17
had all embarked on one boat, when Haney insisted on the party
dividing. I followed and Cahill followed me. Then Haney found
me fencing with my stick with a man, who had a gun, on the ferry
dock. He says the fellow appeared a little excited and remarked
I m an ugly boy when I get started. Presently I was on the ferry
boat at the further end when so they tell me a man came up to
and asked Do you know what you said to me? Upon which
I began instantly to pull off my coat, gave my stick to Cahill and
made a violent blow at the interrogator and fell down perfectly
helpless, with the impetus of the action. And then he began to kick
me about the head and face, savagely. I was so powerless, from
liquor that I could only hold my hands before my face, trying in
a faint way to shield it from the blows. I fancy too he tried to
gouge me, which my cuts corroborate. Meantime it seems Haney
had advanced to the rescue, and was fighting a couple of rounds
with others of my assailants party. There were three or five
of them accounts differ; but incline to the latter number.
I was up again somehow and sparring and down again. Whether
I got kicked this time I don t know likely enough. My
next recollection is connected with a car. I was standing on
the end, partly supported by Cahill, catching a glimpse of women
in hi side looking scared and terrified at my face which
was covered with blood. How I got to Bleecker Street I can
never tell. I remember rising four times in the night to
wash and rewash my face, filling the basin with blood,
drinking from the ewer, finding the pillow all dotted and
the like. The other fellows, after their boat had started
heard the noise of the fight and were impatient not to be present.
After taking O Brien, who was very drunk to Davenport s, in
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Nine: page twenty-six |
| Description: | Describes drunkenly returning to New York from a picnic at Hoboken with other New York artists and journalists. |
| Date: | 1857-11-03 |
| Subject: | Bohemians; Cahill, Frank; Drunkenness; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Haney, Jesse; O'Brien, Fitz James |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Coverage (Street): | Bleecker Street |
| Scan Date: | 2011-02-02 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Nine |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of boardinghouse living, a picnic at Hoboken with other New York artists and journalists, his drawing and writing work in New York, attending a lecture by Lola Montez, visits to James Parton and Fanny Fern and the Edwards family, a controversy over Fitz James O'Brien's story ''The Diamond Lens,'' artist Sol Eytinge's relationship with writer Allie Vernon, the suicide of writer Henry William Herbert, antics of the New York Bohemians, the interest of people living in his boarding house in spiritualism, a visit to his friend George Bolton's farm in Canada, a visit to Niagara Falls, and a scandal involving Harbormaster Willis Patten, who lives in his boarding house. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Farms; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Publishers and publishing; Suicide; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Rochester, New York; Elmira, New York; Paris, Ontario, Canada |
| Note: | Thomas Butler Gunn was born February 15, 1826, in Banbury, England, and came to New York in 1849. During the Civil War he worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He returned to England in 1863, and died in Birmingham in April 1903. The collection includes twenty-one volumes of his diaries, including newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and various other items inserted by Gunn. Diary entries date from July 7, 1849, to April 7, 1863, and include his experiences with the New York publishing and literary world, his descriptions of boarding houses, his travels throughout the United States, and his experiences traveling with the Federal army as a Civil War correspondent. |
| Publisher: | Missouri History Museum |
| Rights: | Copyright 2011 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
