Dallas Public Library

Walt Whitman In Washington, D.C., the Civil War and America's great poet, Garrett Peck ; foreword by Martin C. Murray, founder of the Washington Friends of Walt Whitman

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-185) and index

contains biographical information

illustrationsmaps

index present

non fiction

Walt Whitman In Washington, D.C.

bibliography

899229789

Garrett Peck ; foreword by Martin C. Murray, founder of the Washington Friends of Walt Whitman

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"--Page 4 of cover