Check it out: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1958281497/

There are a few questions on the syllabus for next week, and here are a few more you might consider about the poets you read:

• How does W’s vision of democracy become reincarnated or altered in these poets?  How are their political purposes similar to or at odds with W’s?
• What, if any, is the relationship between their political goals and their use of poetic form?

On a different topic, the projects info page has some updated information about oral presentations.

The Vault is now open for business with a very thought-provoking prompt about the Levi’s ads (and a shout out to Dr. Earnhart!).  Hope you can find time to contribute.  (Live link if you click open this post.)

Walt + Pete

Whitman in Camden house, 1891 (is he wearing my academic robes?):

Whitman's filing system, Camden

Ford's Theater where Lincoln was shot (in rare non-rainy moment)

When we went into the actual theater (or, in some of my students’ cases, the napping room–shame on you!), I was disappointed at first that the guard ushered me upstairs since the downstairs was full.  But in the balcony I realized I was actually at eye level with Lincoln’s box, shown below.  Both Lincoln and Booth made their way through the crowded balcony that night; the door Booth entered and jammed shut is just to the right of what I captured on this photo.  The theater is very intimate, and the box is really hanging over stage left.  I had real chills when the ranger was narrating the events of April 1865.

Presidental box, Ford's Theater (image of Washington in center frame)

Afterward we toured the Peterson House where Lincoln actually died– such a small, nondescript room with a sloped ceiling and bed so short (the real one is in Chicago, but the replica) that Lincoln had to lie diagonally while they waited for his heart to stop; he was brain dead pretty much instantly after being shot.

At the Library of Congress, Barbara Bair had set out three different tickets to Whitman’s Lincoln lecture, an advertising poster for it, and the text Whitman used for the lecture, which was a novel into which he had glued written bits, parts of his published works, annotations, etc.

Tickets to W's Lincoln lectures

Advertisement with our heroes side by side

The pasted-up text of W's Lincoln lecture (wish that was my hand!)

Digital Whitman can attest that I am probably a little–well, over-invested in Lincoln.  But these artifacts, though not as personal as some others we saw, were indeed very moving to me.

]]> http://marywash.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/11/01/o-lincoln-my-lincoln/feed/ 0 http://chelseanewnam.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/11/01/chelsea-for-november-3/ http://chelseanewnam.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/11/01/chelsea-for-november-3/#respond Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:00:47 +0000 http://chelseanewnam.lookingforwhitman.org/?p=64 All right, this post might be a bit of a stretch, but bear with me on some ideas I had/have about a difference between the 1855 Leaves of Grass and the 1892 Leaves of Grass, particularly in nuances between the two versions of “Song of Myself.”  In the 1855 version of this poem, Whitman names the months and days just as we would name them today: January and February and March, Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, etc.  However, in the 1892 version, Whitman rejects the use of these common names and instead replaces them with First-month, Second-month, First-day, Second-day, and so on.  In no place in the 1892 version of “Song of Myself” can be located the actual name of a month or day.

After noticing this, I started to poke around about the etymology and history of the months and days.  Although it seems that much is unknown about the history of these names, the most well-accepted origin and explanation is that the calendar as well as these divisions was established by the late Roman Empire, furthered by the Christian church, and widely assimilated into standardized use by the British Empire.  The days were originally named after Greek (and later substituted for Roman) gods.  Later, Germanic groups substituted similar gods for the Roman gods until the list became something like, Sun’s day, Moon’s day, Tiu’s day, Woden’s day, Thor’s day, Freya’s day, and Saturn’s day.  The Christian church maintained and encouraged the division of the seven day week as biblically, God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, the Jewish holy day the Sabbath, which is observed on Saturday. 

As for the months of the year, the calendar used today is often referred to as the “Christian calendar” although it was developed in pre-Christian Rome.  There are two main versions of the Christian calendar: the Julian and the Gregorian calendars.  Before this, the original Roman calendar had ten months: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December.  The second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, added January, or Januarius, and February or Februarius around 700 BCE.  The names January, March, April, May, and June were, like the days of the week, developed from the names of gods.  The names of the other months developed as follows: February stems from Februa, the Roman festival of purification, July, which Julius Caesar named after himself, August, which Augustus Caesar named after himself, and September, October, and December which (less creatively) simply mean seventh month, eighth month, ninth month, and tenth month, after their original placements on the Roman calendar. 

