Peter Doyle

Peter Doyle was a good friend of Whitmans.  The two developed their relationship into something erotic or romantic, which is celebrated in the "Calamus" poems Whitman published in 1860.  Over the long course of their friendship, the two also exchanged letters that are considered to be "invaluable reference points for the student seeking to understand Whitman's emotional and sexual nature".  Although Doyle was born in Limerick Ireland in 1843, he came to the American South and became a Confederate soldier but despite joining the Confederacy, there is the possibility that Doyle was for abolishing slavery seeing as how he was very influenced by Whitman on a very personal level.  After Whitman's death, Peter Doyle gave the letters to Richard Maurice Bucke who edited and published it in 1897.