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]

The walking tour was pretty cool, our guide, LeeAnn (?), was so knowledgeable and easy to talk to. The most interesting thing were the Innis and Stephens Houses. Only the Innis house was still standing, and had even been lived in up until the 1970s!! Crazy! Even though the house was closed to the public, it had many windows that we could see in, and we could see the bullet holes peppering one of the walls, and even outside the house there were a few bullet holes (or very large woodpecker holes). It was so surreal to be standing there, faces pressed up against the glass, imagining Martha Innis running back and forth between the two houses (I’m sure she did that as little as possible during the actual battle right on her front stoop), trying to get water and food to the soldiers needing it.

these pictures are from the NPS, since I only had the flipcam and not an actual camera.

CRAZY!

As we were standing by the Innis and where the Stephens houses were, I couldn’t help but wonder if the old trees swaying in the warm fall breeze were witness trees. Alas, they weren’t but they were so old, and tall, and their girth was amazing that I think they were planted very shortly after the war. One of the most beautiful things I learned about was the Angel of Marye’s Heights. Richard Kirkland, a soldier from SC, heard a Union soldier calling out for help and asked his superior if he had permission to run onto the battlefield, mind you that’s where bullets were whizzing by and Union soldiers were collapsing from gunfire. Kirkland was allowed to run onto the field and give water and help to the man calling for help. This is his monument. I think that if Whitman could have met this Kirkland fellow and knew of Kirkland’s good deeds, he would be moved.

After the walking tour on Sunken Rd (by the way, the road was closed to public just a few years ago), we went to the Chatham Mansion, where Whitman wrote about seeing the amputated limbs. In fact, the catalpa trees where the limbs were, loaded up on a buggy with a horse or mule waiting patiently, WERE STILL THERE. I have a video coming soon, if I can figure out how to load it “correctly” to youtube. The Mansion also featured a rather interesting video, not quite as dry as one might expect coming from the NPS (the movie we saw before walking Sunken Road was rather interesting too). I had no idea that the mansion had such an extensive history, being owned and built back before the Revolutionary War. It was first owned by the Fitzhugh’s, then the Jones’, then the Lacy’s (the Civil War owners), when the Lacy’s left, it was abandoned for a while. Vagrants graffitied the walls, which are still shown when touring the house along with other paraphernalia of the Civil War. In fact, the room in which we viewed the movie was the operating room, apparently there are stains on the floor from blood as well (found that on the nation park service website!). After the war, the Lacy’s moved back but were not able to maintain the property appropriately. There were a succession of owners, then the Devore’s owned it in the 20’s and probably had some swinging parties there. The Devores tried to restore the house to its original state, which included altering it so it would pretty much never have the same architecture as when Whitman saw the house. After the Devore’s, the Pratt’s owned the estate then willed it to the NPS.

I will try to post the vids from the trip shortly!

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

Background:

Surgical saws and tools have been in use since at least 3000 B.C. The first known surgical armamentaria, the equivalent of a Civil War surgeon’s kit, was found in Pompeii, and dates back to 79 A.D. (Kirkup 21). Surgeon’s tools at the time were composed from many materials, including copper, bronze, silver and steel (29). It was typical for surgeons to choose their own material for their tools, as well as help craft them, so there was a lot of variation from country to country. In the 15^th century, tools became slightly more standardized, and the first widely used saw was the bow saw. This instrument was often highly ornamental, and was often extremely long, with some models reaching up to 67 cm. Surgeons were advised to keep an extra blade handy when performing surgery, as the blades would often snap during the procedure, due to their length and lack of reinforcement. Though the ornamental saws were quickly done away with, as the decorations often tore the tissue around the amputation site, the lengthy bow saws remained the popular choice for the next two centuries (387).

Surgical Saw Development Leading up to the Civil War:

The 18^th century saw the rise of smaller saws with better adapted features. In fact, many of the saws that were used in the Civil War are very similar to those used today. The biggest difference between past and current saws is that while current saws are made from stainless steel, saws from the Civil War era were nickel based (Belferman 1). While the exact number of amputations during the Civil War is unknown, it is estimated to be around 70,000 total and accounted for 75% of all major surgeries performed (Trammell 46). Amputation was the standard treatment for any wound that created a compound fracture. Remarkably, around 75% survived the operations. This is most likely due to several advances made in surgical saws and tools just prior to the Civil War. In his book American Surgical Instruments, James Edmonson states that craftsmanship of surgeon tools in the 19^th century was greatly improved and expanded due to new manufacturers, as well as an influx of immigrants who brought their own particular skills and knowledge from their native countries, and the older more established companies mixing together (44). Many advances and changes were also made during the Crimean War by British surgeons. Several major changes included the invention of a frame saw with an adjustable rotating blade in 1850 by the Butcher Company (Kirkup 202). The rotating blade gave surgeons the ability to be more precise in their incisions, as well as allowed them to cut out damaged tissue in such a way that sometimes did away with the need to amputate.  A second major change to the saw was the rise in popularity of the pistol handle. 

 The handle was much easier to grip than the previous t-shaped handles usually featured on saws. Another major shift in saws had to do with the introduction of tenon saws. Tenon saws were smaller, and more accurate than the bow saw, which was still in heavy use. The saws were much less cumbersome, and were reinforced along the back. This allowed for more movement of the blade, as the blade could often pivot on the reinforcement, which helped the surgeon avoid damaging the soft tissue around an amputation site. The reinforcements also did away with the problem of blade breakage, which was the biggest downfall of the bow saw. Tenon saws became the most commonly used in Britain, and were widespread in the U.S. as well, though they were not nearly as popular in continental Europe (203).

Use in the Field

Surgeons were always equipped with a surgeon’s kit, a case that contained around 30 different tools (Trammell 51). The U.S. government purchased large numbers of specially manufactured kits from instrument makers at the time to distribute to field surgeons (Edmondson 50). Several main manufacturers of surgeon kits at this time were Jacob H. Gemrig, Horatio G. Kern, George P. and Henry C. Snowden and Dietrich W. Kolbe (43). These kits were usually made from mahogany and lined with velvet. As many Civil War doctors would later note, this was not particularly conducive to maintaining sanitation, as the tools would often go back into the kits after being hastily wiped off. Most kits consisted of two saws, the capital and metacarpal saw, along with many other forms of amputation knives, scalpels and other tools. These saws would be the capital saw and the metacarpal saw.

The capital saw was used for large bones, whereas the metacarpal saw was used for smaller bones. An amputation could not be made with only these tools alone though. A surgeon’s kit was supplemented with various amputation knives and scalpels, as well as a tourniquet and forceps (Trammell 51).

Works Cited

Edmonson, James M. American Surgical Instruments. San Francisco: Norman Publishing, 1997.

Trammell, Jack “‘Life Is Better Than Limb’.” America’s Civil War 21.6 (2009): 46-51. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 20 Oct. 2009.

Kirkup, John. The Evolution of Surgical Instruments. CA: Norman Publishing, 2003.

Belferman, Mary. “On Surgery’s Cutting Edge in the Civil War.” Washington Post 13 June 1996.

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.

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.

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

     The closing years of the eighteenth century yielded an innovation in firearms technology: the digging of grooves into musket barrels. The grooves, dubbed rifling, put a spin on the discharged round: this increased the effective accurate range of the weapon. However, these weapons continued to fire round bullets until the middle of the nineteenth century. According to an article by Paul Dougherty and Major Herbert Collins, “Although accuracy could be improved with the use of a rifled barrel, the tit of the bullet/barrel needed to be tight to impart a spin on the projectile. This made reloading too slow for the standard military arm” (Wound Ballistics 403). Due to the requirement of being small enough to quickly slide down the rifled barrel, the accuracy of the bullets was hampered.  However, in 1847, French officer Captain Claude Minie developed a new sort of round that seemed to solve this loading problem. He created a bullet shaped like a cylinder that tapered to a cone at the front end. The base of the bullet was hollow, which, according to historian Charles Worman, expanded “by the force of the exploding gunpowder, causing the bullet base to expand and fill and grip the rifling grooves” (Firearms in American History 71). Harper’s Ferry assistant master armorer, and later superintendent of Confederate armories, James Burton later improved on this design, but history has given the bullet the moniker of “Minie ball.” The Minie ball essentially solved the aforementioned bullet and barrel problems and truly took advantage of barrel rifling. In the Union army during the Civil War, these advances were most often made apparent through the use of Springfield M1861 and Enfield .577 rifle-muskets.

     The name of the M1861 model gives the year of the Springfield model’s creation, but it was largely based on the company’s M1855. Both models boasted forty inch, round barrels with three rifling grooves and shot a .58 caliber bullet. The gun’s caliber was a compromise between two previously-used sizes; .54 caliber rounds, which avoided excessive recoil but lacked accuracy, and the increased accuracy of .69 caliber rounds, which was counterbalanced by the excessive weight required for guns to be able to fire them. It could also be fitted with an intimidating triangular bayonet. However, despite contracting private gun makers produce M1861s, the Union army still faced a shortage of up-to-date firearms. For example, although Lincoln’s government contracted more than a million rifle-muskets in 1861, meaningful quantities of firearms did not begin to arrive in soldiers hands until two years later. In order to fulfill these weapon needs, muskets and rifles were purchased from a large number of foreign sources.

Springfield M1861

     Of these, the British “long” Enfield Pattern 1853 was the most sought-after. Perhaps the secret to its success with Union soldiers stemmed from its similarities to the Springfield models: the Enfield had a thirty-nine inch, round barrel, with three grooves serving as rifling. The Enfield officially shot a .577 caliber round which, according to Louis Garavaglia and Charles Worman’s Firearms of the American West, “would also work in the U.S. .58 caliber rifles. Depending on actual bullet diameter, U.S. .58 caliber Minie bullets… would work in the Enfields as long as the bore was reasonably clean” (167). Both the Springfield and the Enfield were muzzle-loaders, meaning that a rod was required to push single rounds into place in the barrel before they could be fired.

Enfield 1853

     Both the Springfield models and the Enfield expelled their single rounds with a percussion cap, described in Firearms in American History as “a small copper cup with the fulminate inside its base covered with a tin foil disk and sealed with a bit of shellac to make it waterproof” (44). These caps worked much better in poor weather than did the previously-favored flintlock system, although some on the frontier were reluctant to abandon their tried-and-true mechanism. The individual cartridges, containing the round and necessary gunpowder, were sealed in paper. When the guns were loaded, the paper was torn open in some way and the powder was poured down the barrel. An amusing legend states that, in the early stages of the war, four good front teeth were required for enlistment. This way, the soldier would be able to quickly bite open cartridges, instead of having to open them with his fingers (Firearms in American History 109). Next, a ramrod, which had to be withdrawn and replaced, was used to shove the round down. Finally, a percussion cap was placed on the gun’s nipple, the gun was cocked, and it was ready to be fired. Firearms in American History gives the normal rate of fire for these guns as “about three rounds per minute under good conditions” (109). Unfortunately, due to the powder residue left by each Minie ball, the rifle muskets would become difficult to fire after around twenty shots if they were not cleaned. Here is a video of a Civil War-era rifle was fired:

     These favorable qualities contributed to the rifle-musket’s effective range far out-doing previously-favored smoothbore weapons. Unfortunately, since these forward strides had been made so close to the advent of the Civil War, the leaders on both sides did not immediately recognize the pitfalls of employing smoothbore-era military tactics in the age of Minie balls and rifled barrels. Smoothbore weapons, such as those employed in the Revolutionary War, only had an effective range of about fifty yards, according to Dougherty and Collins. In contrast, rifle-muskets had an effective range of between 500 and 1,000 yards. With that increased accuracy in mind, it is easy to see how the attrition battle of lining troops up less than 100 yards apart to shoot at one another was less effective in 1863 than in the previous century. However, mechanically speaking, these Springfield and Enfield rifle-muskets of the Civil War performed excellently in the workhorse role they were given in the war. Unfortunate for them was that the march of technology did not stop with them, and both models were soon rendered obsolete.
 

Works Cited

1853 3-Band Enfield Musket, .58 Caliber. Taylor’s & Co., Inc., Winchester. Taylor’s & Co., Inc.. Web. 20 October 2009.

Dougherty, Paul and Herbert Eidt. “Wound Ballistics: Minié Ball vs. Full Metal Jacketed Bullets—A Comparison of Civil War and Spanish-American War Firearms.” Military Medicine 174, 4:403 (2009): 403-407. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Oct. 2009.

Garavaglia, Louis and Charles Worman. Firearms of the American West: 1803-1865. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984. Print.

Springfield 1861. Myra Museum, Grand Forks. Civil War History: The Blog Between the States. Web. 20 October 2009.

Worman, Charles. Firearms in American History. Yardly: Westholme, 2007. Print.

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.

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.

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.

The origins of ice cream are mysterious. There’s documentation of people flavoring snow hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, but that’s really more of a primative snow cone than ice cream. Some might place its beginning during the reign of Nero (54-68 CE), because the famous Emperor enjoyed a frozen, sweetened combination of ice and fruit pulp, but of course that’s technically sherbet, not ice cream (Powell 12). Sherbet and other iced treats were around Europe for centuries until slowly emerged the addition of cream to the mixture. No one person is attributed to this discovery, but the first official recipe for ice cream was published by Nicholas Lemery in 1674 (Powell 26). By 1768, according to ice cream historian and expert, Marilyn Powell, the age of ice cream was under way (28).