Head spinning yet? Good, mine too.  Now, for where I’m going with all of this; I find it fascinating that Whitman would reject the use of these common names in his final version of “Song of Myself.”  Perhaps I’m overanalyzing the heck out of this, but I feel that if I am right about this conscious effort to change the names, a probable motive could be Whitman’s attempt to wipe the slate clean of all history that America took from Europe, even something as seemingly mundane as day and month names.  It could also be a try at truly encouraging religious freedom.  By rejecting the use of one historical religion (whether the polytheistic Roman faith or the monotheistic Christian one) as a governance over society in any way, even in a mere commonly assimilated set of names, Whitman opens the door wide to a nation of true religious tolerance.  In naming the days and months by numbers instead of by gods or by Christian systems, Whitman is sets at accomplishing this little by little.  

Furthermore, God seems to play a very different role for Whitman in the 1892 version and thereby furthers my argument that Whitman is truly attempting widespread religious freedom.  In many of the places where God was aiding Whitman in the 1855 version, He is either completely removed or replaced by something or someone else.  For instance, in the 1855 “Song of Myself,” Whitman writes, “As God comes a loving bedfellow and sleeps at my side all night and close on the peep of the day,” (29) but in 1892 the passage is altered to, “As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread” (191).  Similarly in 1855 he writes, “I visit the orchards of God and look at the spheric product” (63) and in 1892, “I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product.”  Removing God in these ways, as well as reshaping Him throughout the text allows Whitman to, again, open up LoG to become something relatable to all individuals, no matter what faith or cultural background.  It is not so much that I think Whitman has altered his beliefs about religion as it is that I believe he is attempting to do a better job of disallowing the way he was religiously educated to interfere with the true religious freedom America was supposed to be founded on.

If you are interested in information about the days and calendar, I got a lot of my information from these sites:

http://www.crowl.org/Lawrence/time/months.html

http://www.crowl.org/Lawrence/time/days.html

http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/year-history.html

http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/week.html#anchor-origin

WW notebook #94, Library of Congress American Memory site

WW notebook, photo by MNS, Library of Congress

The one on top is from a link to the Library of Congress I gave the class a few weeks ago, urging them to use these digitized images to study what OMW recorded about the soldiers.  The bottom was taken on our field trip, and is surprisingly focused given that I, Brady Earnhart, and our students were nearly all literally in tears in that weird institutional room with lockers, blackened windows, and government-issue tables.  Unless we were crying with simple gratitude for the incredible time that Barbara Bair had given us (or because we were soaked to the bloody skin  and had been standing for 10 hours with two or three to go), why were we?  Nothing was much easier to read in person, as those of us who stumbled reading aloud can attest (writing still spidery, bleeding through paper, plastic protection on many items reflected flourescent glare, etc.).  We couldn’t touch anything (though, good lord, we certainly breathed all over it), couldn’t feel the paper, the wood, the leather, the hair (the hair!).

Whitman's hair, deathbed edition, photo by MNS 10/24/09

I couldn’t even smell the leather of that haversack or of its decay, and I have one good super-sniffer.

cue to tears: the haversack, photo by MNS 10/24/09

Obviously, what I am suggesting is this: the artifacts of the Library of Congress archive were in some ways no more accessible or immediate (indeed, let’s be honest, a lot LESS accessible or even immediate if we mean time instead of proximity) than the digitized images of those artifacts online.  I saw that the inside of the haversack is brown canvas.  Brendon found a fingerprint and will NOT entertain suggestions that it belongs to anyone but Walt Whitman.  But tears?

Presence.  Through the blog we are present to each other online even when we are physically apart during the week (or have never seen each other: hallooo out there, Brooklyn, Camden, and Novi Sad!).  Agreed.  But finally Saturday we were (good) old-fashioned groupies, we were Whitman lovers, and we were bodies (finer than prayer, but, geez, we were a bit rank by Hour Ten of the marathon).  We desired the physical–the textured, the pasted, the water-stained.  We may have cried because the broken skins of brittle pages and fragile covers, the light-sensitive [associative digression: Whitman's Camden eyeglasses: so small, and with one lens protectively glazed over after strokes] and subsequently entombed haversack, and the tickets to a lecture on Lincoln long since delivered were as close to Whitman (brittle, entombed…) as we are going to get, as present as we can be.  Unlike the wounded soldiers, we won’t get the healing presence of his 200-pound, hirsute, maroon-coated, deep-pocketed self.  But it turns out that the digitized can’t hold a gas lamp to the physically present, and even if it’s paper and not flesh, I’ll take it.  Whitmaniacs, pass the tissues.

