Walt Whitman experienced the agonies of the Civil War as a dedicated volunteer throughout the conflict in Washington’s overcrowded, understaffed military hospitals. This superb collection of his poems, letters, and prose from the war years, filled with the sights and sounds of war and its ugly aftermath, expresses a vast and powerful range of emotions.
Among the poems include here, first published in Drum-Taps (1865) and Sequel to Drum-Taps (1866), are a number of Whitman’s most famous works: ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ ‘The Wound-Dresser, ‘ ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, ‘ and ‘Come Up from the Fields, Father.’ The letters and prose selections—including Whitman’s musings on the publication of his works and the wounded men he tended as well as his impressions of President Abraham Lincoln traveling around Washington—offer keen insights into an extraordinary era in American history.
Table of Content
Poems from Leaves of Grass‘FROM THE SECTION ‘DRUM-TAPS’ ‘
First O Songs for a Prelude (DT)
Eighteen Sixty-One (DT)
Beat! Beat! Drums (DT)
From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird (DT)
Song of the Banner at Daybreak (DT)
Virginia – The West
Cavalry Crossing a Ford (DT)
Bivouac on a Mountain Side (DT)
An Army Corps on the March (SDT)
By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame (DT)
Come Up from the Fields Father (DT)
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night (DT)
‘A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown (DT) ‘
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim (DT)
As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods (DT)
Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me (DT)
The Wound-Dresser (DT)
‘Long, Too Long America (DT) ‘
Dirge for Two Veterans (SDT)
Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice (DT)
The Artilleryman’s Vision (DT)
Race of Veterans (SOT)
O Tan-Faced Prairie Boy (DT)
Look down Fair Moon (DT)
Reconciliation (SDT)
To a Certain Civilian (DT)
Spirit Whose Work Is Done (SDT)
To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod (SDT)
‘FROM THE SECTION ‘MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN’
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (SDT)
O Captain! My Captain! (SDT)
Hush’d Be the Camps To-Day (DT)
This Dust Was Once the Man
‘FROM THE SECTION ‘WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH’
Quicksand Years (DT)
‘FROM THE SECTION ‘FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT’
Old War-Dreams (SDT)
‘FROM THE SECTION ‘SONGS OF PARTING’
Ashes of Soldiers (DT)
Pensive on Her Dead Gazing (DT)
Camps of Green (DT)
Poems Not Included in the 1891-92 Leaves of Grass
Bathed in War’s Perfume (DT)
‘Solid, Ironical, Rolling Orb (DT)’
Selections from Memoranda during the War (1875-76)
Selected Letters
‘To Mrs. Louisa Whitman, December 29, 1862’
‘To Nat Bloom and Fred Gray, March 19, 1863’
‘To Mrs. Louisa Whitman, June 30, 1863’
‘To Hugo Fritsch, [October 8, 1863]’
‘To Julia Elizabeth Stilwell, [October 21, 1863]’
‘To Lewis Kirk Brown and Hospital Comrades, November 8, 1863’
‘To Elijah [Douglass] Fox, November 21, 1863’
‘To Mrs. Louisa Whitman, April 26, 1864’
‘To Mrs. Louisa Whitman, June 14, 1864’
‘To Mrs. Louisa Whitman, June 17, 1864’
‘To Charles W. Eldrige, October 8, 1864’
‘To William D. O’Connor, January 6, 1865’
‘To Mrs. Irwin, [May 1865]’
‘To Mrs. Louisa Whitman, May 25, 1865’
Alphabetical List of Poem Titles
Alphabetical List of Poem First Lines
About the author
One of America’s most influential and innovative poets, Walt Whitman (1819–92) worked as a teacher, journalist, and volunteer nurse during the Civil War. Proclaimed as the nation’s first ‘poet of democracy, ‘ Whitman reached out to common readers and opposed censorship with his overt celebrations of sexuality.
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