Other Whitman Writings
The selected materials below--a notebook entry, four letters, an excerpt from Memoranda During the War, an unfinished draft of a poem, and one other poem from Drum Taps--may provide additional ways to think about Whitman and the wounded bodies of the Civil War and also to think about Whitman's poem "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown."
1) A notebook entry that served as a source for the poem "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and a Road Unknown." This entry is probably an account of the battle of White Oak Swamp of June 30, 1862. As the first line indicates, the events were told to Whitman by Milton Roberts, a soldier who Whitman apparently visited in a hospital. Digital images of the manuscript itself are available at the Library of Congress, American Memory site (make a link here), and the transcription below comes from Notebooks and Unpublished Manuscripts, vol 2, 651-52.
Scene in the woods on the Peninsula--told me by Milton Roberts ward G (Maine)
After the battle of White Oaks Church, on the retreat, the march at night--the scene between 12 & 2 o'clock that night. at the church in the woods, the hospital show at night, the wounded brought in--previous, the silent stealthy march through the woods, at times stumbling over the bodies of dead men in the road, (there had been terrible fighting there that day, only closing at dark)--we retreating the artillery horses feet muffled, orders that men should tread light & only speak in whispers--
Then between midnight & 1 oclock we halted to rest a couple of hours at an opening in the woods--in this opening was a pretty good sized old church used impromptu for a hospital for the wounded of the battles of the day thereabout--with these it was filled, all varieties horrible beyond description--the darkness dimly lit with candles, lamps torches, moving about, but plenty of darkness & half darkness,--the crowds of wounded, bloody & pale, the surgeons operating--the yards outside also filled--they lay on the ground, some on blankets, some on stray planks, --the despairing screams & curses of some out of their senses, the murky darkness, the gleaming of the torches, the smoke from them too, the doctors operating, the scent of chloroform, the glisten of the steel instruments as the flash of lamps fell upon them.
2) A much-quoted letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson written shortly after Whitman arrived in Washington, D.C. and began visiting the hospitals. (Source: The Correspondence, Volume 1: 1842-1867, 68-70).
To: Ralph Waldo Emerson
January 17, 1863Your letters from Buffalo have just come to hand. They find me still hanging around here--my plans, wants, ideas, &c gradually getting into shape.
I go a great deal into the Hospitals. Washington is full of them--both in town and out around the outskirts. Some of the larger ones are towns in themselves. In small and large, all forty to fifty thousand inmates are ministered to, as I hear. Being sent for by a particular soldier, three weeks since, in the Campbell Hospital, I soon fell to going there and elsewhere to like places daily. The first shudder has long passed over, and I must say I find deep things, unreckoned by current print or speech. The Hospital, I do not find it, the repulsive place of sores and fevers, nor the place of querulousness, nor the bad results of morbid years which one avoids like bad s[mells]--at least [not] so is it under the circumstances here--other hospitals may be, but not here.
I desire and intend to write a little book out of this phase of America, her masculine young manhood, its conduct under most trying and highest of all exigency, which she, as by lifting a corner in a curtain, has vouchsafed me to see America, already brought to Hospital in her fair youth--brought and deposited here in this great, whited sepulchre of Washington itself--(this union Capital without the first bit of cohesion--this collect of proofs how low and swift a good stock can deteriorate--) Capital to which these deputies most strange arrive from every quarter, concentrating here, well-drest, rotten, meagre, nimble and impotent, full of gab, full always of their thrice-accursed party--arrive and skip into the seats of mightiest legislation, and take the seats of judges and high executive seats--while by quaint Providence come also sailed and wagoned hither this other freight of helpless worn and wounded youth, genuine of the soul, of darlings and true heirs to me the first unquestioned and convincing western crop, prophetic of the future, proofs undeniable to all men's ken of perfect beauty, tenderness and pluck that never race yet rivalled.
But more, a new world here I find as I would show--a world full of its separate action, play, suggestiveness--surely a medium world, advanced between our well-known practised one of body and of mind, and one there may-be somewhere on beyond, we dream of, of the soul.
