manufacturing 
plants in Trenton, New Jersey. he had also co-founded The american Telegraph 
Company along with others including telegraph and morse code co-inventor 
Samuel F. b. morse.5 as the close confidant, business partner, and recently 
betrothed son-in-law of Peter Cooper, hewitt was also a part of one of New 
york’s wealthiest and most important families.6 in short, when hewitt quoted 
Whitman to his lecture audience in 1856, hewitt was already entrenched in the 
very highest echelon of New york City’s financial and cultural elite. Further-
more, according to hewitt’s biographer, Peter Cooper himself was an official 
member of the society to which hewitt delivered his address, and Cooper likely 
attended the lecture and heard hewitt quote from Leaves of Grass—a book 
that had been in print for less than seven months.7 as far as i have been able 
to determine, this is the first time someone used Whitman’s lines in print for a 
purpose besides a book review. 
This shows that Leaves of Grass was successful in securing some rather im-
portant readers for its early audience, and not all of them were directly solicited, 
like Emerson.8 Certainly, the first edition of Leaves of Grass was more successful 
than Whitman indicated it was later in his career, when he was fond of portray-
ing himself, as so many other writers have portrayed themselves (legitimately 
or not), as neglected and beleaguered. That someone like abram S. hewitt was 
reading Whitman and was struck by him enough to quote him before a gathering 
of some of the most powerful and important men in New york demonstrates 
the range of Whitman’s early appeal as a poet. very shortly after publishing his 
first book of poetry, he found an audience in perhaps the single most important 
taste-maker of the day in Emerson, as well as in the elite financial and political 
leaders of New york City, as exemplified by hewitt and Cooper. hewitt’s use 
of lines from “Song of myself” adds to a growing body of evidence, including 
98
the recently discovered daguerreotype of a young woman proudly displaying 
her copy of the 1856 edition,9 that Leaves of Grass was as successful of a first 
book of experimental poetry as could have plausibly been hoped.10
hewitt’s quote itself, which differs in many ways from the way the poem 
was published in the first edition, is also interesting, as it contains many changes 
from the only previously published version—so many that these differences do 
not seem accidental. Whitman’s ellipses within lines, so prevalent in the first 
edition, have been replaced with em-dashes or commas, as they would be in the 
second edition of Leaves of Grass—only the second edition of Leaves of Grass had 
not yet been published. in the second quoted line “fail” has been substituted 
for “fall,” and “as they” has replaced “in which they.” most striking of all, an 
entire phrase, “and those themselves who sank into the sea,” has been omitted 
from the fourth quoted line. as far as the known record shows, no version of 
these lines was ever published by Whitman that matches hewitt’s quotation, 
which begs the question of how the lines came to be the way they are in hewitt’s 
monograph on iron. it is possible that hewitt simply misquoted Whitman, and 
the changes are accidental. if so, this would be quite out of character. known 
as a meticulous man, hewitt (who frequently quoted literary figures he ad-
mired) did not misquote virgil, Shakespeare, Whittier, William Cullen bryant, 
or Samuel Johnson when he cited them elsewhere in his published writing.11 it 
seems doubtful that changes this significant were accidental.
Was hewitt trying to improve upon the novice poet he was quoting by edit-
ing a few things for an audience he could be confident wouldn’t notice? Was he 
quoting from a review or publication in journalism that has now been lost? did 
he hear Whitman read from his work somewhere and attempt to write the lines 
down? had he received an alternate version from the poet himself? Pending 
further evidence, we can only guess at the answers to such questions. One thing 
we can be sure of is that within seven months, Whitman’s poetry had already 
penetrated to one of the most respected halls of academia, receiving immediate 
audience with the professors and capitalists that his lines famously scorned.
Yeshiva University           Matt Miller
NOTES
1 The notebook, referred to by scholars as the “Crossing brooklyn Ferry Notebook” 
or “George Walker” (the first legible words therein), is located in the Feinberg Collec-
tion at the library of Congress (item number 697). a transcription is available in Walt 
Whitman, Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier (New york: 
New york university Press, 1984), 1:226, 233.
2 abram S. hewitt, On the Statistics and Geography of the Production of Iron (New york: 
W.C. bryant & Co., 1856), 3.
3 i have been unable to determine the exact date of publication for hewitt’s paper, 
though it must have been long enough after the speech was originally given on Febru-
ary 21, 1856, to allow for publication time and before december, 1856, when a revised 
version (which did not contain the Whitman excerpt) was published by DeBow’s Review. 
See abram S. hewitt, “Statistics and Geography on the Production of iron,” Debow’s 
Review 21 (1856), 578-589. 
99
4 “abram S. hewitt,” The Encyclopedia of New York City, Second Edition, ed. kenneth 
T. Jackson (New haven, CT: yale university Press, 2010), 594.
5 Edwin G. burrows and mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York to 1898 (New 
york: Oxford university Press, 1999), 662, 775.
6 Edward C. mack, Peter Cooper: Citizen of New York (New york: duel, Sloan and 
Pearce, 1949), 174.
7 allan Nevins, Abram S. Hewitt: With Some Account of Peter Cooper (New york: harper 
and brothers, 1935), 138-139.
8 The fact that Whitman misspelled hewitt’s name and did not refer to him in any 
known correspondence suggests they were not acquainted, nor is there evidence the poet 
reached out to hewitt as he did with Emerson. and why would he, especially in 1855, 
when hewitt was only known, if he was known at all, as a talented entrepreneur in the 
iron industry and lucky husband of amelia Cooper?
9 Ed Folsom, “The Sesquicentennial of the 1856 Leaves of Grass: a daguerreotype of 
a Woman reader,” Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 24 (Summer 2006), 33-34.
10 The fact that Whitman had published a handful of immature poems over seven 
years earlier in various local newspapers hardly explains the immediate success of Leaves 
of Grass.
11 abram S. hewitt, Selected Writings of Abram S. Hewitt (New york: Columbia uni-
versity Press, 1937), 13, 224, 296, 311, 320.
a rECENTly diSCOvErEd PhOTOGraPh OF FrEd Gray
The photograph of Walt Whitman’s comrade John Frederick Schiller Gray 
(Fred Gray), first published in a volume of Civil War reminiscences and repro-
duced here, is a previously unknown image of Gray, a college student turned 
union soldier whom the poet met at Pfaff’s beer cellar in New york during the 
summer of 1862, a few months before Gray enlisted. Whitman spent nearly 
every evening with the young man at Pfaff’s, forming lasting comradeships 
with Gray and the other members of a group of educated and well-traveled 
bachelors that the poet called the “Fred Gray association.”1  before beginning 
his military service, Gray gave Whitman a prized copy of Frederic hedge’s 
Prose Writers of Germany as a parting gift. inside this volume, the poet kept two 
card photographs of Gray in his military uniform—one of which was dated 
September 3, 1862, only three days before Gray was mustered into service as 
a second lieutenant in the Twentieth New york infantry volunteers.2  These 
photographs, which Whitman carefully preserved, were the only known extant 
images of Gray until my recent discovery of this picture of the twenty-two-
year-old soldier during his time on the staff of major-General John Ellis Wool.
This photograph of Gray, along with another image showing the remain-
ing members of Wool’s personal staff, was published in an 1895 book entitled 
Personal Reminiscences of the Rebellion, 1861-1866 by le Grand bouton Can-
non.3  When he was eighty years old, Cannon, who had been a capitalist and 
a “director in numerous banking and industrial corporations,” set to work 


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