Edwin Booth BOOST

Here Edwin is looking pensive (or moping about his footwear):

Edwin Booth, thespian

And here is a famous photo we saw at Ford’s, with John Wilkes lurking around at Lincoln’s second inaugural (Lincoln center, JWB top row).  Read more at this blog post on The Blind Flaneur.

JWB stalking MLL

This nauseating bit about JWB is something I learned this summer at Harper’s Ferry.  Here, from Wikipedia:

Strongly opposed to the abolitionists who sought to end slavery in the U.S., Booth attended the hanging on December 2, 1859, of abolitionist leader John Brown, who was executed for leading a raid on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry (in present-day West Virginia).^[60] Booth had been rehearsing at the Richmond Theatre when he abruptly decided to join the Richmond Grays, a volunteer militia of 1,500 men travelling to Charles Town for Brown’s hanging, to guard against any attempt by abolitionists to rescue Brown from the gallows by force.^[60][61] When Brown was hanged without incident, Booth stood in uniform near the scaffold and afterwards expressed great satisfaction with Brown’s fate, although he admired the condemned man’s bravery in facing death stoically.^[40][62]

In “Where Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman uses both a “powerful western star” (459) (ironic that a star “in the east” was used to signify Chist’s birth in Bethlehem, suggesting Lincoln as an equal to the Christian Savior) and “Lilac blooming perennial” (459) (a flower that resurrects itself, if you will), he seats Lincoln in a place that would render him a Christ-figure.  Throughout the desperate elegiac tone of the poem, Whitman produces bits of imagery that lend themselves to this comparison, such as “with every leaf a miracle” (459) in reference to the lilac.  He also suggests the mourning of the churches themselves when he discusses the journey of Lincoln’s burial processional in, “The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs” (460).  By the last section of the poem, though the speaker departs from the lilac, he knows that it will return with spring (466), much like Christ is resurrected on the third day after his crucifixion.

This famous elegy to Lincoln is not however the only place in which Whitman near-literally seems to worship him.  In “Death of Abraham Lincoln,” Whitman refers to Lincoln as the nation’s “first great Martyr Chief” (1071).  The capitalization of this title suggests the importance of Lincoln’s martyrdom as if no other person who ever died for a cause could ever near the sacrifice that Lincoln made for the American people. He also describes Lincoln as having “the greatest, best, most characteristic, artistic, moral personality” as well as the “foundation and tie of all, as the future would grandly develop” (787).  Whitman even refers to the Battle of Bull Run as a “crucifixion day” (735) for Lincoln.  How’s that for obvious Christ-symbolism, Erkkila?

 Whitman seems, if I may use another heavy-handed religious term, to have desired to become Lincoln’s disciple.  Despite his limited interaction with Lincoln, a lot of what Whitman attempted to do hinged on, or at least mirrored, Lincoln’s own political and social moves.  For Whitman, Lincoln embodied the essence of democracy, the very thing that Whitman attempted throughout his life to encourage and sustain.  His love for Lincoln equated his love for the Union as he seemed often to fuse the two together.  Whitman’s elevation of both above himself easily cast Lincoln in the role of savior as it was the Union that needed the saving.

Hey Professor,

Long time no talk.  I hope all is going well this semester at UMW.  I miss the environment there greatly.  I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been following along with the Exploring Whitman blog as much as possible, and I have learned from, enjoyed and been in awe of some of your students’ insight.  It must be a fun class!

Anyways, I thought you would like to hear that even though I have a diploma I am still as inspired and eager to learn as ever.  I wish I could be there to go along for the ride.  Alas, I will just have to look on from afar.  So make sure the students know just how valuable and important their work is– on such a variety of levels– because I’ll be reading.  Thanks again for what you do, and good luck with the rest of the semester.

Best,
Patrick Whelan

http://www.historydc.org/onlineexhibit/LincolnsWashington/Mr.%20Lincoln’s%20Assassination.asp

Presidential Box 1865

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/slavery/abraham-lincoln/lincoln-box-ford-theater.htm

Ford’s Theatre Now

http://broadwayworld.com/article/Fords_Theatre_Announces_History_on_Foot_Tours_for_Fall_2009_20090724

Ford’s Theatre sits at 511 10^th Street NW, the site originally occupied by the First Baptist Church of Washington which was built in 1833.  In 1859, the congregation abandoned the building when they merged with the Fourth Baptist Congregation formed on 13^th Street.  After a few years of occasional use for music performances, the building gained the interest of John T. Ford, a theatre entrepreneur from Baltimore who arrived in Washington D.C. in 1861.  On December 10 of that year, despite controversy from some members of the congregation who predicted “a dire fate for anyone who turned the former house of worship into a theatre,” (Olszewski 7) the church leased the space to Ford.  His contract allowed him to rent the building for five years with the promise of an opportunity to buy after that time.