Not to fly off to these clouds, however, I must abruptly say to my friends, where interested, that I find the best expression of American character I have ever seen or conceived--practically here in these ranks of sick and dying young men--nearly all I have seen, (five-sixths I think of those I have seen,) farmers' sons from the West, northwest--and from Pennsylvania, New York, and from largely among the rest your Massachusetts, &c--now after great and terrible experiences, here in their barracks they lie--in those boarded Washington hospital barracks, whitewashed outside and in, one story, high enough, airy and clean enough--one of the Wards, for sample, a long stretch, a hundred and sixty feet long, with aisle down the middle, with cots, fifty or more on each side--and Death there up and down the aisle, tapping lightly by night or day here and there some poor young man, with relieving touch--that is one Ward, a cluster of ten or twelve make a current Washington Hospital--wherein this moment lie languishing, burning with fever or down with diarrhea, the imperial blood and rarest marrow of the North--here, at any rate, as I go for a couple of hours daily, and get to be welcome and useful, I find the masses fully justified by closest contact, never vulgar, ever calm, without greediness, no flummery, no frivolity--responding electric and without fail to affection, yet no whining--not the first unmanly whimper have I yet seen or heard.
In the Patent Office Hospital, Dr. Stone, (Horatio Stone the sculptor--in his ward, some 150 men--he has been surgeon here several months--has had successive changes of soldiers in charge--some bad wounds, of course--amputations, sometimes rapidly followed by death, &c.--others from fevers, &c. &c.)--he told me last evening that he had not in memory one single case of a man's meeting the approach of death, whether sudden or slow, with fear or trembling--but always of these young men meeting their death with steady composure, and often with curious readiness--
The Army (I noticed it first in camp, and the same here among the wounded) is very young--and far more American than we supposed--ages range mainly from 20 to 30--a slight sprinkling of men older--and a bigger sprinkling of young lads of 17 and 18--
As I took temporary memoranda of names, items &c of one thing and another, commissioned to get or do for the men--what they wished and what their cases required from outside, &c--these memoranda grow bulky, and suggest something to me--so I now make fuller notes, or a sort of journal, (not a mere dry journal though, I hope)--This thing I will record--it belongs to the time, and to all the States--(and perhaps it belongs to me)--
3) Excerpt from one letter among many to his mother that tells of his work with the wounded and ill soldiers in hospitals in the Washington, D.C. area. (Source: The Correspondence, Volume 1: 1842-1867, 105-106).
Washington, Tuesday afternoon, May 26th 1863
Dear Mother,
. . . --Mother, I have been pretty active in hospitals for the past two weeks, somewhere every day or night--I have written you so much about cases &c I will not write you any more, on that subject this time--O the sad, sad things I see, the noble young men with legs & arms taken off--the deaths--the sick weakness, sicker than death, that some endure, after amputations--(there is a great difference, some make little of it, others lie after it for days, just flickering alive, & O so deathly weak & sick)--I go this afternoon to Campbell Hospital, out a couple of miles. . . .
Walt
4) A complete letter to his mother in which Whitman reports on his wanderings in Washington, on his work in the hospitals, and on his conflicted feelings about the War. In particular he mentions the Contraband Camp, a place that was particuplarly grim and dispiriting according to accounts by others. (Source: The Correspondence, Volume 1: 1842-1867, 114-116).
To Louisa Van Velsor Whitman
July 7, 1863Tuesday afternoon.
Mother, it seems to be certain that Meade has gained the day, & that the battles there in Pennsylvania have been about as terrible as any in the war--O what a sight must have been presented by the field of action--I think the killed & wounded there on both sides were as many as eighteen or twenty thousand--in one place, four or five acres, there were a thousand dead, at daybreak on Saturday morning--Mother, one's heart grows sick of war, after all, when you see what it really is--every once in a while I feel so horrified & disugusted--it seems to me like a great slaughter-house & the men mutually butchering each other--then I feel how impossible it appears, again, to retire from this contest, until we have carried our points--(it is cruel to be so tossed from pillar to post in one's judgment).
