Peter Doyle

Peter Doyle was, essentially, Walt Whitman's boyfriend. He was born in Ireland, and came to American around age 8. He and the surviving members of his family lived in Virginia, where Doyle eventually became a blacksmith. He was a member of the Fayette Artillery and eventually joined the Confederate Army (though he was ultimately injured and discharged). He later worked for the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company as a horsecar conductor. This is how he met Whitman. Doyle and Whitman were opposites in terms of education and physical attributes, but he represents the working man that Whitman spends much of his poems writing about. Doyle was present at Ford's Theater for Abraham Lincoln's assassination, and it is clear that his eyewitness account influenced Whitman's poetry.