After a brief sublease to George Christy, who ran the building as “The George Christy Opera House,” Ford closed the building and began renovation on February 28, 1862.  He invested 10,000 dollars in new construction and remodeling and opened the building three weeks later on March 19 under the name “Ford’s Atheneum” where ticket prices ranged from a quarter to a dollar per seat.  The athenaeum was quite successful and won the patronage of many wealthy and famous individuals including Abraham Lincoln whose first visit to the theatre was May 28, 1862 and who said of his experience, “Some people find me wrong to attend the theatre, but it serves me well to have a good laugh with a crowd of people” (Good 3).

Tragedy first struck the theatre on December 30, 1862 when a fire caused by a defective gas meter broke out in the cellar beneath the stage.  The fire blazed through everything, leaving only the blackened walls standing.  Fortunately no one was killed during the incident, but as Ford was only partially covered by fire insurance, the event left him with an estimated loss of 20,000 dollars.

With a refusal to lose heart, Ford began right away with plans to build a bigger and better theatre at the same site.  He wanted to expand the theatre to the north and add an additional wing to the south.  He hired James J. Gifford to design and supervise the reconstruction which began in February of 1863.  Though Ford had refused help from theatrical colleagues who offered to sponsor benefits to raise the money he lost in the fire, he welcomed the financial backing the project received from wealthy and influential Washington D.C. businessmen.  Though the reconstruction met a series of delays due to cave-ins from quicksand beneath the foundation and war-time supply delay problems, the building known as “Ford’s New Theatre” opened on August 27, 1863.

Between 1863 and 1865, the theatre thrived.  Many praised the theatre for its magnificent elegance and comfortable ventilation due to the three large hooded ventilators and ten hatches which provided the perfect amount of outside air.  Few theatres rivaled Ford’s for these few years.  Unfortunately, on April 14, 1865, the theatre became infamous as the location of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln during a performance of Our American Cousin.  One spectator recalled the event, “It is impossible to describe the intense excitement that prevailed in the theatre.  The audience arose as one person and horror was stamped on every face” (Good 45).  In the two seasons before the assassination, the theatre produced 495 evening performances, eight of which were attended by the president including “The Marble Heart” on November 9, 1863 starring none other than John Wilkes Booth, his future assassin.  

After the assassination, Ford’s Theatre was guarded by federal troops until July 7, 1865, the day the conspirators were hanged.  On July 8, the theatre was returned to Ford only to be seized on July 10 by order of Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.  Some time after this, the theatre was leased to the government and then purchased by an act of Congress in 1866. 

In 1867, Ford’s Theatre was taken over by the US Army in order to house post-Civil War medical activities of the Army Surgeon General’s Office.  The building held an archive of Civil War medical records which were essential for verification of veteran’s pension claims, the Army Medical Museum, editorial offices for preparation of the multi-volume Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, and the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office.  When Army needs outgrew the capacity of the theatre, several units were moved in 1887 to a new building known as the Army Medical Museum and Library, located on the Mall.

In June of 1893, a third tragedy occurred at the former theatre; part of the overloaded interior collapsed, killing 22 and injuring 65 federal troops working in the office of the Adjutant General for compiling official service records of Civil War veterans.  Ford’s Theatre was then closed by an order of Congress and was used as public document storage until 1932 when the Lincoln Museum opened inside which currently contains historical artifacts including the derringer John Wilkes Booth used as a murder weapon as well as a replica of the coat Lincoln wore when he was shot.

After public interest in restoring the building to its original condition grew following World War II, preliminary investigation began in 1955 when the National Capital Region prepared an engineering study under Public Law 372, 83d Congress.  Additional funds were given under Public Law 86-455, 86^th Congress, which authorized the National Park Service to begin with the research and prepare for construction, which was eventually completed in 1967.