Washington is a pleasant place in some respects--it has the finest trees, & plenty of them every where, on the streets, & grounds. The Capitol grounds, though small, have the finest cultivated trees I ever see--there is a great variety, & not one but is in perfect condition--After I finish this letter I am going out there for an hour's recreation--The great sights of Washington are the public buildings, the wide streets, the public grounds, the trees, the Smithsonian Institute & grounds--I go to the latter occasionally--the Institute is an old fogy concern, but the grounds are fine--Sometimes I go up to Georgetown, about two & a half miles up the Potomac, an old town--just opposite it in the river is an island, where the niggers have their first Washington reg't encamped--they make a good show, are often seen in the streets of Washington in squads--since they have begun to carry arms, the secesh here & in Georgetown (about 3/5ths) are not insulting to them as formerly.
One of the things here always on the go, is long trains of army wagons--sometimes they will stream along all day, it almost seems as if there was nothing else but army wagons & ambulances--they have great camps here in every direction, of army wagons, teamsters, ambulance camps, &c. Some of them are permanent, & have small hospitals--I go to them, (as no one else goes, ladies would not venture)--I sometimes have the luck to give some of the drivers a great deal of comfort & help. Indeed, mother, there are camps here of every thing--I went once or twice to the Contraband Camp, to the Hospital, &c. but I could not bring myself to go again--when I meet black men or boys among my own hospitals, I use them kindly, give them something, &c.--I believe I told you that I do the same to the wounded rebels, too--but as there is a limit to one's sinews & endruance & sympathies, &c. I have got in the way after going lightly as it were all through the wards of a hospital, & trying to give a word of cheer, if nothing else, to every one, then confining my special attentions to the few where the investment seems to tell best, & who want it most--Mother, I have real pride in telling you that I have the consciousness of saving quite a little number of lives by saving them from giving up & being a good deal with them--the men say it is so, & the doctors say it is so--& I will candidly confess I can see it is true, though I say it of myself--I know you will like to hear it, mother, so I tell you--
I am finishing this in Major Hapgood's office, about 1 o'clock--it is pretty warm, but has not cleared off yet--the trees look so well from where I am, & the Potomac--it is a noble river--I see it several miles & Arlington heights--Mother, I see some of the 47th Brooklyn every day or two--the reg't is on the Heights--back of Arlington House, a fine camp ground--O, Matty, I have just thought of you--dear sister, how are you getting along? Jeff, I will write you truly--Good bye for the present, dearest mother, & all--
Walt
5) Another letter to his mother, this one written near the end of the war and perhaps suggestive of Whitman's attempt to reconcile the horrors done to the human body by war and the deep, visceral patriotism that is necessary to believe such horrors have meaning and are in service to something worthy of human sacrifice. (Source: The Correspondence, Volume 1: 1842-1867, 209-210).
Washington, April 10th 1864Dearest Mother,
I rec'd your letter & sent the one you sent for George immediately--he must have got it the next day--I had got one from him before yours arrived--I mean to go to Annapolis & see him--
Mother, we expect a commencement of the fighting below very soon, there is every indication of it--we have had about as severe rain storms here lately as I ever see--it is middling pleasant now--there are exciting times in Congress--the Copperhads are getting furious, & want to recognize the Southern Confederacy--this is a pretty time to talk of recognizing such villains after what they have done, and after what has transpired the last three years--After first Fredericksburgh I felt discouraged myself, & doubted whether our rulers could carry on the war--but that has past away, the war must be carried on --& I would willingly go myself in the ranks if I thought it would profit more than at present, & I don't know sometimes but I shall as it is--
Mother, you dont know what a feeling a man gets after being in the active sights & influences of the camp, the Army, the wounded &c.--he gets to have a deep feeling he never experienced before--the flag, the tune of Yankee Doodle, & similar things, produce an effect on a fellow never such before--I have seen some bring tears on the men's cheeks, & others turn pale, under such circumstances--I have a little flag (it belonged to one of our cavalry reg'ts) presented to me by one of the wounded--it was taken by the secesh in a cavalry fight, & rescued by our men in a bloody little skirmish, it cost three men's lives, just to get one little flag, four by three--our men rescued it, & tore it from the breast of a dead rebel--all that just for the name of getting their little banner back again--this man that got it was very badly wounded, & they let him keep it--I was with him a good deal, he wanted to give me something he said, he didn't expect to live, so he gave me the little banner as a keepsake--I mention this, Mother, to show you a specimen of the feeling--there isn't a reg't, cavalry or infantry, that wouldn't do the same, on occasion--
Tuesday morning April 12th
Mother, I will finish my letter this morning--it is a beautiful day to-day--I was up in Congress very late last night, the house had a very excited night session about expelling the men that want to recognize the Southern Confederacy--You ought to hear the soldiers talk--they are excited to madness--we shall probably have hot times here not in the Army alone--the soldiers are true as the north star--I send you a couple of envelopes, & one to George--Write how you are, dear Mother, & all the rest--I want to see you all--Jeff, my dear brother, I wish you was here, & Mat too--Write how sis is--I am well as usual, indeed first rate every way--I want to come on in a month, & try to bring out my "Drum Taps"--I think it may be a success pecuniarily too--Dearest Mother, I hope this will find you entirely well, & dear sister Mat & all.
