Antiques Roadshow guest's eyes roll at 'wild' value of a tragic Walt Whitman letter

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.

An Antiques Roadshow guest labelled the appraisal of a poet Walt Whitman letter on behalf of her ancestor as "wild".

Expert Ken Gloss was on hand to value treasured and unusual items brought in for the filming of the PBS daytime show, and came across an interesting but tragic letter from 1863.

Explaining its provenance, the guest said: "It was written by Walt Whitman to my mum's great-great-great-grandfather.

"Walt Whitman would go around, as I understand, and would be the scribe for injured soldiers in Washington DC during the Civil War.

"This young man was a foster child in that family. The letter has been in my family all along, it sat in a closet for years and years and I'd like to know more about it.

"I did see that the date on it is the 12th and the young man who it was being written for, died just about 10 days later so it's kind of sad, too."

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Gloss went on to comment how it wasn't uncommon for other people to physically write letters on behalf of injured and sick soldiers in hospital, shortly after coming off the battlefield.

"Now Walt Whitman, he had a brother in the Civil War and the brother got wounded", the expert said.

"Walt Whitman went down to find his brother, to see how he was.
"Found him alive, fortunately but in the trip, he saw the amputations, the wounding, he saw the destruction, and he immediately wanted to help.

"One of the things he did was, soldiers who were too sick to write home, he would sit there and write letters for them.

"They would transcribe it, give him his thoughts, maybe he helped with the language."

The letter in question was signed by an Albion Hubbard but at the bottom it read: "Written by Walt Whitman, a friend."

Gloss continued: "And you see, this is all in Walt Whitman's handwriting. It's not just the front but it's a longer letter.

"He's talking about: 'Please...family, please write to me, I miss you, write me long letters.'

"And then, what really adds to the tragedy is he says: 'My diarrhea is still somewhat troublesome, yet I feel in pretty good spirits.' It didn't get better and he died within two weeks."

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It was then time for the expert to summarise and give a valuation that the guest didn't expect.

"Walt Whitman letters are great when he's talking about literature but I did a lot of checking and I didn't find hardly any letters that he wrote for the patients.

"He obviously did a lot but people weren't necessarily saving them, because they weren't Walt Whitman letters per se, they were the family.

"I would say that a collector would easily pay in the $8,000 to $12,000 retail range."

When Gloss relayed the figure, the guest's eyes rolled to the back of her head as she exclaimed: "Oh my gosh. That's wild. I never would have thought that."

Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on PBS.