Ford’s Theatre reopened in 1968 and according to its current website’s record of past seasons, ran a complete season of shows including a Gala Opening which was featured as a CBS TV special, John Brown’s Body, Comedy of Errors, and She Stoops to Conquer (Ford’s Theatre).  Since that time, the theatre produced full seasons of performances until August 2007 when it closed for its most extensive renovation since the 1960s.  The theatre reopened in February 2009 fully equipped with new seats, upgraded sound and lighting equipment, improved heating and AC, renovated restrooms, elevators, a new lobby with concessions, a new parlor for special events, and a series of updated stage capabilities.  As this year marked the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, Ford’s Theatre is working toward becoming a major center for learning where people can examine the events leading up to the death of the 16^th president of the United States; the theatre’s mission is “to celebrate the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and to explore the American experience through theatre and education” (Ford’s Theatre) and is now back to running full seasons of performances.

Works Cited

Good, Timothy S., ed. We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995. Print.

Ford’s Theatre. History of Medicinie. United States National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, 13 Sep. 2006. Web. 16 Oct. 2009. <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/medtour/ford.html>

Ford’s Theatre. Web. 16 Oct. 2009. < http://www.fordstheatre.org/#>

Olszewski, George J. Restoration of Ford’s Theatre. Washington, D.C.: US. Government Printing Office, 1963. Print.

A few notes for Saturday (check for updates!):

1. Carpool rendez-vous: Jefferson Circle behind Combs at 9:00 a.m.

2. Parking in DC: 1201 F St. NW, 20005

• Take 95 North to 395 North (follow signs from 95 for 395/495/Washington/Tysons)
• On 395, take 12th Street exit toward L’Enfant Promenade
• 12th Street (follow slight left at 11th St SW/12th street tunnel)
• Left onto Connecticut NW
• First right onto 14th St NW
• Right at F St NW
• Garage on your left
• If full,  proceed straight to next garage, 1155 F Street NW

3. Meeting place for 11:00 a.m. walking tour (1.5-2 hours): Lafayette Square, Andrew Jackson Statue (adjacent to White House, H street NW/16th St NW)

4. Tour ends in Chinatown (H and I streets between 7th and 8th)– lunch on your own

5. Meaningful afternoon activities:

• Ford’s Theater (free tix required–Scanlon): 511 10th St NW, 20004-1402
• Smithsonian Museum of American History, 19th-century and Lincoln exhibits: on National Mall, 14th and Constitution NW
• your choice

6. Library of Congress– meet out front at 5:15 p.m.

• Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave SE, 20540 (corner of Independence and 1st SE), behind Capitol Bldg. complex
• 1.5-2 miles from Ford’s/Mall if you go by foot (can follow Independence along edge of Mall)

7. Back to cars and Fredericksburg

Hill on which the Confederates fought

Part of the original wall

The Innis House, which still has bullet holes from the battle in its walls

One of the bullet holes in the Innis House

Inside the Innis House, where several bullet holes are also visible

The Union Cemetary, which is hidden away behind the battlefield (unlike the Confederate one, which is in the center of town). I'm a little ashamed to say that this was a recent discovery for me.

Hill overlooking the Union Cemetary. It really is way back away from everything.

Cannons just outside the Union Cemetary

Grave of an unknown soldier.

Chatham House, where the military hospital was. It's much changed since Whitman saw it.

The gardens at Chatham. These were added in the 1920s, in an effort to bring back the estate to its colonial roots.

The garden was kind of a testament to just how much things have changed since the Civil War.

Graffiti on the walls in Chatham

More graffiti

These are the same Catalpa trees that Whitman observed the amputated limbs by in "Speciman Days." Definitely the best part of the trip, especially since our guide had prepared a specical Whitman reading by them for us. This was also one of the places where I felt the most connected to Whitman, especially since everything else is so changed.

All right. That’s all for now. I have a written post that I’m finishing up; I’m just tweaking it so that I say exactly what I want to say in it. It’ll be here before we go to DC. I cross my heart.