Walt
6) An excerpt from Memoranda During the War, a book Whitman self-published in 1875 in which he brings together and revises selections from the notebooks he kept while visiting soldiers in the war hospitals.
The Wounded from Chancellorsville, May, '63. -- As I write this, the wounded have begun to arrive from Hooker's command from bloody Chancellorsville. I was down among the first arrivals. The men in charge of them told me the bad cases were yet to come. If that is so I pity them, for these are bad enough. You ought to see the scene of the wounded arriving at the landing here foot of Sixth street, at night. Two boat loads came about half-past seven last night. A little after eight it rain'd a long and violent shower. The poor, pale, helpless soldiers had been debark'd, and lay around on the wharf and neighborhood anywhere. The rain was, probably, grateful to them; at any rate they were exposed to it. The few torches light up the spectacle. All around -- on the wharf, on the ground, out on side places -- the men are lying on blankets, old quilts, &c., with bloody rags bound round heads, arms, and legs. The attendants are few, and at night few outsiders also -- only a few hard-work'd transportation men and drivers. (The wounded are getting to be common, and people grow callous.) The men, whatever their condition, lie there, and patiently wait till their turn comes to be taken up. Near by, the ambulances are now arriving in clusters, and one after another is call'd to back up and take its load. Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers. The men generally make little or no ado, whatever their sufferings. A few groans that cannot be suppress'd, and occasionally a scream of pain as they lift a man into the ambulance........To day, as I write, hundreds more are expected, and to-morrow and the next day more, and so on for many days. Quite often they arrive at the rate of 1000 a day.
. . .
The fighting had been general both at Chancellorsville and northeast at Fredericksburgh. (We hear of some poor fighting, episodes, skedaddling on our part. I think not of it. I think of the fierce bravery, the general rule.) One Corps, the 6th, Sedgewick's, fights four dashing and bloody battles in 36 hours, retreating in great jeopardy, losing largely and maintaining itself, fighting with the sternest desperation under all circumstances, getting over the Rappahannock only by the skin of its teeth, yet getting over. It lost many, many brave men, yet it took vengeance, ample vengeance.
