Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America's Great Poet

Walt Whitman was already famous for Leaves of Grass when he journeyed to the nation's capital at the height of the Civil War to find his brother George, a Union officer wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Whitman eventually served as a volunteer "hospital missionary," making more than six hundred hospital visits and serving over eighty thousand sick and wounded soldiers in the next three years. With the 1865 publication of Drum-Taps, Whitman became poet laureate of the Civil War, aligning his legacy with that of Abraham Lincoln. He remained in Washington until 1873 as a federal clerk, engaging in a dazzling literary circle and fostering his longest romantic relationship, with Peter Doyle. Author Garrett Peck details the definitive account of Walt Whitman's decade in the nation's capital.


Author: Garrett Peck
Publisher: History Press Library Editions
Published: 03/23/2015
Pages: 194
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.50d
ISBN13: 9781540213853
ISBN10: 1540213854
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | State & Local | Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD,
- Literary Criticism | Poetry
- History | United States | Civil War Period (1850-1877)

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