In Morris’ book, The Better Angel, I remember reading it this summer and being shocked at Whitman’s view on slavery. It baffled me to think someone who may have been fearful of persecution because of his sexuality, would be somewhat judgmental towards African-Americans. When Morris elaborates on Whitman’s childhood friend who was black, and that he practically was “Uncle Tom”, I felt uneasy. The man who I had thought wanted Americans, ALL Americans, to be free no matter their sex, education, background, origin was a little dashed away in my mind. Morris quotes Whitman’s poetry, “I am the poet of slaves and the masters of slaves,  I go with the slaves of the earth equally with the masters and I will stand between the masters and the slaves, Entering into both so that both shall understand me alike.” Morris also tells us that Whitman had equally been not fond of “hotheaded” abolitionists nor of die-hard pro-slavery activists. I feel disappointed in Whitman, I almost feel like he resented both parties, that they both had created the War. However, I think that it would have been utterly impossible to go on the way the country was going. A country cannot have some states allowing something and another few finding the same thing illegal. Today we have medical marijuana and different types of legal alcohol (Everclear, allowed in North Carolina, but not in Virginia), albeit none of those issues are as pressing as human bondage, but it creates a kind of understanding of what is in the present. I think Whitman would have been ecstatic for the country to continue being somewhat divided on the slavery issue, as long as there were a way of working it out beyond war. Again, I think Whitman was somewhat of a dreamer and this is just another well-wished dream of probably many Americans of that time. Whitman still continued to unite the Confederacy and the Union through his poetry and not singling out any extreme, violent enemy, but looking at the soldiers as “our boys” alike, despite their north/south origin.

34-room original building on the Estate

Lincoln’s Cottage, Soldier’s Home

Founding and History of Soldiers’ Home

Founded by a Major General, General, and a Senator on March 3, 1851 after the suggestion of an Army Asylum in his Annual Message to the President in November of 1827 by Secretary of War James Barbour. Thus, it took almost 30 years before action was taken to form the “asylum”.

Brevet Major General Robert Anderson, the supportive Major General who was active in the founding of the home, was Fort Sumter’s commanding officer during the very beginning of the Civil War. Senator Jefferson Davis, the second part of the triumvirate who enacted Barbour’s suggestion, repeatedly introduced legislation to Congress to found a home for retired and disabled American veterans. Thirdly, General Winfield Scott contributed $100,000 of tribute money (a total of $150,000) gained from pillaging Mexico City.

The selling point was “to provide an honorable and secure retirement for American war veterans.” When Congress passed legislation it was considered “a military asylum for the relief and support of invalid and disabled soldiers of the army of the United States.”

Many sites had been considered for Soldiers’ Home, finally George Riggs’ 256-acre family estate was purchased for $57,000 and a Mr. Charles Scrivner gave about 58 acres. More land was added over the next 20 years. Soldiers’ Home was just three miles north of downtown DC (at the time, of course).

Riggs, an affluent DC banker, finished building the “’Corn Rigs’ cottage”, his summer retreat, in 1842. The unusual architecture of the house, including its several gables, latticed windows, and the intricate gingerbread trimming stamp it as being part of the Gothic Revival-style. Gothic Revival was a style then popular country and summer homes.

In 1857, the house’s intended inhabitants, retired soldiers, moved into a new, large stone building. It was near the original cottage and was modeled after the same Gothic style. There were four buildings, including the one aforementioned, by 1861.

Soldiers’ Home in the Civil War

The home was very close in proximity to Fort Slemmer and Fort Stevens. Fort Slemmer was actually one of the forts that skirted DC. Fort Stevens played a key role in defending the District against the Confederates, led by General Jubal Early, in a July 1864 attack. Fort Stevens was visited several times by Lincoln during the Civil War, even when it was under attack; according to some, Lincoln was almost shot while visiting during the attack.

If the walls could talk at Soldiers’ Home, they would be a history book within themselves. In the September of 1862, President Lincoln was residing at the house when he was revising and writing the final draft of his Emancipation Proclamation.

Lincoln and Soldiers’ Home

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and his family lived at Soldiers’ Home seasonally, from June to November in the years from 1862-1864. It is reported that each summer season the Lincoln family lived at Soldiers’ Home, the staff had to transport about 19 cartloads of the family’s belongings from the city. The estate was situated on one of the highest hills in the district. The grounds offered respite from the mugginess and congestion of the capital. There is evidence from the first lady that the family “delighted” in their romps at the home.

Lincoln enjoyed the cool, airy atmosphere of Soldiers’ Home and getting away from the city. Yet, he did bring his work with him. Even when he didn’t bring the work home, every morning he rode to the White House to fulfill his duties as president. He would return each evening to Soldiers’ Home. Lincoln, and the cavalry that accompanied him to and fro, had to pass hospitals, cemeteries and camps for former slaves. Even on his way back to his hide-away from the war, he had to be reminded of the war. Lincoln met with political foes and friends there and discussed military strategy with his advisors. Lincoln visited the “old”, or original building, Soldiers’ Home within three days of his first inauguration.