But wait! Perhaps it’s not that simple and European! Myth has it that Marco Polo observed the Mongols making ice cream in China and then brought the recipe back with him to Italy. Though Marco Polo does not write explicitly of ice cream, he does, however, document drinking a fermented milk product called kumiss, which the T’ang rulers of China would enjoy mixed with rice and frozen. It seems as though the lines of this poem by Yang Wanli, c. 1200 BCE, describe ice cream:

It looks so greasy but still has crisp texture,

It appears congealed yet seems to float,

Like jade, it breaks at the bottom of the dish;

As with snow, it melts in the light of the sun.

(Powell 32).

There is, however, no concrete evidence of ice cream in China, nor are Marco Polo’s writings of China held in high regard (there are questions as to if he ever actually made it there). Where ever and how ever it emerged, ice cream did not truly “hit the scene” until the 18th century, and not long after gaining popularity in Europe, ice cream made the trans-Atlantic jump to the United States.

The Founding Fathers loved ice cream. While he was the ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson grew a bit of an obsession with ice cream, going as far as employing a chef in Paris who would make vanilla ice cream for him. Jefferson even created his own recipe for making vanilla ice cream, which actually does not even list vanilla as an ingredient (Powell 158). George Washington  insisted on having ice cream on the White House menu, and years later Dolley Madison served it at the Inauguration dinner in 1813 (Powell 160). Don’t let these prominent white people fool you, the circulation and perpetuation of ice cream in American was solely because of African Americans. In fact, legend has it that Dolley Madison got her recipe for the Inauguration dinner from Aunt Sallie Shadd, a free black woman from Delaware who many believed to the “inventor” of ice cream. Augustus Jackson, a free black man, was a cook in the White House and after leaving his job there and moving to Philidelphia, began distributing his ice cream to street vendors, who were also mostly African American (Powell 161). These street vendors brought ice cream to the American public, often shouting slogans like, “I Scream Ice Cream” in 1828, which later morphed into, “I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for ICE CREAM” in 1927 (Powell 162). Needless to say, by the time the Civil War began in 1861, ice cream had already been a part of the American diet for over 80 years and established itself as slogan-worthy treat.

Though Whitman had access to treats like ice cream and citrus fruits, these things were not prevalent during the Civil War. In her article, “Hard as the Hubs of Hell: Crackers in War,” Joy Santlofer discusses the diet of the Civil War soldier. Hard bread, or hard tack, was the staple food item during the war. This bread was so hard that it had to be shattered by a riffle or a sharp rock and then soaked in a liquid before eating, and more often than not, it housed maggots. This is what the soldiers ate every day. To break up the monotony of their diet, soldiers would add the hard bread to their coffee or stew (Santlofer 5). The reasoning behind this unfortunate diet was, of course, the lack of food preservation methods. The newest food  technology was canning, sweetened condensed milk became a hot commodity amongst the soldiers (Santlofer 3). Canned food, dried and salted meats, and hard bread were primarily the only food items that could be kept and transported during the Civil War. So how was it possible for ice cream to exist in the summer heat of Virginia in the 1860s?

This question is not easily answered. Though there were forms of refrigeration by the 1860s, food preservation was still in its primitive stage. The ice box, literally an insulated box with a block of ice on the top shelf, were the most common in cold food storage. Though an ice box could store the cream and eggs used to make ice cream, it would have not been cold enough to store ice cream. A break through in food preservation was made in 1861 by Enoch Piper in Camden, Maine, when he patented a method of freezing a fish by coating it in ice and then moving it into an ice box with chilled brine of ice and salt (Rudi, “How We Got Frozen Food”). Of course we know that the addition of salt creates a lower temperature for various chemical reasons that no one cares to read about. Enoch Piper might have received the official patent for this discovery but this was already common knowledge to those making ice cream. Even in Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for ice cream, which I referenced earlier, instructs to layer salt with ice around the sabotiere. The ice cream was mixed in the sabotiere and left for a several hours in a combination of salt and ice to freeze before serving. Here’s an image that will help clarify– the sabotiere is the smaller container within the bucket, the empty space between the sabotiere and the bucket would have been filled with salt and ice.

www.historicfoods.com

It was common practice in the 19th century to place half-frozen ice cream, what we would call “soft serve” now, into a mold and then let the ice cream continue to freeze inside the mold (Powell 160).  It’s doubtful this would have been done for the soldiers, however, because this was usually done for fancy dinner parties and special occasions. It is also unlikely that these reasonably sized sabotieres were used to feed an entire army. Here enters Jacob Fussell to save the day. Jacob Fussell established the first commercial ice cream plant in Baltimore in 1851, and supplied the Union troops with ice cream throughout the war by using refrigerated rail cars (Powell 163). Other smaller scale modes of ice cream production, i.e. making the ice cream on sight, were also used to feed the soldiers, but Fussell’s factory sent out a majority of the ice cream consumed during the Civil War.

Fussell began the tradition of ice cream as an American military staple. During World War II, the U.S. Navy produced 10 gallons of ice cream per second for its sailors (Powell 163). Ice cream, though it does not originate from The United States, has become synonymous with the United States. During times of international war, other countries have watched Americans eat the stuff (literally) by the gallons. Even though ice cream exists in dozens of other nations, only in the United States has it become linked to patriotism through its historic military ties, perhaps explaining why America is currently the greatest producer and consumer of ice cream. So not only is ice cream tasty, but it’s downright American!

Powell, Marilyn. Ice Cream: The Delicious History. New York: The Overlook Press, 2005. Print.

Santlofer, Joy. “‘Hard as the Hubs of Hell’: Crackers in War.” Food, Culture & Society: Wilson Web 10 (2007): 191-209. 13 October 2009.

Volti, Rudi. “How We Got Frozen Food.” Invention and Technology Magazine. American Hertiage. Web. 18 October 2009.

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/…

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.

In Calder’s essay, she explains that though Whitman did not think marriage was in the cards for his life and though he did not envy husbands their wives, he did envy their ability to have children.  She even quotes Whitman as saying to a little girl that he wished he knew her when she chirps, “I know you.”  This image of Whitman as an affectionate father is much more appealing to me than Whitman “the stalker” or Whitman “the creeper” as our class has so affectionately named him.  His desire (though he is seemingly unable) to have children, mobilizes him into “adopting” the soldiers as his own sons.  His conversation with the little girl is reminiscent of “The Wound-Dresser” when he writes, “One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you, / Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you” (444). 

 Throughout Drum-Taps, Whitman also refers to the soldiers as “sons” or “boys” as a father might to his child; he also does this in his letters to Peter Doyle, despite the two’s obvious intimate relationship.  Though this may be viewed as merely an age difference marker, the tenderness in which he refers to the soldiers suggests more of a relationship between him and them.  It is almost as if Whitman, having no children of his own, asserts himself as the father of the American people, thus adding to his lengthy list of titles.  As Calder points out, Whitman often called “the institution of father a failure” (198) and posited this as the reason many boys were driven to enlist.  This is yet another area in which Whitman’s desire to mend America’s mistakes manifests itself though Whitman offering himself as a means by which to fix the problem – an honorable pursuit, I think.

 Drum-Taps has ironically given me a better picture of Whitman, the man.  When he stops talking about being the savior of the nation, it seems he is better at actually being it.  Despite his more romantic relationships, it is more rewarding to view Whitman as a father rather than a lusty old man taking advantage of invalid soldiers.  Viewing him this way allows Whitman to be seen as a man who truly wanted to rekindle and reunite the nation through tender affection and love, the kind of unconditional love a parent would give a child.

Anyway, one of the ARGs that the class is playing is called “Who is Grayson OziasIV, and where is his fortune?” It’s sponsored by our friends at Levi Strauss, and so guess who the game features? None other than our buddy Whitman. The players have been issued various clues (audio files, videos, images, etc), and they’re supposed to go find objects that the leaders have hidden, which lead to more clues, which will eventually lead to $100,000. The first set of clues led everyone to New York, and then later, to New Orleans, where someone was given an 1884 edition of “Leaves of Grass” by a strange man in a hat (I’m serious). Now, the players are following a Benedict cipher through the poems.

You can follow Grayson OziasIV on Twitter (http://twitter.com/GraysonOziasIV). If you do, every day he tweets several quotes from “Leaves,” with most of them being from “Song of Myself.” No one’s sure what to do with these yet. I bet one of the clues will eventually lead somewhere near Fredericksburg. Anybody else feel like playing?

This flag was flown during the battle of Fredericksburg, as well as some other big name battles. The lighting isn't great, but you should be able to make out "Fredericksburg" embroidered on the bottom.

This is a list of places where the flag was flown.

This flag was flown at the Spotsylvania Court House battle.

And also just for fun:

This is made entirely out of locks of human hair from a bunch of different people, including…

See where the 1 is? That would mark off Jefferson Davis' hair. Awesome.

Apparently this was an art form back in the day…strange.

My pictures/blog  from our field trip should be up soon, Flickr wasn’t letting me upload anything for a while.

Clinton and Whitman

Whitman, American Rebel Idol.

A few examples:

Walt Whitman High, Bethesda, MD

Walt Whitman High School, Huntington Station, NY

The Walt Whitman Bridge (PA-NJ)

The Walt Whitman Mall (Huntington Station, NY)

Walt Wit Beer (Philly)

LOC image, Whitman cigar box from 1898

Whitman-Walker AIDS clinic, Washington DC

Walt Whitman Hotel, Camden , NJ

Walt Whitman T from LOLA (one of many)

Walt Whitman Fence Company (NY)

Mad Magazine, 1967

Campers at Camp Walt Whitman, Piermont, NH

Jesse Merandy (CUNY) with WW impersonator (Camden)

Walt Whitman Service Area

What?

Historical marker (NY)

Walt Whitman Golf (Bethesda)

WW Park (Brooklyn)

Obvious College Football connection

Meg and I have noticed that most people writing civil war poetry were not writing from a position of experience, but most likely from their lazy boys by the fire. A lot of their poetry had to do with glorifying the war cause and trying to inspire people to go to battle. The most prominent writers were never involved in the war.

When I was reading “Song of the Banner at Daybreak” it seemed like a pretty direct criticism of those people. The pennant, calling the child to war and yet having nothing to do with the war in and of itself is saddening in a way. Especially with the father, trying desperately to make the child understand that the war isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is a sad contrast.  Hardly any writers at the time seemed to be pointing out the utter pointlessness and brutality of the fighting going on, but Whitman went ahead and put it out there. “The Wound Dresser” is also a very direct attempt to portray the violence of the war. It’s almost like he’s using shock value to get his point across.

I also thought it was interesting how in several poems Whitman inserts direct speakers, something I hadn’t seen before. Perhaps this is an attempt to legitimize the points he’s attempting to make?

I definitely have a new respect for what Whitman was doing during this time period. Also, I would like to say that his poetry is LOADS better than a lot of other civil war writings we’ve come across. The awful rhyming…just awful. Also sometimes sickeningly patriotic, especially when considering how all these young boys were dying and people thought it was all for the glory of the union…just…ugh. So kudos to Whitman for stepping away from his grand vision of America to point out that this killing is senseless, yo.

The poems change as they progress, eventually bringing us to the quote in his poem “Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me” – “Must I change my triumphant songs?…/ Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?/ And sullen hymns of defeat?” (442). This is the darkest moment for Whitman, poetically speaking. He wonders whether his poetic vision can apply to the War and the world that will come after the war ends. He also has doubts as to the importance of poetry when more physical work is needed, as in the poem “The Wound-Dresser”.

He quickly rallies himself though, and reconstructs his vision to include the Southerners, the War, and his hospital work. A view in miniature of the arc of Drum-Taps can be seen in “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun” in which he moves from desiring the peace and simplicity of the country to embracing the living, changing, and dangerous life he finds in Manhattan and south during the war. Whitman begins to equate his poetic quest with the war, claiming that when the war ends, his battles, which promise to be just as challenging and dangerous as the more physical battles of the war.

Although the series of poems in Drum-Taps suggest a resolution and a resolve following the horrors of war, Whitman’s treatment of the book suggests that he was not quite as certain as I would have thought he was from reading the poems alone. He could not decide initially whether the poems, and thus the Civil War itself, belonged to his life-work of Leaves of Grass. Arguably, he spends the rest of his life wrestling with this question, making his few weeks spent in Fredericksburg and the longer time spent in DC helping the wounded a formative part of his poetic life.

The voice Whitman writes with in “First O Songs for a Prelude” is tearful, regretful, and the unifying thread for the people of which he writes about. Those people are the ones with losses that they face because of the war; the devastation, the absence of loved ones (whether dead, dying, or gone off to fight in the war), the indignation many people felt when thinking about the “enemy”. I think Whitman’s outlook of the Confederates compromised him. He and the “Angel of Marye’s Heights”, Richard Kirkland, had one thing in common; they felt in their heart of hearts that what they were doing was necessary in both aspects: war and helping humanity, humility, and love survive the cruel reality of battle. Despite the judgement they both faced, they both felt empathy for the “enemy”. While Kirkland brought water to Union soldiers on the battlefield, Whitman ,although conservatively, did mention bravery and courage when writing articles about the battles, soldiers, and sights he saw when with the regiments.

