Peter Doyle
(? - ?) U.S.A.
Streetcar conductor
Irish-American horsecar driver who had an 8-year relationship with poet Walt Whitman; unfortunately, Doyle never really understood or appreciated Whitman's poetry, describing Leaves of Grass as "a great mass of crazy talk" ; in an 1895 interview, Doyle describes how he first met Whitman in 1865:
"The night was very stormy... the storm was awful. Walt has his blanket - it was thrown round his shoulders - he seemed like an old sea captain. He was the only passenger, it was a lonely night, so I thought I would go in and talk with him. Something in me made me do it and something in him drew me that way. He used to say there was something in me had the same effect on him. Anyway, I went into the car. We were familiar at once - I put my hand on his knee - we understood."
Doyle was actually in the audience at Ford's Theater the evening that President Lincoln was assassinated, April 14th, 1865, and he was able to give Whitman a first-hand account, information which was later included in his poems.
Quote source: http://www.lambda.net/~maximum/whitman.html
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