In the battle at Fort Stevens, like mentioned before, Lincoln went to observe. Considering that the battle of Fort Stevens was only a mile from Soldiers’ Home, the first family had been evacuated to the White House. In that same summer, not only was he the first president to be under enemy fire, but also his commutes to the city and the cottage were the target times for an attempted assassination by a sniper and abduction by John Wilkes Booth.

Soldiers’ Home and Beyond

Before Lincoln, President Buchanan used the estate to escape the city and duties of being head of the nation. After Lincoln, Presidents Hayes and Arthur also stayed at Soldiers’ Home. Hayes stayed at the estate during the summer from 1877 to 1880. Arthur and his family resided there during the White House’s renovations in the winter of 1882 and spent summers there also. Presidents beyond Hayes and Arthur did not use Soldiers’ Home as a retreat.

The home was adapted for new and different uses. In the 1900’s, the home faded into oblivion. Finally in 2001, the Soldiers’ Home was officially named the Washington Unit of the Armed Forces Retirement Home. It is, in fact, the only retirement home for enlisted Army and Air Force personnel, warrant officers, and disabled soldiers in the nation. In 1973, the Secretary of the Interior determined the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s home a National historic landmark. This included the original cottage and the three other buildings that were build pre-Civil War.

More recently, in 2000, President Clinton declared “the President Lincoln and Soldiers’ Home” a National monument. The new monument consisted of the cottage and 2.3 acres surrounding it. The Nation Trust for Historic Preservation started a detailed and comprehensive restoration of the cottage in 2001. In 2008, for the first time ever, the organization opened President Lincoln’s Cottage to the general public on President’s Day.

Works Cited:

 http://www.lincolncottage.org/

 http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/presidents/…

In spite of all this, I found myself feeling a lot of admiration for what Whitman did for those soldiers. Referring to the prompt for this week, he really did treat those soldiers the way that Whitman as speaker tells his audience how he wishes to treat them. He is tender, and while outwardly trying to be non-sexual, it’s evident in his writings and Morris’ description that he struggled with his feelings while with the soldier, and formed more than casual relationships with some. He holds them, caresses them, tries to make them feel better, much like Whitman the speaker does for his readers through his poetry. According to Whitman, the soldiers responded positively to him, in the same way I’m sure Whitman wanted his readers to react. While Morris notes that “you are always the hero of your own biography” it seems very plausible to me that Whitman would be well accepted among the soldiers. I mean, who wouldn’t want someone to visit them and bring them gifts when they were trapped somewhere as foul as those hospitals, being taken care of by soldiers who weren’t good enough to go off to battle?

So often I feel that I am looking at a juxtaposition of two very different sides of Whitman, and the two opposing sides are making my decision on how I view him incredibly difficult. Part of me wants to, and does, accept him as the great American poet, someone who’s poetry is beautiful and inspiring, and yet I can’t reconcile that to my frustration at his all-knowing stance in his poetry, in which his personal view points are not always what I want them to be.

This is where Whitman’s belief in his own power of observation causes a difficulty with his message. As is clear from his poetry, particularly pieces such as “Song of Myself,” Whitman has a belief that observation of the world leads to pure understanding of the world. This idea is rather flawed considering the fact that several people can view the same thign in a variety of different ways. Just look at Rorschach ink blots.

What surprises me is that Whitman did not have this epiphany on his own considering his rapid and rather drastic change in views from 1855 to 1867, and even within Drum Taps. the man goes from describing death as a beautiful stage in the cycle of life to a disease which fills the earth with compost. Clearly he realized one could change one’s opinion about things, but I guess this doesn’t necessarily mean he understood that one could have differing opinions.

The problem however, is that I do not think that he could have produced much of the work he did without this belief. He couldn’t have spoken in such grandiose terms without being confident in his right to speak them. Nor do I think that he was incorrect in believing in his right to speak this way. The problem, I think, is that there were no other poets that could match him. Whitman speaks of the Great American Poet, and seems to imply that he is that poet, but he doesn’t recognize that he alone cannot manage to speak for the country.

America, needed, and still needs really, someone with Whitman’s confidence and talent who is able to fill in other views in society. There needs to be a female Whitman, Waltina if you will, and and African-American Whitman, and a Latin-American Whitman, and on and on. One man cannot speak for all, as much as Whitman wanted this to be the case.