Whitman does not need to change his triumphant “songs”. In fact, that would part of his responsibility, since he was/is the self-proclaimed “Bard of America”. He needs to remain encouraging, however, the question that brings is, who should he encourage. If he encourages the South too much, Northerners might turn their back and call him a sympathizer–then his business would fail, and we all know that Whitman always had one eye on his career. If he coldly turned his shoulder on the Confederacy, I find it hard to believe he could live with himself acting that way. His triumphant tone would be for the nation BEFORE the civil war and to try and strive to gain that unification again. Thus, the triumphant tone mainly needs to shift from a triumphant “Life may be hard, but it is good” tone to a “Life is hard, only love and tolerance will get you through it” voice.

Drum Taps is a loving, vigorously working set of poetry that tugs at the heart strings and makes modern audiences question the modern day wars we are “sending our boys off to fight in”. Is there any national figure rooting for them, regardless of whether they support the war on terrorism or not? No, there is no modern day “angel” in Iraq writing home for soldiers who have their arms, hands, shoulders missing because of an IED. The nation(s) of the Civil War were lucky to have Whitman siding with any lonely boy, whether he was from Georgia, had slaves at home, or from Connecticut, and poor as dirt. The triumphant tone mainly needs to shift from a triumphant “Life may be hard, but it is good” tone to a “Life is hard, only love and tolerance will get you through it”.

Yet, at the same time I feel that Whitman has a distinctive voice that is calling out to his readers. Although he no longer has all of the answers, Whitman wants readers to reflect on the change in the nation by turning to his poetry. I came to this conclusion after reading “As I lay with my Head in Your Lap Camerado”. Reading this poem, and comparing it to pre-war Whitman, his first person “I” is still present. Also, through the usage of “you” there is still the personal invocation to the reader. The usage of the word “confession” further indicates that Whitman is trying to maintain a relationship with his readers, because he is able to expose this personal secret.

Yet the speaker is no longer someone that is confident and all knowing. Immediately, just by looking at the title, the image denotes a change in the position that the speaker is placing himself. No longer the “prophet” authority figure; rather, the title suggests a speaker who is weak and is in a position of submission with their head in a lap. But, when examining the end of the poem, I saw a reference to the “pre-war” Whitman, when the speaker admits “I confess I have urged you onward with me.” These lines echoed Whitman’s 1855 “Song of Myself”, when the speaker utters, “Shoulder your duds, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth” (82). However, in this 1855 poem, Whitman saw a journey that had a rewarding result, as opposed to the 1892 Whitman who ends the poem in a disillusioned state and writes, “without the least idea what is our destination”. After being beside death day in and day out, Whitman no longer had all the answers to the journey of life, therefore his poetry reflects his disillusioned nature.

At the same time however, Reynolds reminds us that Whitman saw the war as a “purifying fire”. So, although Whitman witnessed the horrors of war, Whitman must have thought of war as a necessary evil that would eventually strengthen the nation. This is reflected consistently throughout Drum-Taps. I saw this most vividly in the poem “Song of the Banner at Daybreak”. First, this poem is unique because it is one of the first times that there is a distinct recognition of speakers and sections. The poet, pennant, child, and farther are all connected because of the commonalities of war and fighting for freedom. Yet at the same time each speaker brings something different to the poem. The child represents the raw innocence and sees the good in the nation and states, “O father it is alive”. Using the childlike figure in this poem, Whitman is no longer putting himself as an all knowing speaker, yet Whitman uses this child’s words to convey the hope for the future of a united America.

Whitman was very much a Unionist, he wouldn’t, and couldn’t, abide a country that was not unified. Not because he thought the south deserved to subjugated to northern law or anything so dramatic, rather he simply felt that America could never reach its potential unless it was brought together as one country. Reynolds speaks of Whitman as one of many who was glorifying the war, writing about it as chance for great change. From my readings though I have trouble finding this Whitman, the Whitman whose eyes glittered whenever a bomb dropped or another soldier marched out to battle. Recognizing Whitman as a patriot though, I realize this must have been, to an extent, how he felt. The war was a chance for glory, for honor, a chance to defend the country. Because of this Whitman would have felt it was something glorious, but his writings suggest a different tone.

It was difficult to find a way to reconcile these two understandings of Whitman in my mind, the Whitman that I read, the tender, caring, empathetic Whitman, with the war-loving, battle frenzied Whitman Reynolds speaks of. The only way I’ve been able to do this was to go back and consider Whitman’s original goals, all the way back in 1855 Song of Myself.

Back then, Whitman was an idealist. He wanted everyone to hold hands, sing kumbaya, and revel in some nature. As the war approached though, the country was strained. It had been at odds with itself for a long time before the actual fighting started and everyone knew. Whitman, I’m sure, saw the country falling apart and knew he had to readdress his understanding of how America would reach this state of utopia he so wanted. This is where, I think, the war-loving Whitman came in. Whitman saw the war as a chance to break the tension that had been building. At this point he still saw death as part of the renewal cycle of life, not as something venomous so he wasn’t as concerned with dying soldiers as he might have been. As the war went on however Whitman got much closer to death and saw the toll the war was taking on the men of the country he loved so well (Not in a gay way though, just in a completely normal, culturally acceptable, homoerotic way). This is where the tender, empathetic Whitman I’ve been reading comes in.

Although he still saw the war as a chance to reunite the nation, now it seems to be more of a obligation than an honor. It seems to me that Whitman, at this point, no longer thought of war as the best answer, but rather as the current answer. Rather than seeing the soldiers as the men who would change the world through battle, he saw them as the men who were changing the world through sacrifice, a sacrifice that would have been unnecessary had  peopl eonly heeded his words back in 1855.

So to an extent I believe Whitman was glorifying war, but only at first. As he progressed he lost the battle-fever that has swept the country and was left only with a need to care for those who fought so bravely for the land he loved.

     The poet here, a very thinly disguised picture of Whitman himself (an anti-academic, the poet is at one point referred to as a “bard out of Manhattan”), is the torch-bearer for change (423). He has both the first and the last word in the poem and is able to fully articulate what is hinted at by the child and rejected by the father. The child is able to glimpse what the poet knows, and expresses a desire to follow the anti-materialist, country-spanning path of the poet, but the father’s final word overshadows his. Here, the father is the voice of people content with the establishment, those that want nothing to upset what has been built thus far. However, the father is paralyzed by that love of the establishment, so that he will not even rise up to defend it. He is paralyzed by what he sees directly in front of him, so that he is unable to see future threats that must be defended against.

     The pennant and the banner occupy similar roles, although the banner’s small size probably explains why it is the one to speak to the child and the banner speaks to the poet. The banner serves as the connection between the world of the child, which wonders “what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?” and the banner that of “Demons and death then I sing” (421, 425). The banner is the recipient of the poet’s focus and seems to be dependent on the poet for direction: “Point this day [O bard out of Manhattan], leaving all the rest, to us over all—and yet we know not why, / For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing, / Only flapping in the wind?” (423). It shows Whitman’s high view of the national poet, who is able to infuse objects with meaning, including the meaning that inspires people to war. The poet does not create democracy here, but he is the force that spurs people to enjoy and defend it. He gives direction to those that dare look up from the pavement and money exchanges in front of them.

     In previous centuries, the dialogue poem had been an oft-used format that generally facilitated a discussion between the soul and the body. Generally, things came down in favor of the soul, reflecting the strong Christian influence of the time. While it’s reasonable to assume that Whitman would be on the side of the body, the answer is much grayer than that. While the poet obviously comes down on the side of the physical, with his call to arms, he also is outside of the world. He calls for a rejection of what the world deems worthwhile, such as money, while extolling the abstract idea of democracy. The poet is connected enough to sense the currents of the world, but separated enough to be in touch with the world of ideas and souls. In other words, the poet is a kosmos.

Reading Drum Taps there were two poems in particular that seemed non sequitur to me, City of Ships and Give Me the Splendid Sun. Next to these two poems I have scribbled excitedly “old school Walt” in pencil, feeling refreshed by the return of “O”s, exclamation marks, repetition, and lines like, “O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied!” (447). Even surrounded by death and violence, Whitman continues to muse about all the differing beauties between nature and the city. It’s almost as if these poems are his own personal escape, his “me” time, if you will. Some times he even takes a breather within the same poem, some of his more macabre poems contain their own, small “old school Walt” moments. For instance, in The Wound-Dresser, there are intermittent intermissions amongst the strenuous listing of a nurse’s duty to proclaim, “O maidens and young men I love and love me” (443), and then closes the poem with this sentiment, “(many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested, many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips)” (445).  No matter the circumstance, Walt always seems to make time to appreciate the men around him… especially when they’re dusty.

Walt Whitman was a lover, not a fighter (I’m full of cliches today!); his passion for the masculine form and sensuality may not be as raw and zealous as it is in 1855, but it is undoubtedly present in Drum Taps. My personal favorite man-crush moment takes place within a set of parenthesis in First O Songs for a Prelude: “how good they look as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders!” (417). Here, also, is where he first divulges his minor dust fetish. All dust aside, these brief sensual and/or loving moments serve as a glimpse into momentary humanizing instances, however short-lived or fleeting or perhaps mentally constructed they might have been. There is also that sense perhaps Walt might have optimistically said to himself one day while watching sweaty, dusty men march past, “well, war is awful and I’m exhausted… but check out those hotties!”

I’m half kidding, of course.

Whitman seems to take war, digest it, and spit it back out optimistically. Reynolds comments that Whitman was such a unique war poet because he did not often express partisanship. To avoid partisanship in any war, let alone the Civil War, is difficult for the author and  frustrating to readers. However, more important to Whitman than politics was the “big picture” and his role in putting the pieces of America together (explaining why he was so enamored with Lincoln). The Civil War provided a force that could have never been generated by one man or one book of poems, and Whitman seems pleased to simply be a part of the progress. Even the most sorrowful times, Whitman’s songs remain triumphant.

It would be fantastic if  those two selves would merge. While I don’t want him to change, necessarily, it would be great if we could get the best of both Whitmans.  The hopeful voice of the poet-prophet tends to get lost in the pain of the war, and the inexperience of the 1855 poet-prophet needs to be tempered by the experience of man. “Over the Carnage Rose a Prophetic Voice” captures such a sense of the two selves merging, at least in the later version. The initial version, published in the 1860 edition, is radically different (here, if you like).

Whitman’s ideas remain the same throughout both pieces. There’s a sense of unification here, for Whitman, for the nation, and for the people. 1855 Whitman lists his nations, and War Whitman connects each nation with its geographical counterpart. Missouri finds its mate in Massachusetts, and Michigan, Florida. The Calamus Whitman is also found in both versions of the text; Whitman challenges the reader:

(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?

Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?

Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

Our nation is not one to be unified by proclamations, laws, or by armistices; not even our president can hold us together. It’s not even Whitman, really. The preceding wars have taught everyone that no one person or institution can hold such a diverse nation. Instead, it is the people that 1855 Whitman has mentioned, the prostitute and the sailor and the slave. It is the “comrades,” “lovers,” and “manly affection” (449) that is so prevalent in Calamus.

1855 Whitman is so evident in the 1860 version. His ego-centrism spills off the page. It is he who will “make the continent indissoluble,” and “plant companionship.” Whitman, the divine poet-prophet, takes everything upon himself. He is the action that we will follow, and he can’t resist reminding us that it is his words that give the nation hope. Whitman is the devoted “femme” of democracy, and will do everything to help its progeny. It’s easy to find the man who empathizes with everyone but has experienced very little here.

When we get to 1867, Whitman has seen the work of man. He’s seen his beloved nation fracture, and the people themselves break apart and be destroyed much in the same way. His words haven’t led the nation in the sense of manly love—at least, not yet. In 1867, most evidence of Whitman’s actions is taken out. Whitman’s words are there; his voice rises, and he checks the reader, reminding them that neither laws nor papers will hold a people together. But that’s all the poet-prophet is, a prophet. The result is much quieter; 1860 has a flurry of exclamation points. Whitman can barely contain his exhilaration and hope on the page. In 1867, it’s up to the people themselves for the “manly affection” (449) that Whitman puts such hope in. His faith in it is more hopeful; he doesn’t proclamate (there are a ton of “there shall be…!”s in the other version), but he looks toward the future. It’s easier to trust this reflective speaker, rather than the agitated and overly excited 1860 one.

So, yes. I think that as a man changes, his poetry needs to change. Whitman saw himself in his poetry. It was a reflection of his inner-self, and as he changed and his ideas changed, so did Leaves. But maybe it doesn’t so much have to be a change as it is a tempering and merging, especially in Whitman’s case.

One of the ways he gives voice to the war is through dividing poems into roles where a certain labeled speaker narrates that part of the poem.  This is not something we have seen before from Whitman and yet it occurs in several places in Drum-Taps.  For instance, “Song of the Banner at Daybreak” is divided into several speakers: Poet, Pennant, Child, Father, and Banner.  Though the poet can arguably represent Whitman himself (“O bard out of Manhattan”(423) etc.), by labeling the poet as Poet instead of “Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs” (50), as in “Song of Myself,” Whitman takes a step back. 

After reading “Specimen Days” last week and Drum-Taps this week, it is becoming more apparent that Whitman approached his work very differently during the Civil War.  For him, the war was more than just unnecessary violence; it was a blatant attack at the heart of the entire premise of America.  By removing himself from “Song of the Banner at Daybreak,” Whitman shows just how difficult it was for him to assess and come to terms with his crumbling country.  The poet here still speaks out as omniscient, though the other speakers (particularly the banner and pennant) and even at times the poet himself seem to suggest that the poet is not completely sufficient in getting at the heart of how the war was affecting people.  The poet even explains that he learned from the child in, “My hearing and tongue are come to me, (a little child taught me,)” (425).

