Prior to the American Civil War, Captain Samuel Whiting was 'prostrated' at the port of New Orleans 'with a severe attack of Yellow Fever'. He was nursed back to health by the Sisters of Charity in New Orleans. Years later he expressed his thanks to the sisters of the same order in Cleveland by donating an engraving of Constant Mayer's painting Consolation together with a poem he had written 'descriptive of the scene' in the painting. The poem appears in the Freeman's Journal as part of an article reproduced from the Cleveland Herald, 13 November 1867.