But it was the tug of Saturday evening, and through the night and Sunday morning, I wanted to make a special note of. It was largely in the woods, and quite a general engagement. 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. The woods take fire, and many of the wounded, unable to move, (especially some of the divisions in the Sixth Corps,) are consumed -- quite large spaces are swept over, burning the dead also -- some of the men have their hair and beards singed -- some, splatches of burns on their faces and hands -- others holes burnt in their clothing........The flashes of fire from the cannon, the quick flaring flames and smoke, and the immense roar -- the musketry so general, the light nearly bright enough for each side to see one another -- the crashing, tramping of men -- the yelling -- close quarters -- we hear the Secesh yells -- our men cheer loudly back, especially if Hooker is in sight -- hand to hand conflicts, each side stands to it, brave, determin'd as demons, they often charge upon us -- a thousand deeds are done worth to write newer greater poems on -- and still the woods on fire -- still many are not only scorch'd -- too many, unable to move, are burn'd to death.........Then the camp of the wounded -- O heavens, what scene is this? -- is this indeed humanity -- these butchers' shambles? There are several of them. There they lie, in the largest, in an open space in the woods, from 500 to 600 poor fellows -- the groans and screams -- the odor of blood, mixed with the fresh scent of the night, the grass, the trees -- that Slaughter-house! -- O well is it their mothers, their sisters cannot see them -- cannot conceive, and never conceiv'd, these things.........One man is shot by a shell, both in the arm and leg -- both are amputated -- there lie the rejected members. Some have their legs blown off -- some bullets through the breast -- some indescribably horrid wounds in the face or head, all mutilated, sickening, torn, gouged out -- some in the abdomen -- some mere boys -- here is one his face colorless as chalk, lying perfectly still, a bullet has perforated the abdomen -- life is ebbing fast, there is no help for him. In the camp of the wounded are many rebels, badly hurt -- they take their regular turns with the rest, just the same as any -- the surgeons use them just the same.........Such is the camp of the wounded -- such a fragment, a reflection afar off of the bloody scene -- while over all the clear, large moon comes out at times softly, quietly shining.
7) Excerpt from a notebook draft of "The Artilleryman's Vision." These lines were omitted, but they testify to some of the same concerns that Whitman treats in "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown." (Source: Glicksberg, 123, quoted in Erkkila, 217).
Then after the battle, what a scene! O my sick soul! how the dead lie,
The wounded--the surgeons and ambulances--
O the hideous hell, the damned hell of war
Were the preachers preaching of hell?
O there is no hell more damned than this hell of war.
8) A poem akin to "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown," though the focus is on the horrors of battle rather than the scene of an impromptu field hospital after a battle. The poem is presented here as it appeared in 1865. In 1871 the title changed to "The Artilleryman's Vision" and a few words were changed. Whitman made additional minor changes, primarily in punctuation, for subsequent editions. The poem is based on a draft of about thirty lines in an 1862-63 notebook Whitman kept while in Washington that is now at the Library of Congress (notebook 94) and has been transcribed by Glicksberg (121-123). (Source: Leaves of Grass, A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, Volume II: Poems, 1860-1867, 506-507).
The Veteran's Vision
WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the mystic midnight passes,
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant,
There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision presses upon me:
The engagement opens there and then, in my busy brain unreal;
The skirmishers begin--they crawl cautiously ahead--I hear the irregular snap! snap!
I hear the sounds of the different missiles--the short t-h-t! t-h-t! of the rifle balls;
I see the shells exploding, leaving small white clouds--I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass;
The grape, like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (quick, tumultuous, now the contest rages!)
All the scenes at the batteries themselves rise in detail before me again;
The crashing and smoking--the pride of the men in their pieces;
The chief gunner ranges and sights his piece, and selects a fuse of the right time;
After firing, I see him lean aside, and look eagerly off to note the effect;
--Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging--(the young colonel leads himself this time, with brandish'd sword;)
I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up--no delay;)
I breathe the suffocating smoke--then the flat clouds hover low, concealing all;
Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side;
Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and orders of officers;
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success;)
And ever the sound of the cannon, far or near, (rousing, even in dreams, a devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the depths of my soul;)
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions--batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither;
(The falling, dying, I heed not--the wounded, dripping and red, I heed not--some to the rear are hobbling;)
Grime, heat, rush--aid-de-camps galloping by, or on a full run;
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my vision I hear or see,)
And bombs busting in air, and at night the vari-color'd rockets.
9) As recorded by Horace Traubel, Whitman reflections years later on his work with more than 80,000 wounded, sick, and dying soldiers.
It was a religion with me . . . Every man has a religion . . . something which absorbs him, possesses itself of him, makes him over in its image. . . . That, whatever it is, seized upon me, made me its servant, slave; induced me to set aside the other ambitions: a trail of glory in the heavens, which I followed, followed, with a full heart. (Traubel, vol. III, 581)