The child in this poem also seems to be the most distinct voice of reason, which is perhaps Whitman’s way of suggesting that America return to a place nearer its birth, when the country was filled with a greater innocence, courage, and child-like wonderment of the American flag which, according to the child, is “so broad it covers the whole sky.”  The father provides a weathered contrast to this example, as he calls the child “foolish babe” and claims that he fills him “with anguish.”  The father attempts to get the child to focus on other things like money and property (sound familiar?), while the child prefers to focus on the banner and pennant, which represent America.

The poem closes with the poet’s longest monologue of the section; he claims within the last two lines, “I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I sing you only, / Flapping up there in the wind” (426).  Here, Whitman is not singing of himself as before, here he sings only of America and those things that represent it.  This shift for Whitman ironically may help his readers to connect with him as they focus on the tenderness and real desperation with which he confronts America.

Our first stop was the battle ground on Sunken Rd, which was the site of an extremely bloody massacre of Union soldiers. The geography of Marye Heights gave the Confederates at easy victory, despite the fact the Union had more troops and had been stationed in Fredericksburg longer. However, none of this is really that interesting, lets be honest. Far more interesting was the wedding party taking photographs nearby as we commented on their ironic existence in the space. Where thousands upon thousands of men were killed 150 years ago, now hosted a group of well dressed young adults smiling, laughing, and embarking on new life. I believe it was Professor Brady who made the Whitman reference saying something like, “how Whitmanic, new life springing from a place of death.”  Then later, Professor Groom alluded to “This Compost!” The foul meat that perhaps remained beneath the shiny leather shoes and high heels of the wedding party, reminding us that the Earth, “grows such sweet things out of such corruptions.”

Chatham House, formerly known as The Lacy House, was our next stop. This was where Whitman spent time nursing wounded soldiers. The house is beautiful, though one room was painted in an off-putting Pepto Bismal pink color, and the grounds surrounding the property are perfectly manicured and stunning. Again, the irony played within my mind. Where hospital tents had stood before, now grows flowers and grape vines.  We watched the informational DVD on a flat screen TV in the room that had formerly been the amputation room. The chasm between the past in the present seems alienating and inescapable. However, there was a specific moment when that chasm was bridged (perhaps like the pontoon bridge built by the Federals over the Rappahannock?), and when we all experienced something tangible in 2009 that Whitman experienced in the 1860s.

Still standing outside the Chatham house are the two tangled Catalpa trees where Whitman saw a pile of amputated limbs. The trees are directly outside the windows of the amputation room. Our tour guide was kind enough to read Whitman’ words about the trees. It seemed a sobering moment for everyone as we all realized that this was the “closest” we have been to Whitman so far; we connected his words to our physical surroundings. After this moment, I found myself looking around with new eyes, wondering if Washington, Lincoln, and of course Whitman, looked over the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg as I was at the same time of day, on the same day of the year, many years ago. Maybe that’s nerdy… but we were all a little bit nerdy today.

Our first stop was the battle ground on Sunken Rd, which was the site of an extremely bloody massacre of Union soldiers. The geography of Marye Heights gave the Confederates at easy victory, despite the fact the Union had more troops and had been stationed in Fredericksburg longer. However, none of this is really that interesting, lets be honest. Far more interesting was the wedding party taking photographs nearby as we commented on their ironic existence in the space. Where thousands upon thousands of men were killed 150 years ago, now hosted a group of well dressed young adults smiling, laughing, and embarking on new life. I believe it was Professor Brady who made the Whitman reference saying something like, “how Whitmanic, new life springing from a place of death.”  Then later, Professor Groom alluded to “This Compost!” The foul meat that perhaps remained beneath the shiny leather shoes and high heels of the wedding party, reminding us that the Earth, “grows such sweet things out of such corruptions.”

Chatham House, formerly known as The Lacy House, was our next stop. This was where Whitman spent time nursing wounded soldiers. The house is beautiful, though one room was painted in an off-putting Pepto Bismal pink color, and the grounds surrounding the property are perfectly manicured and stunning. Again, the irony played within my mind. Where hospital tents had stood before, now grows flowers and grape vines.  We watched the informational DVD on a flat screen TV in the room that had formerly been the amputation room. The chasm between the past in the present seems alienating and inescapable. However, there was a specific moment when that chasm was bridged (perhaps like the pontoon bridge built by the Federals over the Rappahannock?), and when we all experienced something tangible in 2009 that Whitman experienced in the 1860s.

Still standing outside the Chatham house are the two tangled Catalpa trees where Whitman saw a pile of amputated limbs. The trees are directly outside the windows of the amputation room. Our tour guide was kind enough to read Whitman’ words about the trees. It seemed a sobering moment for everyone as we all realized that this was the “closest” we have been to Whitman so far; we connected his words to our physical surroundings. After this moment, I found myself looking around with new eyes, wondering if Washington, Lincoln, and of course Whitman, looked over the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg as I was at the same time of day, on the same day of the year, many years ago. Maybe that’s nerdy… but we were all a little bit nerdy today.

Our first stop was the battle ground on Sunken Rd, which was the site of an extremely bloody massacre of Union soldiers. The geography of Marye Heights gave the Confederates at easy victory, despite the fact the Union had more troops and had been stationed in Fredericksburg longer. However, none of this is really that interesting, lets be honest. Far more interesting was the wedding party taking photographs nearby as we commented on their ironic existence in the space. Where thousands upon thousands of men were killed 150 years ago, now hosted a group of well dressed young adults smiling, laughing, and embarking on new life. I believe it was Professor Brady who made the Whitman reference saying something like, “how Whitmanic, new life springing from a place of death.”  Then later, Professor Groom alluded to “This Compost!” The foul meat that perhaps remained beneath the shiny leather shoes and high heels of the wedding party, reminding us that the Earth, “grows such sweet things out of such corruptions.”

Chatham House, formerly known as The Lacy House, was our next stop. This was where Whitman spent time nursing wounded soldiers. The house is beautiful, though one room was painted in an off-putting Pepto Bismal pink color, and the grounds surrounding the property are perfectly manicured and stunning. Again, the irony played within my mind. Where hospital tents had stood before, now grows flowers and grape vines.  We watched the informational DVD on a flat screen TV in the room that had formerly been the amputation room. The chasm between the past in the present seems alienating and inescapable. However, there was a specific moment when that chasm was bridged (perhaps like the pontoon bridge built by the Federals over the Rappahannock?), and when we all experienced something tangible in 2009 that Whitman experienced in the 1860s.

Still standing outside the Chatham house are the two tangled Catalpa trees where Whitman saw a pile of amputated limbs. The trees are directly outside the windows of the amputation room. Our tour guide was kind enough to read Whitman’ words about the trees. It seemed a sobering moment for everyone as we all realized that this was the “closest” we have been to Whitman so far; we connected his words to our physical surroundings. After this moment, I found myself looking around with new eyes, wondering if Washington, Lincoln, and of course Whitman, looked over the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg as I was at the same time of day, on the same day of the year, many years ago. Maybe that’s nerdy… but we were all a little bit nerdy today.

Our first stop was the battle ground on Sunken Rd, which was the site of an extremely bloody massacre of Union soldiers. The geography of Marye Heights gave the Confederates at easy victory, despite the fact the Union had more troops and had been stationed in Fredericksburg longer. However, none of this is really that interesting, lets be honest. Far more interesting was the wedding party taking photographs nearby as we commented on their ironic existence in the space. Where thousands upon thousands of men were killed 150 years ago, now hosted a group of well dressed young adults smiling, laughing, and embarking on new life. I believe it was Professor Brady who made the Whitman reference saying something like, “how Whitmanic, new life springing from a place of death.”  Then later, Professor Groom alluded to “This Compost!” The foul meat that perhaps remained beneath the shiny leather shoes and high heels of the wedding party, reminding us that the Earth, “grows such sweet things out of such corruptions.”

Chatham House, formerly known as The Lacy House, was our next stop. This was where Whitman spent time nursing wounded soldiers. The house is beautiful, though one room was painted in an off-putting Pepto Bismal pink color, and the grounds surrounding the property are perfectly manicured and stunning. Again, the irony played within my mind. Where hospital tents had stood before, now grows flowers and grape vines.  We watched the informational DVD on a flat screen TV in the room that had formerly been the amputation room. The chasm between the past in the present seems alienating and inescapable. However, there was a specific moment when that chasm was bridged (perhaps like the pontoon bridge built by the Federals over the Rappahannock?), and when we all experienced something tangible in 2009 that Whitman experienced in the 1860s.

Still standing outside the Chatham house are the two tangled Catalpa trees where Whitman saw a pile of amputated limbs. The trees are directly outside the windows of the amputation room. Our tour guide was kind enough to read Whitman’ words about the trees. It seemed a sobering moment for everyone as we all realized that this was the “closest” we have been to Whitman so far; we connected his words to our physical surroundings. After this moment, I found myself looking around with new eyes, wondering if Washington, Lincoln, and of course Whitman, looked over the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg as I was at the same time of day, on the same day of the year, many years ago. Maybe that’s nerdy… but we were all a little bit nerdy today.

Group A is staking a claim on “The Wound Dresser.”

Love,

Meg

Here at UMW we’ve been finding poems that mention or respond to Whitman.  This poem doesn’t do so directly, but it focuses on a love of Brooklyn that may resonate with your readings now:

“On Leaving Brooklyn”

after Psalm 137

If I forget thee

let my tongue forget the songs

it sang in this strange land

and my heart forget the secrets

only a stranger can learn.

____

Borough of churches, borough of crack,

if I forget how ailanthus trees sprout

on the rooftops, how these streets

end in water and light,

let my eyes grow nearsighted.

____

Let my blood forget

the map of its travels

and my other blood cease

its slow tug toward the sea

if I do not remember,

____

if I do not always consider thee

my Babylon, my Jerusalem.

–Julia Kasdorf, from Eve’s Striptease

You move between the soldiers’ cots

the way I move among my dead,

their white bodies laid out in lines.

____

You bathe the forehead, you bathe the lip, the cock,

as I touch my father, as if the language

were a form of life.

_____

You write their letters home, I take the dictation

of his firm dream lips, this boy

I love as you love your boys.

____

They die and you still feel them.  Time

becomes unpertinent to love,

to the male bodies in beds.

____

We bend over them, Walt, taking their breath

soft on our faces, wiping their domed brows,

stroking back the coal-black Union hair.

____

We lean down, our pointed breasts

heavy as plummets with fresh spermy milk–

we conceive, Walt, with the men we love, thus, now,

we bring to fruit.

     As the war (and our reading in the LOA) began, Whitman’s view of the soldiers seems to have been similar to what it was in 1855, with his descriptions of the returning, defeated Union soldiers after the first Battle of Bull Run remaining pretty general. These men, lacking “the proud boasts with which you went forth,” do not have names (732). The act of naming someone, or something, signifies an affection that Whitman does not yet seem to feel for these men; instead, they are “queer looking objects” (733). Not surprisingly, this distance rapidly shrinks when Whitman begins to search for his brother in the hospitals.

     By December of 1862, Whitman had begun to see the faces of the soldiers he was writing and hearing about. Beginning with the “Back to Washington” note, Whitman begins to give names to the soldiers he had previously left untitled. “D.F. Russell” and “Charles Miller” are sitting there, with Whitman watching over them (738). That exact specificity does not last though; a mere six months later, Whitman reduces the soldier’s names to abbreviations.

     The abbreviations are not a sign of a returning disconnect between Whitman and the men: they convey the man’s initials, as we as his unit and where the unit was raised from (presumably around where the soldier was from). Instead, the reduction of names abbreviations reflects how there were simply too many men that Whitman was in contact with for him to convey how he truly felt for each individual. Despite the grand declarations he made about himself, our great poet of democracy had to deal with the limitations of being one man.

     Whitman deals with that forced namelessness in an interesting way though: instead of bemoaning his powerlessness, Whitman turns it into a glorification of the working-class foot soldier. However, while in “Unnamed Remains the Bravest Soldier” Whitman seems to solve his own problem and put a plug in for his favorite team, to do it requires him to put that old distance between himself and the men. Like Whitman’s captive hunters that are betrayed and slaughtered in Song of Myself, the bravest soldier here is also unfailingly young: “Our manliest—our boys—our hardy darlings; no picture gives them. Likely, the typic one of them (standing, no doubt, for hundreds, thousands)…” (748). That distance turns out to be more the rule than the exception with Whitman’s treatment of the Confederate soldiers.

     Although it is admirable that Whitman did not appear to show preference for northern soldiers when he was moving through the hospitals, he does in the written descriptions he gives of soldiers. With a couple of exceptions, the personal descriptions he gives of the soldiers he encounters are of Union men, with some men warranting entire notes for themselves. Not so for the Confederates: they remain almost entirely faceless. This should not be surprising, since Whitman was spending his time in Union army hospitals, that doubtlessly gave preference to Union wounded over Confederate wounded, but it shows another of Whitman’s limitations.  While he may have celebrated himself as containing galaxies, Whitman was very quickly shown by the war what size he was. It warrants mention though that, while these boundaries may have affected Whitman’s writings, they drove him to physically do work that belied those limits.

