Walt Whitman  "The Good Gray Poet"  May 31, 1819 - March 26, 1873

For several years before the Civil War, Walt Whitman lived in the bohemian style of an artist. He described his life as "turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding". For more than 20 years he had worked as a newspaper editor and reporter, and in 1855 he had published the first edition of his poems in Leaves of Grass. After the start of the Civil War- probably because of his experiences during the conflict- his personality underwent a marked changed, and he became the "Good Gray Poet".

In 1861, while writing for New York newspapers, Whitman began to visit the Broadway Hospital, working as a volunteer aide to the wounded soldiers. When his brother, George, serving with the 51st New York Infantry, was wounded in 1862, Walt went to Virginia to find him. George recovered, but Walt had witnessed the suffering of wounded soldiers in Washington's hospitals and felt he had to stay and help. He dedicated himself to nursing the wounded and dying soldiers of both the North and the South, earning money to live on by taking a part-time job in the paymaster's office. Whitman tried to alleviate the suffering in any way he could, even spending some of his scant salary to provide small gifts such as fruit and stationery to the wounded. He wrote letters for soldiers who were not able to write, helped change dressings, and at times even assisted in surgery.

Whitman supplemented his income by writing for newspapers, and he sought a job as a clerk in the Department of the Interior. He was also writing poetry, but now his poems were greatly influenced by the war and the suffering it had produced. In January 1865 he finally got the clerk job in the Interior Department, but in June he was fired because the secretary of the interior thought Leaves of Grass was scandalous and indecent. In May a book Whitman's war poems, Drum Taps, was published. After Lincoln's assassination, Whitman was moved to write two of his most popular works: "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd".

Fascinating Fact:  Whitman's poetry in Leaves of Grass was considered to be too sexually explicit and was poorly received in the United States. His work was more appreciated in England.


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