Word of the Ellen Eyre Scandal Spreads Again and Walt Whitman Tells the “Whole Story”
On June 30, 1862, the Indiana State Sentinel (Indianapolis, IN) runs a story headlined “Levying Black Mail.” It begins: “Unfaithful husbands in New York are liable to be called on for unlimited amounts of money.” The rest of the story repeats no new facts.[1]
On July 2, 1862, the Council Bluffs Bugle (Council Bluffs, IA) published “Serious Charge of Swindling,” a story that reprints the New York Times report of June 20, 1862 (see above).[2]
Walt Whitman Tells the “Whole Story”
On July 8, 1862, Walt Whitman writes in a diary/notebook: “Frank Sweeney (July 8th ’62), 5th Ave. Brown face, large features, black moustache (is the one I told the whole story to about Ellen Eyre)--talks very little.”[3]
So Whitman is walking along 5th Avenue and meets a man he apparently never saw before, and each of them stops, their eyes meet, they say hello and get to talking. And perhaps Whitman mentions the recent newspaper reports of the Ellen Eyre scandal (the story of a man enticing other men into intimate physical escapades). Whitman figures, perhaps, that it's a great way to sound out his new companion's judgment about same-sex male sexual encounters.
So Whitman tells his newly made acquaintance the “whole story” about meeting Eyre at Pfaff's bohemian bar, and the next day receiving a seductive letter asking for a second meeting, and Eyre turning out to be a conman. And Sweeney apparently responds “very little.”
And then what happens? Does Whitman invite Sweeney for a drink at Pfaff's or some other bar?
All we know is that Whitman recorded telling Sweeney “the whole story” in one of the many diaries in which he wrote up his meeting with male strangers on New York's streets. The poet's diary entries are a kind of personal accounting in which Whitman takes the time to recall and document for himself and history brief (and sometimes long) encounters with other males.
One more question: Does Whitman's indication that he told the “whole story” to Sweeney imply that he told a short, abbreviated, or censored version of the story to another acquaintance?
Walt Whitman’s notebook entry of July 8, 1862, noting that Frank Sweezey “is the one I told the whole story to, about Ellen Eyre.” Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman.
Other Newspapers
The Daily Evening Bulletin of San Francisco published on July 23, 1862, “Second Letter from New York,” a report from its New York correspondent dated June 24, 1862. One section of the report is titled “A Strange Swindling Case--A Warning to Faithless Husbands.”[4] The report adds no new information and refers readers to the Sunday Mercury’s publishing of “professed copies” of the letters between Eyre and her victims.
The Cleveland and Utica articles, dated June 20 and June 21, 1862, both cite The World. So the story in The World was published a little earlier, but we have thus far not found the article in The World.
Notes
[1] “Levying Black Mail,” Indiana State Sentinel (Indianapolis), June 30, 1862, 4.
[2] “Serious Charge of Swindling,” Council Bluffs Bugle (Council Bluffs, IA), July 2, 1862, 4.
[3] Walt Whitman, Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 2:488–89.
[4] “Second Letter from New York,” Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco), July 23, 1862, 1.