I say that the war may be viewed as a recipe for the breakdown of the soul by looking at the connections Whitman often made between the soul and body.  As frequently discussed in class, Whitman viewed the human body as ultimate perfection, writing often of its splendors and praising its uses and beauty.  He also declared that the soul and body are in a completely mutually beneficial relationship and that they rely on each other through this; this is shown when he writes, “The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body” (21) in the preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass.  As Whitman viewed, recorded, and even engaged in attempting to mend the devastation brought about by the war, he focused particularly on the hundreds of amputations various soldiers (from both the North and the South) were forced to endure.  He writes in “Specimen Days,” “I notice a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, &c., a full load for a one-horse cart” (736) and mentions these severed and disposed appendages many times throughout the remainder of the text, as well as within several of his more graphic war poems.  The physical dismemberment of the limbs of soldiers, the removal of pieces of their bodies, can equally be said to allow for the chipping away of their spirits as well.  In losing one part of the aforementioned relationship, the whole deteriorates.

This is even more difficult for Whitman to grapple with as it is the result of America against America – a kind of national suicide.  The spiritual dismemberment that follows physical dismemberment hits him in a way that leaves him reaching for ways to bring the country back to some level of commonality.  He attempts to accomplish this by focusing on the natural world, the land that remains beautiful despite all of the violence and tragedy.  He writes:

The night was very pleasant, at times, the moon shining out full and clear, all Nature so calm in itself, the early summer grass so rich, and foliage of the trees—yet there the battle raging, and many good fellows lying helpless, with new accessions to them, and every minute amid the rattle of muskets and crash of cannon, (for there was an artillery contest too,) the red life-blood oozing out from heads or trunks or limbs upon that green and dew-cool grass (746).

In illuminating a battle scene by jumping back and forth between the harsh brutality of war and the peaceful serenity provided in and by nature, Whitman seems to hope to force his readers and the American people back into a place where their spirits and bodies may be uncompromised and where they may remain united.  In his writing, he seeks to piece together a people that continually divide themselves and hopes to stop them from doing so before there is nothing left to reunite.

I think some of the problems with Whitman’s description of his war experiences are the same problems that we run into with his poetry. He tries to represent everything and everyone, and therefore somewhat loses something when he begins to generalize and list. I saw this in the way he kept his diary like a catalogue, a description we have used for his poetry, a catalogue of the various soldiers he met, their injuries, what he gave them, whether or not they died.  On the one hand we are seeing the mass amount of destruction caused by this war- it seems like every soldier Whitman described had something amputated- but on the other hand we’re still not seeing any reflection on how this is going to affect the soldier’s life from then on, or his family.

I thought Whitman’s most interesting observations were not necessarily with the soldiers, but when he observed life outside of the hospitals. I loved the passage where he described the inauguration ball taking place in the patent office, where months before he had seen the cots of the soldiers.

So to answer the question for this week, I’m not really sure whether or not Whitman succeeded in getting the “real” war into his books. At his time, I feel like it’s very likely that all of the horrible injuries and mass casualties were not necessarily widely reported, so maybe for Whitman’s time he really was giving a more real account of the civil war than anyone else was at the time. The passage about the two brothers who were fighting on opposite sides and were injured in the same battle, the wounds from which both subsequently dies, strikes me that way. Perhaps no one in Whitman’s time would have made a statement like that. I feel like now though, especially the way the civil war is gone over and over again in history classes throughout grade school, most people are very aware that family members often fought against each other, that the battles were extremely bloody, and the politics involved in the fighting. I wonder if Whitman would say that the history books now are giving a more true account of things.

Ok this is a side note but, every time Whitman mentioned the “naked” bodies of the soldiers and then that part where he said he was sitting by the side of the soldier while he was sleeping, I just got this really weird image of him being a creeper and watching people while they slept…not to mention the part where he alludes to stalking Lincoln…

Working in the makeshift hospitals, Whitman witnessed death everyday. But, was Whitman, truly capturing all of the horrors of death and war in his prose? Or was Whitman like the textbook’s filtering what the public can see? I would like to think that Whitman included to his best ability everything that he witnessed. However, even Whitman acknowledges that readers can not truly understand the atrocities of war without being in the battlefield. In “Death of A Hero”, Whitman writes, “ I wonder if I could ever convey to another, to you, for instance, reader dear- the tender and terrible realities of such cases” (768). However, Whitman highlights the moments in Fredericksburg and in the war in which he found important and touching. Whether it is describing Abraham Lincoln on a horse or the “Ambulance Processions”, Whitman conveys through the written word what was occurring in the south during the Civil War.

What struck me was how Whitman even throughout his entries in Specimen Days finds his writing talent as important not only to “record history” but as a means of comfort to soldiers. In many of the entries Whitman describes how he would write letters for the wounded soldiers and send them to their family, friends, and loved ones at home. Whitman used writing to unite the nation, both in letters, his prose, and poetry. Whitman did not have much to offer these soldiers, yet he mentions “letters” as one of the gifts and services that he provided. From the way Whitman writes in the entries, it seems as though Whitman became known for his letter writing service. In the introduction to Memoranda Whitman alludes that he wants his written word to withstand time in order to commemorate those that died in the Civil War. Yet, it can be argued that these written letters he wrote for the wounded and dying soldiers are physical evidence, a primary source, which truly captures the feelings and atrocities of the Civil War.

Whitman day in and day out was right beside the soldiers as they died. However, although he could have left and gone back to New York, he remained in the mist of the battles. Whitman reflects on his personal commitment to stay and writes, “I do not see that I do much good to the wounded and dying; but I can not leave them.” (Erkkila 198). Nonetheless, witnessing these deaths obviously had a great affect on him, as it would anyone. Therefore, Whitman used both his observations and feelings that these observations sparked as his muse. While taking care of the soldiers in the hospitals, Whitman assisted both men and young boys from the North and South. Thus, as we discussed in class last week, in his poetry after the war there are more nationalistic words and phrases. Whitman, witnessing as many deaths as he did, saw how precious and fragile life was. Therefore, Whitman wanted his readers to not only to remember the war and many soldiers that died, but to also learn from the war and unite as a nation.

That’s right…Civil War Nurse Barbie.  Note the complete medical kit, the shiny white apron and, of course, the golden smile.

Now, for a little contrast-

Today, the exposure that civilians get of war is so diluted and contrived.  The bloody sheets and dead bodies are kept far from view of the public; out of sight and out of mind.  Even coffins respectfully draped with an American flag are considered too controversial for public consumption.

It is especially interesting to me that Whitman saw the importance of an honest portrayal of the war, even in a time when most people were exposed to it in a much more realistic way.  I’ve been thinking about the psychological effects of a war that takes place, not on the other side of the world, but in your back yard.  And of an enemy that is not foreign and unfamiliar but your brother or neighbor.  It’s easy to throw a blanket over thousands of fallen patriots, either “North” or “South,” “Confederate” or “Yankee.”  However, Whitman seems to see the importance in looking closely at the faces of these soldiers and contemplating their experiences and motivations.

In Memoranda During the War, when he says, “The actual Soldier of 1862-’65, North and South, with all his ways, his incredible dauntlessness, habits, practices, tastes, language, his appetite, rankness, his superb strength and animality, lawless gait, and a hundred unnamed lights and shades of camp — I say, will never be written — perhaps must not and should not be,” perhaps he’s talking about the other side of the coin.  As tragic as it may be, there is a certain amount of heroism and glory in dying on the battlefield.  I think there is validity in trying to preserve this image.

To switch gears a little, I also found out this weekend that no account of Civil War Medicine is without mention of Clara Barton.  She seems a bit like a female version of Whitman himself.  She joined the throws of women, with little to no medical training, to help assist their country in the bloodiest of ways: as nurses.  These women dropped everything to support a nation that had not even granted them the right to vote.  In Barton’s poem she says calls these women, “nurses, consolers, and saviors of men.  These women truly were angels, and our history as a nation is much more complete with their stories told honestly.

I grew up in the center of the Civil War. Yes, I know that’s a pretty gutsy claim to make, especially if there are fellow southerners reading along. I grew up in Appomattox. Right where Lee, in a bittersweet moment, surrendered to Grant. When I was little, every family vacation had some sort of educational sidenote. In Maryland, we visited Antietam, in Nova (Northern Virginia) I walked where soldiers ran at Bull Run, after riding horses in Kentucky, my momma dragged me to Perryville. My entire life has danced around the Civil War, and I like it that way. Yet, it is another thing to truly see photographs from the era (thank you, Mathew Brady) and read the hair-raising, gag-inducing scenes from Whitman, Barton, and other “insiders” from the war.

Whitman comments in his memorandum, “in the mushy influences of current times the fervid atmosphere and typical events of those years are in danger of being totally forgotten.” I think Whitman realized that people were shocked at the horrible detriments of the war when it became public, like the way standards for becoming a surgeon in the war was so little. In the same light, he also realized the almost desired ignorance of the public. They wanted to hear “Our boys are fighting as hard as they could. Your knitted mittens and socks are coming in handy. The food isn’t delectable, but it’s healthy.” Whitman saw first hand, and heard reliable accounts from the boys he helped nurse, that the described situation was a farce and simply wishful thinking.

After helping those boys to health (or at least a little more comfortable death), I think Whitman felt he owed it to them that they would know they didn’t fight in vain just to have all the dirty secrets swept under the table. Whitman also knew the public would want to just sweep it under the table, no one wants to hear about “their boys” dying of diarrhea or some other “undignified” disease. Even though war is ugly, and Whitman certainly painted that picture stealthily and effectively, he does it beautifully as well. The Better Angel mentions both “Sights–The Army Corps, Encamped on the War Field” and “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim”. Both poems are great examples of what one critic was quoted in The Better Angel as saying “gentle but lethal”.

Perhaps Dr. Scanlon should offer more video close analysis?

“One of the marks of any great writer is adaptability, and Whitman, after a few short days in camp among the young Northern soldiers, had already begun to grasp that his old enthusiastic style of writing was sadly unsuited for capturing the grim realities of their war. A new approach was needed, one that reflected more accurately the soldiers’ homespun ways and quiet courage. With his great gift for mimicry, Whitman would write poems that spoke in the drawling voices of the men themselves, in accents he first heard around the campfires at Fredericksburg. This was a new way of  writing, not just for Whitman but for American literature in general, and its importance can be scarcely overstated” (61).

Wow. Where was Roy Morris last week? I cannot even attempt to disagree with anything in this quotation. Morris reiterates Whitman’s unique, almost alien, existence in the 19th century, creating something new, beautiful, and inconceivable all at the same time. My passion for Whitman is renewed; my image of him  as a raw, brilliant, zealous, slightly obsessive artist lives on. *sigh of relief*

Okay, enough of that.

What I found most interesting about this week’s reading regarding documenting the war were the many parallels I could make to photography (a topic I now know much more about, thank you very much, Matthew Brady). Both the photographer and poet desire to document an experience rather than a statistic; both attempt to create an image (the photographer more obviously); both want to make something “real.” However, quite sadly, neither the photographer nor the poet will ever create that whole image, they struggle against the same infinite limitations of the tangible realm. Neither the poet nor the photographer can bottle up the scents of gunpowder and sweat, or contain the bursting, violent sounds of battle, or articulate the energy that surrounds them or the taste of the air that fills their mouth with each anxious breath. It cannot be done, by anyone, ever. Life is ephemeral, and for the artist that really freaking sucks.

This artistic frustration could lead to artistic surrender or artistic insatiability, and with Whitman I believe it’s the latter. Why would Whitman keep both an extensive journal, Specimen Days, and write dozens of poems, Drum Taps, if not to make every effort to wholly document the experience? With Specimen Days, Whitman shows us snapshots, gives us names, places, and dates, and a detailed account of both ordinary camp life and the chaotic buzz of the hospital. There is so much information in Specimen Days it’s hard to believe that the poems included in Drum Taps are not redundant. His poems voice the metaphysical, the intangible, the vague sensations that swim around our minds invisibly. I’m not a psychology major, but it seems as though Whitman uses two different parts of his brain to write his journal entries and his poems. Though some segments of his prose are equally as eloquent as his poetry, his poetry contains the energy of those little “lightening bolt” or “light bulb” moments that happen the moment a dream comes to an end. For instance, in the closing lines of “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim,” the speaker compares the face of a dead soldier to that of Christ– a blasphemous claim made without apology. Never in Specimen Days is there such a bold metaphor, not even when Whitman talks about Abraham Lincoln (side note: how creepy was the part of Morris’ article when he revealed that Whitman was planning to write a fake dialogue between himself and Lincoln?!). With these two different documenting methods, Whitman does not attempt to reach different audiences, but the same audience in different ways.

To answer the question of “will the real war ever get in the books,” the answer for myself and Whitman is a resounding, thwarted NO. However, Whitman succeeds in giving feeling and “reality” to an occurrence, which might have otherwise been smothered with numbers and facts. Humanity lies within the details, the idiosyncrasies, the peccadilloes and simple joys, the little ice cream treats that a grey-bearded poet brings to wounded soldiers. Whitman lends the reader his own personal experience of the Civil War, and though it does not nearly encompass everything, it is sufficient.

Looking back on my previous post I feel ashamed that I accused Whitman of abandoning his personal style of poetry for one of a more universal style, after reading his diaries I can see he did nothing of the sort. Every time a soldier died Whitman felt it, every time a cannonball tore through a line of troops and left craters in the blood-soaked battle field Whitman died a little inside. To him the Civil War was personal, that his fellow country men could inflict such pain and horror upon each other appears to have hurt Whitman in ways I can hardly grasp.