I think Whitman recognized this in his own life while caring for the soldiers, with all the good he did he still realized that he could not address all the soldiers, or befriend them all before they died. What he failed to realize was that this was more than just an issue of time constraint, but a issue of world view and understanding. I think if Whitman lived in today’s world he would have understood that, although he might not have been able to develop teh grandiose attitude which shapes his poetry.

I think the best thing to do is to recognize Whitman’s limitations in his writing but understand that his message still stands.

     As we have seen in his relationships generally regarded as “more than just friendly,” Whitman expected an incredible amount of emotional energy from those he was close to. For a time, the passionate O’Conner seems to have fulfilled those expectations. According to the account of O’Conner’s wife, Ellen Calder, he was never reluctant to challenge Whitman’s ideas and, perhaps, would even intentionally provoke the poet. Interestingly, it was because of an issue that Whitman was more ambivalent about that the two men went their separate ways: slavery. Whitman’s more middle-of-the-road stance, which saw him as reluctant for society to set former slaves on the same level as those of European descent, did not match the abolitionist sentiments of O’Conner. However, when it came to his allegedly more intimate friendships, Whitman did not tend to gravitate towards personalities like O’Conner.

     Instead of intellectuals, Whitman tended to become romantically attached to younger men of the working class. Some of the letters assigned for this week center around Peter Doyle, a former soldier who apparently did not think very highly of Leaves of Grass. It is intriguing that Whitman was attracted to someone that disregarded such a large part of his life, namely his pre-war poetry. Doyle was perhaps symbolic of Whitman’s ideal person, but seems to have been unaware of the message that Whitman sought to communicate in his early poetry. Perhaps it is through Doyle’s dislike of Leaves that we can explain his eventual separation from Whitman. When one ignores poems like Song of Myself, the passion of the poet behind the words is also missed. However, why did Whitman still expect so much of Doyle, even though he was obviously not ignorant of the man’s opinions? Through his demands, Whitman became like the father whom he had heard about so many times from young soldiers: the man that had driven his son away because he asked too much of him.

     How does all this reflect Whitman’s relationship with his readers? Well, in his early work, Whitman demands of his readers that they acknowledge and reciprocate his passion for life and people. It is most appreciated when the reader questions and challenges it, as our class has found. This does not apply as much to the more somber tone of Drum Taps though, which appears simpler at face value. It must be seen in light of the earlier work as well though, and so Whitman’s passions shine through. So, if the reader’s wits are kept about him, Whitman becomes an infinitely-interesting companion. However, he can quickly become too much for those that do not at least have some idea of his full scope.

Morris remarks that “The Wound Dresser” is perhaps an attempt to connect to the soldiers on a “visceral level.” Portions of “Song of Myself” too are just that–attempts to find and connect to the physical portions of the reader, in the hopes that they will learn and accept them as well.

I felt especially this sense of synchronicity within the “The Wound Dresser” (although I won’t dwell on it too much here since I should be annotating it). Whitman says, “Whoever you are, follow me without noise and be of strong heart” (443). This line is almost directly reminiscent of “Song of Myself.” The poem itself also seems to be a connection of body and soul; the first and the last portions deal with memories and dreams. They are the identity of the speaker, the old man knee deep in nostalgia. The second two are action and physicality; this is the body acting out the desires of man, unafraid in the midst of the untouchable, be it putrid or sexual. Perhaps Whitman is not a literal wound dresser here (since as Morris points out, he did not act as one; he was merely a visitor), but rather Whitman is a figurative wound dresser of nation, reader, and soldier, binding the fracture between body and soul and creating the salve of language that will heal them.

In “How Solemn as One by One,” Whitman again unites mind and body of the soldier, although he is not necessarily healing the body Instead, Whitman acknowledges the body, like so many of the “faces studying the masks” (453) (ironically, his use of “face” here dehumanizes the civilians just as much as the soldiers) and seeks to unite and find the underlying soul within, which is so often lost within the countless losses of war. Whitman’s unification here is working backwards in the way that he initially sought to bond his intellectual readers. Rather than locate the repressed body under the layers of mind and celebrated soul, Whitman must find the voice and soul of the soldier under the faceless duty of the body. He does this through persona, in poems such as “The Artilleryman’s Vision” which describe in detail the War through a soldier’s point of view. He also does this through “Speciman Days,” to remind the civilians at home that the soldiers at the front are nothing more than their fellow citizens, with the same needs as their own. Through this, Whitman again serves as bond-maker, healing the fracture that divides the individuals who have seen the horrors of war, and those who have merely read about it.