I’ve been struggling with the dichotomy between Whitman-the-Poet and Whitman-the-Man, hence the poem I posted earlier this week, but I feel like now that I’ve had  a glimpse of Whitman-the-Man I understand his poetry all the better for it.

In 1855 Whitman wrote poetry with the optimistic, carefree wonder of a child. He saw good and beauty in everything: the body, the soul, nature, speech, song, even death. His entire being was founded on his faith that if everyone could learn to experience the world with the same love and admiration that he did then the world would truly be perfect. He believed that if any group of people were capable of such a transformative world view it was the American people. To have these same people that he glorified in his poetry be the cause of something so horrendous as the Civil War must have been like being shot by a beloved friend. The fact that Whitman was able to maintain any sort of adherence to his prior optimism is amazing, to face the bowels of Hell and still maintain belief in Heaven is a skill reserved for only the strongest of people (I’m wandering into the field of flowery prose here, I apologize).

This post has become rather emotional and presumptuous, in that I seem to be claiming that I know Whitman in an emotionally intimate way, but I think that this may be the response Whitman was seeking all along. To stir the emotions of his reader, to have their hearts break every time one of the soldiers he loved was found laying on a stretcher covered by a gray cloth, to have them sing for joy when the soldiers returned from battle celebrating the chance to live another day.

I still need to sort out my feelings on the changes he made from 1855 to 1867, and I think reading the deathbed edition will help with that, but for right now I am content to sit by the bedside of Whitman and listen to his tales.

Whitman’s role in the war strikes me as an interesting one.   He’s a brother, a civilian, a nursemaid, and a writer. To me (sappily enough) he’s also become a sort of a friend. I think it’s interesting how quickly Whitman’s mood fades; there is a singular set of jubilant entries, with such quotes as “The volcanic upheaval of the nation, after that firing on the flag at Charleston…will remain as the grandest and most encouraging spectacle yet vouchsafed in any age..” (I wonder if he regretted these words later?). Only two entries later, Whitman’s mood is defeated with the soldiers at Bull Run.

Whitman’s prose strikes me exactly like his poetry does. There are times when Whitman can’t stop listing, especially when things are at their worst. Whitman’s summation of the dead  is a frenzy similar to that of “Song of Myself.” Here we have the graves of “Gettysburgh, the West, Southwest—Vicksburgh—Chattanooga—the trenches of Petersburgh” (800). It’s as if even with these (or rather, especially, since they have died for the cause), Whitman seeks to show these men united as a nation. Whitman’s language throughout “Speciman Days” is, as always, expansive, with most sentences lasting several lines and not fitting on the page. These are excepting the few worst days, such as “Down at the Front,” where Whitman’s length is cut short. He seems merely intent on focusing on the facts; he shows us “a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands” (736), and that’s it. They’re in front of a cart. There’s no poetry in that, no “good manure” (85) or fear of the compost, and I’m dying to know what Whitman was thinking, or why he didn’t record that there . Perhaps it was too much for him. Then again, when Whitman sees the released Union prisoners later, his diction can’t can’t help but demonstrate horror; he calls them “monkey-looking corpses” (789). What was it about that day or that mood that silenced him? Surely the living dead would be more horrifying than the actual?

But I’m rambling at little, I think. Throughout this section of “Specimen Days,” we again get asides, but not in such an inclusive way as “Song of Myself.” Again, I see Whitman rushing to include important facts, especially in sections such as “The Million Dead, Too, Summ’d Up.” So many of his asides here have to do with numbers, whether it be the breakdown of all the soldiers killed, or the number of soldier cemeteries now existing in the nation. It’s interesting that Whitman, normally so expansive and word-loving, uses numbers to literally “sum”  the men up; eventually, it becomes all that they are (for evidence, all you have to do is go look at the graves in the Confederate Cemetary just a couple minutes from here). But perhaps that’s the point that he’s getting at later, in “The Real War will Never get into the Books.” We forget the loving husband, and instead remember that he was one of “25,000 national solders kill’d in battle and never buried at all” (800). Perhaps Whitman was balancing the reality of his words, with the sterile factoids that he knew the war would become today.

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Both poems express the rather repulsive idea that people are unknowingly connected through the parasites that plague them, but they cast it in different (albeit sexual) lights. For Donne, the unity represented by the flea is a positive: it is a sign of the good times that are (he hopes) soon to arrive. The connection is between the speaker and the girl he’s pursuing, exclusively; even though it has a sexual undertone, it is a monogamous sexuality. Donne’s lines are also light-hearted: he wisely knows that pick-up lines are good only insofar as they can make the girl laugh. He turns the flea into a holy thing, a carrier of souls and a tragic victim. However, that “marriage bed and marriage temple” does not fulfill its normal 17th century role: it is not a sign of re-birth and re-production. Instead, it’s end is pleasure.

Basically all of those things contrast with what Whitman has to say in his poem. Until the afore-mentioned line, This Compost! has a very dark and serious tone. After reflecting on how many sickening bodies the land has taken into itself, he speaker has sworn that he will no longer give himself to the land as he once did. The land has been promiscuous with the “drunkards and gluttons of so many generations.” The mite, the parasite, marks a disease-born connection between people. There is nothing holy about what has been done to establish that connection; like the land, the mite has prostituted itself out. However, after the mite-mentioning line, the tone changes and focuses on (exactly what Donne’s amorous speaker was hoping to avoid mentioning) reproduction. Once the cycle of things has come around, the ground overcomes its past and is blameless, perhaps like the literal prostitute that Whitman writes to in other poems. Whitman doesn’t seem to cast himself as a redeemer here though: the earth has healed itself. This emphasis on cycles/seasons and the power of the earth are another oft-repeated Whitman themes, with Song of Myself coming to mind immediately.

Why these distinct differences (I mean, besides the obvious, 100+year gap and several thousand miles of geographical difference)? Well, Donne’s poem doesn’t seem to have much significance beyond the woman he’s writing to: it is simply not one of his wider-scope poems. This seems much more within the realm of possible explanations, since he never styled himself as “England’s poet” the way Whitman did in the Union. Of course, it’s always wise to have historical context in mind when one reads a poem, but with Whitman, it is pretty much a requisite when reading his poems. In the immediate wake of the Civil War, the regeneration of the earth after it has imbibed so much “foul liquid” is symbolic of the country putting itself back together after years of in-fighting. This is obviously a much more somber topic than Donne’s peace-time pursuits of good times. So guys, perhaps the next time you find a six-legged pest clinging to your leg or arm, you should see what you can relate it to.

Today I was in C’ville for an appointment and when it was done, my traveling companion Professor Emerson and I decided to stretch our legs on the grounds of our alma mater.  Professor Emerson has a friend who works in the new rare book facility, which I had not seen, and we stopped by to see him.  Although we missed him for the day, we paused to look in a small display on the edge of the controlled rare book area.  And (hold your slouch hats), I suddenly recognized the handwriting on two pieces of paper, each about 3×5 (one with ragged edges as though torn out): a hand-written manuscript of “When I Heard at the Close of Day,” in ink with WW’s revisions in pencil (description in the display: “autograph manuscript  with pencilled and pasted corrections in author’s hand.  1857-1859″), the final lines of the poem squeezed near the bottom of the second page.  Needless to say, I nearly shrieked, but instead read the poem aloud to Professor Emerson, who bravely offered to risk jail by using her cell phone as a camera in the controlled rare book space.  Though I was perfectly willing to risk her freedom in pursuit of Walt, we both felt the manuscript would not photograph through the specialized glass, so instead you have only this, my testimonio, and will have to trust me that it was wonderful.

Just a note, I tried to maintain the formatting of the poem since I think he was trying to invoke Whitman in his style but I can’t figure out how to indent. So when you’re reading the place where the line breaks should be indented.

Whitman on the F

Crowded, morning F train from Brooklyn, a woman with mud-colored eyes
rises: cuneiform wrinkles appear

between her brows, as if her brain is squished up against the aquarium glass
of her forehead. Her lips move,

a voice so soft, we can only catch every third syllable…air…hel…ho…
hung…anks.

The three-hours-of-sleep me yearns to whisper: louder next time lady,
as she limps past,

bare-palmed, but I’m too tired to crank down the mouth’s finicky drawbridge,
too drained to fiddle with

the combination lock attached to my wallet, so I sift through the mud
in her eyes, looking for a clue

of the life she left behind, before she started singing arias on the subway.
Over her right shoulder, I see

Walt Whitman wobble to his feet like an overflowing barrel of flesh
and beard and smile. “Here,

darling,” he wraps a white haired paw around the dandelion stem
of her spine. “Brothers and sisters,”

He bellows, “our little amaranth here needs some loving of the green
variety.” He stuffs a clump

of grass into the open mouth of her cup. Soon everyone in the car
has foliage out. he slides

a red wheelbarrow, glistening with raindrops, from under his seat, “here,”
he gleams, his teeth

ripe and white, like plums covered in snow. the poet in me hisses,
“good job, bonehead,

letting old graybeard beat you to the punch.” the big guy wedged beside me
grumbles under the mustard

canopy of his breath. “You ok?” I ask. “I hate when he does this,” he says,
thumbing at Old Walt,

“playing the jolly big shot, the vegetarian skyscraper, doing belly flops
into the spotlight,

Like his words are the organic cement, making us all one.” “Why’s
that bother you?” I ask.

“Me?” he scoffs, “I’m Walter Whitman, the human being. Can you imagine
sharing a soul

with that beast?” A smile ricochets between us. I exit the train at 42nd,
duck into a public restroom,

try, in vain, to wash Walt’s inky shadow off my fingers.

-Jeffrey McDaniel

(ANNOUNCED NOW: EXTRA CREDIT TO ANYONE WHO CAN BRING A MOCK-UP OF WHAT WHITMAN-VISION GOGGLES MIGHT LOOK LIKE. SPREAD THE WORD)

I know Brendon the Cupcake Man is already musing on it; I invite one and all in to the challenge.

“Walt Whitman is a f*g who died years ago and obviously has been worshiped to the degree that he has a school named after him.”

My friends, this, too, is Whitman under our bootsoles.

I’m thinking that Emerson’s letter somewhat reviewing L of G prompted Whitman to, like you said last week Scanlon, “micromanage”. Almost like when you tell someone you like their hair or a certain sweater and they ONLY wear their hair like that or they wear the damned sweater a million times a season. Wikipedia quotes Whitman saying that the 1867 edition was “‘a new & much better edition of Leaves of Grass complete — that unkillable work!’” Also, the 1867 edition, with it’s almost 80 poems, instead of the original 13, lacked the legendary frontispiece.

Whitman’s Civil War experiences definitely  influenced the 1867 version. You can tell because he filled the 1867 edition with SO much more, not to mention this is the first time Drum Taps is published. Obviously, he felt compelled to show the reader, instead of what a wonderful world we live in (and being able to reach the reader “by being in their pocket”) he wanted to show the gruesome, live-or-die side of life. Which, can also be the most alive side of life. The fight for life or death, especially in the scenes Walt observed, he wanted the general public to realize the fight their sons, husbands, and lovers were putting up and mostly losing to disease and lack of proper healthcare. From just the shear amount of new poems, a lot can be inferred from his experiences as a “nurse”, of sorts, in the “Great Effort”.

Let me start this by saying that I think I enjoyed Walt Whitman far more when I had to make the leap to proclaim him prophet.  Now, granted, it wasn’t that far of a logical stretch to assume that that was the voice he was going for in the 1855 edition of ‘Leaves’, but it was at least a stretch left to the readers.  This implied some sort of authorial trust, that he might not tell everyone that he is a prophet but he will leave it to you to figure it out for yourself.  The tone was breakneck and because of this the inherent arrogance was, at some level, charming.  Along the same line, I can tolerate the shameless self-promoter in Whitman because of the shear novelty and ridiculousness of the idea of him writing his own shining reviews.  I can even, somewhat, get behind his vision of himself as the great American poet.

Now, the version of ‘Song of Myself’ in the 1867 edition of ‘Leaves’, this one tests the limits of arrogance that I’m able to accept from Whitman as a reader.  The first offense here is in the title, no ‘Leaves of Grass’ or ‘Song of Myself’ here, just the poets name.  Now there is only one thing that is invoked when you have a work written by someone and title it with the author’s name, and that is biblical narrative.  Specifically, here Whitman is putting his own name in a tradition of either the prophets of the Old Testament or with the Gospel writers of the New Testament, meaning that he’s putting himself on par with either those who have heard the word of G-d directly or those who either hung with Jesus or hung out with people who hung out with Jesus.

Now theoretically, does this give Whitman the narrative authority he is constantly grasping for?  Yes, but that only works if your audience buys it.  If this foray into the extremely religious ended at the title, though, I’d be more apt to accept it, the problem is that it doesn’t.  The very poem itself has now been split up into chapter and verse, as if one, when quoting ‘Walt Whitman’ the poem, could add in ‘Whitman 9/17’ or something of that like.

I guess this whole thing comes back to a level of trust and mystery I’ve come to expect from most writers, and until this point has proven true of Whitman.  To paraphrase Flannery O’Connor, great writing requires understanding of two concepts, mystery and manners.  In structuring this version of ‘Leaves’ in the manner that he did, I feel that Whitman flubbed the mystery and in doing so, forgot his manners.  If you feel that you are writing the poem that will change the world, then let your poem speak as a poem that will change the world, and don’t try and make a religion out of it.  Thankfully, looking ahead, this challenge was fixed in the deathbed addition.

Anticipating Whitman’s war poems as I was, his poem “Pensive on Her Dead Gazing…” still surprised me. It resonated with me, and yet sounded completely Whitmanic. (He even slips a list into this fairly short poem.) His idea of life as cyclic is becoming more and more interesting to me, that somehow people are reborn thousands of years later, in bodies not quite their own but just as alive. I may have to go back with the intention of looking for this idea, especially how it relates to his sense of death.

A final note: this Saturday, I marched the grounds of Antietam battlefield, the single bloodiest day in American history (and I believe also the first of the war to be photographed before the removal of bodies…). I’ll be posting a… well, a post on this trip soon, complete with a few pictures.

For instance, in A Word Out of the Sea, all the commas gave it this amazing rhythm. I was reading it out loud to myself, and getting really into it (thank goodness my roommate was not around). The rhythm fit really well with the idea of the waves going back and forth and the circular motion he was trying to show through the poem. Then I read Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, and it wasn’t drastically different, but he removed around half, maybe more, of all the commas. Like I said before, it seems like mostly he was just making the poem neater. One of the things I really love about Whitman is the way everything is so stream of consciousness, like he’s incorporating every idea that he’s having at every second into the poem. I love the rawness of his writing. Maybe I am making too much out of it, but I feel like he took that away along with the commas.

Another change I found interesting in this poem was the change in capitalization. In the first version (A Word…) the words sun and death are capitalized, and in Out of the Cradle, they are not. I was really curious why he did this, especially with sun, because it’s harder for me to see the reasoning behind that one. One possible theory I had for that is that when sun was capitalized, (Pour down your warmth, great Sun!) it personifies and addresses the sun,whereas taking away the capitalization, while still addressing the sun, takes away the emphasis from it. Since he didn’t seem to personify much else within the poem, I thought maybe he just changed it because he thought it was too random and didn’t necessarily fit with the rest of the text.

The change in capitalization of the word death was more drastic. This is the original passage:

Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word DEATH;

And again Death—ever Death, Death, Death,

Hissing melodious, neither like the bird, nor like my arous’d child’s heart,

But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet,

Creeping thence steadily up to my ears, and laving me softly all over,

Death, Death, Death, Death, Death.

In the deathbed edition though, every thing is lowercase. I can see why Whitman would have wanted to change that, mostly because it seemed like in this edition he was trying to make the poem more generalized, and I think maybe he thought there was too much emphasis on “death” when that wasn’t necessarily where he wanted the emphasis (though it was most definitely an important aspect of the poem). When I read the 1867 version though, this section, and up until the end was really powerful to me, aided by the all caps DEATH and then the subsequent capitalizations. Reading the 1891 version removed that powerfulness for me. The first time around I felt like Whitman was shouting at me, the second time just calmly reading to me. Going along with this, I didn’t like the way he added in the second to last line in the 1891 version:

(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)

It completely took me out of the poem in a way that didn’t happen in the 1867 version. I thought maybe he was trying to connect the images of the cradle and then the previously mentioned nagging mother, but it didn’t work for me. I thought the first version was way more powerful. It just really makes me wonder what he was thinking while making all of these revisions.

Socially outcast, the body of the prostitute requires the intervention of the poet’s speaker in order that she may be represented visibly, in a democracy in which many are invisible. If persons were rotting on the pavement within sight of the Capitol, this compelling poem enacts a recovery of the rightful place of human solidarity among strangers.

Whitman’s using a prostitute’s death to expose the problems of a “democracy” that chooses to ignore the needs of its members is interesting because prostitution is also an issue he again addresses in “To a Common Prostitute.”  This poem struck me particularly due to its closeness with scripture in Jesus’ encounter with the adulteress in John 8:1-11, which says (if you’ll allow my lengthy quotation for those that aren’t familiar with the story):

¹But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ²At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.             

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.  ⁹At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹“No one, sir,” she said. 

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (New International Version)

This passage struck me as similar to Whitman’s poems in its direct address to a woman who has otherwise been scorned and put out by society (not to mention that this passage is often falsely thought on as being about a prostitute…AND Jesus often hung out among and talked with prostitutes similarly).  In “To a Common Prostitute,” Whitman addresses the prostitute in much the same way that Jesus addresses this adulteress, allowing him to again transfer himself (not just the speaker but “Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature” (512) ) into the position of savior.  It also allows Whitman to argue for a world in which even those considered different or even immoral would be given an equal opportunity to exist by using subtle biblical allusion as is so often his conduit in driving home many of his points.      

Now, in coming back to “The City Dead-House,” Whitman (as Mancuso points out) uses the death of a prostitute to represent the difficulties of the current application and assessment of democracy in the budding and troubled United States.  Whitman speaks out for a woman who has both literally and figuratively been silenced by the government.  My point here is that it seems to me that Whitman would have (as has been often suggested in class) himself viewed as a Christ-figure, a savior, and further that he would have himself seated as the savior of democracy.  In linking these poems through the prostitute, an outcast, he speaks up for his idea of what democracy should (or rather what it should not) be, bringing to mind the prejudices between North and South, blacks and whites, as well as other issues of disagreement and confrontation throughout Whitman’s lifetime.

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According to Nate DiMeo, late in his life, Marconi came to believe that sound waves never disappeared, but rather went on and on, infinitely in time and space, and that if he could just find the right frequency, he could listen to the past– to great speakers and figures and historical events, to the praise of others that would ensure he would live beyond his imminent death, to the most intimate of moments in his own life.

I was thinking about this tonight as I read the poem “So Long!” from Songs of Parting, in which Whitman announces his own departure from the text, from the stage, from the world.  (Isn’t there a great tension in the line “To conclude—I announce what comes after me”?)

“I remember I said…”, says Whitman. “Hasten, throat, and sound your last! / Salute me– salute the day once more.  Peal the old cry once more.”

and:

Screaming electric, the atmosphere using,

At random glancing, each as a notice absorbing,

Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,

Curious envelop’d messages delivering…

and:

So I pass—a little time vocal, visible, contrary,

Afterward, a melodious echo, passionately bent for—

(death making me really undying)

and:

Remember my words—I love you—I depart from

materials,

I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

If Whitman is sounding his voice out into the ages, then I am Marconi (we are Marconi), hand at the dial, turning so, so slowly and carefully to get out the static– or maybe wildly turning the dial left to right and back, trying to find the frequency on which we can really, truly hear Whitman, the real Whitman (won’t he please stand speak up?).  For all the sound and fury signifying everything that Whitman generates, for all the meta-discussion of his own voice, I am straining across the ages trying to hear it for myself, sure with that same certainty that afflicted Marconi that it is still resonating.

Both versions of the poem echo themes of solidarity and the endless possibilities set out before “a simple, separate person.”  In the first version, Whitman hints that it may be necessary for people to come together.  However, in the later version he proposes that the “modern” man must learn to come together “EN MASSE.”  Times had changed, and Whitman advises his readers to change with them.  He directly addresses the “hapless war” that had been tearing the country apart.  Stylistically, this marked another change in Whitman’s work.  Instead of masking everything in ambiguity and mentions the war directly, right in the first poem of the book.

As interesting, perhaps, as the things that Whitman changed in the revised version, are the things that he left the same.  Although the American landscape had changed drastically, Whitman’s message of camaraderie and relationships (whether you believe Reynolds that they are all quite fraternal or have more raunchy ideas) still remains the same.  As the nation crumbled around its citizens, Whitman insisted that they continue to come together in intimate ways for the good of everyone.

It also seems that, in the wake of the Civil War, Whitman’s priorities have changed.  We all know now that, if Whitman believes something then we will be asked to believe it as well.  In “Leaves of Grass, part 4,” which originally appeared as “To You,” Whitman’s scope has changed ever so slightly.  In the original version he said, “They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.”  However, in the later version he adds to the list, “law, science, medicine, and print.”  In the changing American landscape, Whitman felt the need to broaden his audience.  His message had to be heard by everyone now, not just the outdoorsy hermits looking for a prophet.

Whitman had always shown a strong sense of nationalistic pride, and throughout the early editions of Leaves of Grass he inspired his readers to improve upon the face of America through personal growth.  However, after the devastation of the Civil War, Whitman realized that maybe that was not enough to keep the country standing.

            In “Leaves of Grass (part 4),” Whitman’s speaker addresses a listener as fundamentally disempowered as Native Son’s protagonist, Bigger Thomas, asserting that “None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself” (165, 1867 edition).  The speaker then goes on to insist that every person must seize such “justice” through the innate power he or she possesses:

 Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!

These shows of the east and west are tame compared to you;

…Master and mistress in your own right over Nature,

elements, pain, passion, dissolution.

…Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted;

 Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui,

              what you are picks it way.  (167, 1867 edition)

 Whitman’s outlook, or at least that of his speaker, seems based on the assumption that, regardless of a person’s (even a creature’s) origin and specific life conditions, “the means are provided” by which that person might become “Master and mistress in your own right over Nature.”  This serves as an extension of the “it shall be you” inclusiveness Whitman articulated in the 1855 version “Song of Myself,” spreading into a sense of empowered belonging. 

Wright articulates Bigger’s desire for that belonging in a way that points out how difficult such a feeling is to claim:

 What did he want? What did he love and what did he hate? He did not know.  There was something he knew and something he felt; something the world gave him and something he himself had; …and never in all his life, with this black skin of his, had the two worlds, thought and feeling, will and mind, aspiration and satisfaction, been together; never had he felt a sense of wholeness.  (Wright, 240)

 What does Whitman’s poetic persona seek, for himself and others, if not that same “wholeness?”  By imbuing an individual whom “justice” seems never to serve with the overwhelming natural ability to claim that justice, Whitman suggests that anyone might seize control, might “self-actualize.” Wright, whose Bigger only snatches a fleeting modicum of that self-ownership by killing two women and bringing the consequences on himself, reveals how little Whitman’s vision extends into the practical methods by which an individual becomes his or her own “master.”  Whitman’s own poem “The City Dead-House” uses the image of the neglected dead prostitute to encapsulate those marginalized Americans who fail to accomplish this self-mastery, but “Leaves of Grass (part 4)” indicates Whitman’s avowed notion that any specific American might seize justice, autonomy, etc. for themselves.  A number of decades and several “schools” of writing later, Wright and his contemporaries finally deconstruct this assumption of uninhibited individual potential, showing how the “wholeness” Bigger seeks can easily be “scanted… through birth, life, death.”

When I read the book, the biography famous;

And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a

man’s life?

And so will some one, when I am dead and gone,

write my life? (268)

These lines remain the same in the later version of the poem, showing that Whitman’s conviction about biography (and biographers) does not change. However, there is more of Whitman’s trickery afoot here!

     Through Leaves of Grass, and all its editions, Whitman is constructing a new sort of biography: it is both autobiography and biography of the Union (but I will just be looking at it as autobiography here). By creating a private conversation with the reader, through parenthetical revelations, Whitman seeks to draw the reader into accepting his new biographical form. Confusion arises in the following line though: “(As if any man really knew aught of my life…” (268). On the surface, it seems to be discounting what other men might write about him, but it forces the reader to wonder if Whitman himself, as autobiographer, really knows about his own life.

     In the 1867 version, the poem ends with the line “As if you, O cunning Soul, did not keep your secret well!)” (268). This distances the reader, by turning the parenthetical information into a dialogue between Whitman and the soul. It also gives Whitman the appearance of knowing more about himself than other men possibly could: who else could know the secret of his soul? So, again, Whitman is tearing down barriers with one hand, while at the same time he builds them back up with the other hand. The changes made in the later edition of When I Read give a very different picture though:

Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of

my real life,

Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections

I seek for my own use to trace out here.) (171)

     Here, Whitman is almost on the same level as the reader: there is no dialogue between him and the source of secrets. This also comes close to putting him in the same boat as the traditional biographer that he blasts in the earlier part of the poem. Whitman still stands out though; while his knowledge may be incomplete, his chosen biographical form is not confined to mere retellings of historical facts. Poetry can see history call within its walls, but it extends far beyond textbooks. Poetry is open in a way that allows for “diffused faint clews and indirections” (171). That openness can lead to frustration if one is searching for specific answers, but Whitman sure does love his mysteries. What is the use that he refers to in the last line? At the very least, it notes more separation between author and reader and tempts the reader to search for them in the rest of his writing.

All the sudden the poem was completely different than how I had first read it. This was due mostly to his breaking up of the poem. For instance, in the 1855 version Whitman writes “I am mad for it to be in contact with me/The smoke of my own breath” (27). When I first read this passage I could imagine Whitman roaming though the woods, drunk on the sight of nature, his breath fogging against the leaves and vines. In the 1867 version however, Whitman puts a section break between these two lines. Now when I read it, I see the ecstatic Whitman in section one, followed by a much calmer, categorizing Whitman in section two.

I’m not saying that he didn’t intend for this to be the case, or that he even had an intention one way or the other, all I’m saying is, by putting the section breaks in it Whitman manages to lead the reader in a way that he didn’t accomplish in the 1855 version. I still haven’t decided whether I really do prefer the 1855 version, or if it’s just a matter of me not liking a change in Whitman’s style when I feel like I’ve just gotten the hang of it.

Whether I like it or not though, I have some speculation as to why this kind of change takes place. Mancuso talks about the fact that Whitman changed many of his poems to move from the personal to the national and that the 1867 Leaves of Grass was intended to show the way in which a unified nation was the only hope of rebuilding the America that Whitman had praised so often before. Mancuso gives a sense that Whitman was trying to reach out more than ever. I think that after the civil war Whitman developed a sense of urgency and desperation to make people see what he had been trying to argue since 1855. He did not feel that he could wait for everyone to discover the truth for themselves, he felt a stronger hand was needed.

This could explain why Whitman’s 1867 version was so much more structured than his 1855 version. He was worried he was losing the America he loved and felt the need to lead readers more strongly towards the ideals which he had been presenting. I say that I prefer the 1855 version, but I also don’t have a civil war to contend with, which probably makes me a little more relaxed than Whitman was at the time. I think it will be interesting to see how Whitman continues to change as the America he knows recovers from the turmoil of the Civil War.

One’s-Self I Sing serves as a perfect example of Whitman’s micro-managing. After reading the verbose, lengthy, vibrant, omniscient 1855 edition Song of Myself, One’s Self I Sing, which kicks off the 1867 edition, seems dull, didactic, and flavorless. Whitman makes his point too easily accessible to the reader, it’s almost too straightforward. Where is the the infinite regression we have come to know and love? For instance, this line, “my Days I sing, and the Lands,” 1855 Walt Whitman would have followed up with a detailed account of exactly what kind of days and in the specific places they occur (and we would have respectfully skimmed through the long listing of American states and towns). Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh, he does follow up with a classically Whitmanic “O” exclamation:

O friend, whoe’er you are, at last arriving hither to com-
mence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of
your hand, which I return. And thus upon our
journey link’d together let us go .

Here, the 1855 Whitman shows himself– he reveals the connection between self, other,  and nature eloquently and in a way that makes the reader stop and re-read. However, in the further edited version of this poem (1871), this verse is cut out completely, instead replaced by this bit:

Of life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,

The Modern Man I sing.

Despite his use of the words “passion” and “power,” this final impression is neither passionate nor powerful. The word “Modern” seems clumsy and awkward, too sterile to come from the man who wrote, “where the hummingbird shimmers… where the neck of the longlived swan swan is curving and winding” (61) in the 1855 Song of Myself. Perhaps it’s the romantic in me, but I don’t want Whitman to sing of “The Modern Man,” or of “The New World,” I much prefer to read about grass and sex and the soul, or all three at once. My personal preferences aside, however, this shows a certain shift in Whitman’s view of the world, which can only be explained by his experiences in The Civil War.

Luke Mancuso mentions in his article that the 1867 edition was the first to open up with an inscription that introduces the reader to the work and what to expect from it, almost like an abstract. The longer poems within this edition are divided up into numbered, digestible sections, so that the reader may flip ahead and predetermine exactly how much (or how little) they are willing to commit. Opening up the 1855 edition, on the other hand, is like stepping into a puddle when you’re not quite sure how deep it is. Perhaps it was all the chaos that surrounded Whitman during the war that caused him to crave organization and predictability within his own writing, or maybe he became accustomed to the military highly regimented order, but whatever it was, it’s evident that the war impacted Whitman as a person and as a poet.

The 1860 text is here, if you wish to compare it to the 1867 and 1881 editions that we read. I sat up all night going back and forth between the three. Stanzas like this were particularly interesting:

Two together!

Winds blow south, or winds blow north,

Day come white, or night come black,

Home, or rivers, and mountains from home,

Singing all time, minding no time,

while we two keep together.

This stanza is taken from the 1860 and 1881 versions. In the 1867 version, however, the last line goes like this: “If we two keep together.” The certainty that “while” possesses is taken from the text. “While” implies that the singing and playing is already going on. However, the instance of “if” makes the stanza a plea instead of a  statement. Whitman, having worked in the hospitals, has seen the chaos and pain of a fractured America, and the dream of his joined country shattered. It’s as if he presenting his earlier promise again, showing the grandeur that America could be. He speaks of uniting both the  black and the white, the north and the south. It’s interesting that he speaks in these strictly binary terms here as well. I’m normally used to his meandering lists, naming North and South and Southeast and Midwest, not just the opposition. Here, Whitman displays our lost mates, mirroring the binary oppositions in the war.

There is also a section in the 1860 and 1867 editions of this poem (Whitman 8:32) that is completely taken out of the 1872 edition. This stanza also shows me a Whitman touched by a fractured nation. There are lines such as “O what is my destination! (I fear it is chaos..” Whitman can’t see whether fortune “smiles” or “frowns” on America. I wonder if he was watching with a sort of baited breath. The prophet doesn’t seem so clairvoyant anymore. By 1881, Whitman is triumphant; he jumps straight to the line about conquering death. This is more like my 1855 Whitman, devil may care and ready to take on America’s metaphysical salvation. There is no doubt about the nation anymore. America has healed, has been reborn, and has begun greatness again.

Finally, there’s a line I can’t really account for. In the 1881 edition, Whitman compares the whisper of the sea to “some old crone rocking the cradle” (394). The other two simply…end.  Perhaps Whitman felt that the others were incomplete, or perhaps it better accounts for some sort of God, rocking the cradle of life. But I’m not really so sure Whitman needed that explanation. I’ll keep thinking about it, and let you know later, perhaps. Until next week, Whitmaniacs.

Darn, I wish I could figure out how to stick-ify this post.

The most noticeable difference I noticed was the constant change of punctuation between the 1867, 1855, and 1891 editions. Throughout the 1867 version, there was frequent use of the dash. For example in  “Spontaneous Me” written in 1867 ,  “The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds— the private untrimm’d bank—the primitive  apples—the pebble-stones”  (110)  demonstrate how the dash is used. However, in Spontaneous Me written in 1856 the dash is replaced with commas. Another example of punctuation change is found in Leaves of Grass part 3 compared to “Aboard a Ship’s Helm”. In  the 1867 poem Whitman writes, “The bows turn,—the freighted ship, tacking, speeds  away under her gray sails, The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious  wealth, speeds away gaily and safe”.(250). ). However in  the the 1891 “Aboard a Ship’s Helm”, a dash is removed and there are significantly less commas. Whitman describes the ship in the 1891 edition and writes, “the bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails, The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds away gaily and safe” (398).The 1867 example with the dash and commas creates a choppy sentence whereas the 1891 version provides a clearer description of the ship rather than listing the characteristics. The subtle difference between punctuation marks can change the meaning of the poem. In the first instance the sentence is choppy which can symbolize the waves that the ship is sailing on. However, the 1891 version focuses on the description of the ship itself and when read aloud creates a smooth fluid reading.

Another difference that interested me was the change of titles in some of the poems. With a new title, I feel that Whitman wanted readers to focus on a different aspect of the poem. For example, the change of title from “A Word Out of the Sea to Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” creates a different visual image for readers to imagine. Another title change that I found fascinating was “Leaves of Grass part 4” changed to “To You”. The later title invokes the reader personally while the title Leaves of Grass part 4 is indifferent to the reader. The “You” in the title can refer to any individual reader who happens to pick up Leaves of Grass at the moment, thus the title “T o You” is inclusive. The thoughtful call out to the reader can also be found in Whitman’s title “Poets to Come”  as opposed to “Leaves of Grass, part 4 “. The change in title allows readers to take a more active approach when reading and analyzing the poem because it is more specific.

Yet, when specifly looking at changes that demonstrate Whitman’s Civil War experience, there are many instances where additional asides have been added and tenses are changed. In “Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I heard the Mother of All”,  an aside within parentheses is added when Whitman writes, “As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d)”. Furthermore, there is a change of tense from  “fight” to “fought” in “Camps of Green” . These additional thoughts, changes in tenses, changes in parentheses, and changes in titles demonstrate Whitman’s  changing motives. I feel each change was deliberate. These changes could be due to his change of opinions brought about by the Civil War,  his thoughtful reflection on life and death, or a technique to expand and maintain his readership.

All truths wait in all things,

They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,

They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,

The insignificant is as big to me as any,

(What is less or more than a touch?)

Logic and sermons never convince,

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

I ask these questions because I have a tendency to read too minutely into the form of any poetry, and even after I’ve realized where I’ve gone astray, I still want the form to mean something.  Tonight’s brainstorming of ways to characterize Whitman’s poetic style was satisfying, and I was glad to learn that he is especially thoughtful in his form.  I’m still wondering to what degree we can continue analyzing Whitman’s form when it shows little variation.  In other words, does he eventually vary his style to match different poems, or does he have one style that suits all his work?

I as thinking about Whitman’s long lines and the fact that he breaks the boundaries of the page, and I  wanted to share some thoughts with you all.  Whitman really seems to be pushing the reader to explore beyond the beliefs that he/she carries.  He proves that he cannot be contained, even with in the page.  However, I think that is goes even deeper than this.  He proves that he is into breaking boundaries in all he does, whether it be sexuality, thoughts on women, ect, but also, he is breaking the boundaries of the page.  This breaking of the page’s boundaries cause the reader to see a need to break the boundaries he/she puts up in life and explore past the outer layer into what lies beneath, and thus seeing the layer underneath the surface.  Looking at the underlayer of his work, as well as the issues that surround us, allows us to see what truly matters.

-Jess

In his introduction to my copy of LoG’s “Deathbed Edition,” William Carlos Williams to  alludes some kind of consensus among poetry scholars (I guess) that Whitman’s writing eventually runs out of steam, that his poetic sensibilities lose the vigor of some of his earlier poems and end up being dry and even self-mimicking.  I’d like to know how many Whitman readers still believe that, and if we’ll ever get to the point at which we say he’s “going soft.”

I feel like this information would illuminate a lot from Calamus and Adam, and add a new level of intimacy and connection to The Man himself.

Last class, there was a discussion of a section of the 1855 version of “Leaves of Grass” where the speaker and his soul meet in a holy and sexual congress and become one.  While this is only the first section we have closely examined in which Whitman equates the physical with the spiritual, it is by far not the only example.  There is an old saying that ‘the body is a temple’ and this seems intrinsic to understanding Whitman’s ideas on sexual spirituality.  For Whitman, his body is a temple, my body is a temple, your body is a temple, and damn it he wants to worship at every single one of them.

            The section from this classes reading that really tipped this idea going in my head is the ninth section of I Sing the Body Electric which at first glance appears as another one of Whitman’s seemingly endless lists, this one a list of body parts.  But it ends with a closed section and not a segue into another train of thought as we’ve grown accustomed to in the 1885 version.  It ends with the lines “O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, / O I say now these are the soul.”  These final lines of the section made me go back to reread the list and figure out what exactly he was up to.

            The impression I got was that, at least this list, has the feel of a mantra or to use a phrase that one of Whitman’s biggest fan boys, Alan Ginsberg, was so fond of, a Khaddish.  Especially the Khaddish, which if memory serves, is a Jewish prayer that lists what is holy, and what is sacred in the eyes of God.  This serves as at least a basic answer to the question of why there is so much listing in this section of the text.  Whitman does not want to leave any part out in his exaltation of the body as holy, and thus feels the need to take a full page to list them all.

            Then after this massive listing, he makes his statement, which has almost a Christ like reissuance to it.  That the body is fully body, but it isn’t fully body it is also spirit, and above that it is fully spirit.  This point of transcendence of the body as holy, and the holy as body accounts also for the shear amount of sexuality in Whitman’s work; this is not a taboo topic for Whitman, sexuality is not something that should be shied away from, instead for him, the orgasm is a religious experience and the body is the type of temple in which frequent praising should be held.

So, the title of this post is related to the place in which I find myself writing it, which has me thinking more about body-soul: a few hours shy of class, sitting on the playroom floor beside the couch on which my little girl, feverish, is trying to sleep (cold water in a non-spill cup, iced eye mask, sleepytime cd playing close by) but mostly fretting about.  And here is where My Walt Whitman, the nurse Whitman, begins to return to me from the lonely exile into which I banished him this week when I reread “A Woman Waits for Me,” a poem marred at its core by what I experience as rape imagery.  So to the maternal, a soul (body?) Whitman often claimed for himself and that the boys he nursed (okay, now thinking of that image he gives of himself suckling) gave to him as well.

At 7, my daughter is just beginning to understand/believe that she just may be a separate essence and body from her mother.  (I know, a little late according to Lacan, but whatever.)  Though she is (too) fully her own person, the bond is physical in a most intense way.  When she is sleepy or sick, she wants to rest full-length on my body.  When she is sad or happy or honestly just close by, she likes to press her the bridge of her nose into the flesh of my arm, singing little songs (primary words: “love” and “squishy”– okay, very embarassing, but the point is that those are not concepts she sees as different from one another on a very true level.  To touch her body to another’s is more than she can stand.)  She runs her hands over my face, she closes them around my arms or bare legs, she lays her cheek against my face or neck.  The body and soul, love, are all one to her.  So, in conclusion, I believe Whitman.

I feel like I’m in danger of naturalizing the maternal or the mother-child bond, and to be clear, I don’t want to.  I don’t believe in it one whit, man.  I’m speaking about one maternal body, one child, one childlike bearded maternal-man looking for a love pure and essential and unconditional.  A sickbed edition.

I think it is possibly this program here  (I am encouraged by the Whitman quote on the top of the page) but none of the episode descriptions mention a man building a field a la “Field of Dreams.” If I ever manage to find a clip of it I will post it here, but I thought I’d throw this out there in case anyone knew anything about it.

One thing I did find out through my searches: there are lots of little league teams named after Whitman.