The lead character / narrator in my next novel as a hobby impersonates Walt Whitman. Here is one of the four chapters in which he does so. The quotes are highly accurate but not quotable directly from my novel, due to tiny changes in transitions and sentence order. The poems cannot be quoted, even though they are the exact words of his poem, because I’ve dropped so much punctuation.
But this is my effort to reach the essence of Walt Whitman’s genius, in poetry and prose, about the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln.
All my best,
Mike
31.
Denver
April 15, 1975
Two hundred people are gathered in Denver Auditorium – twice the size of my previously largest audience for one of my Walt Whitman performances. “Ladies and gentlemen . . .” concludes the host for the commemoration of the 110th anniversary in Denver of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, “. . . Walt Whitman.” I step forward and begin:
“Howdy. Before I recite one of my poems, are there any questions about the Civil War or about Mister Lincoln?”
Hands go up. “Yes Ma’am,” I say to a midlife lady in the front row.
“Mister Whitman,” she asks, “how did the war affect you?”
“The War deeply engaged me. Enlisted all my powers, thoughts, affection. The doubts, anxieties, dubiosities. The tos and fros, the ups and downs, the heres and theres. The sad visions, ever approaching, deeply, unreservedly, commanded me.”
A young man near the back of the hall asks, “Are you pleased with what you’ve written about the War?”
“I could not expect to do more than collect a little of the driftwood of the War and pass it down to the future.”
He has a follow-up. “Who made the deepest impression on you?”
“It was the average soldier – the average soldier, North and South – who was the golden swordblade of our war.”
An elderly man looks surprised and maybe a tad indignant. “You are speaking well of Southerners?”
“I am warmly disposed toward the South. I hate slavery, have always said so. But there is another spirit dormant there which it must be the purpose of our civilization to bring forth. My instinct of friendship towards the South is almost more than I like to confess. I have dear friends there: sacred, precious memories. The horrible patois attributed to the ‘poor white’ there in the South I never found – never encountered. I discovered courtesy, chivalry, generosity. In fact, my experiences with the South have only served to confirm my faith in man – in the average of men. I discovered the same basic traits in them all – the Northern man, the Southern man, the Western man – all of one instinct – addicted to the same vices, ennobled by the same virtues: the dignity, courtesy, open-handedness.”
From an older woman in the middle of the audience: “What leader stands out to you other than Lincoln?”
“Ulysses S. Grant. All genius defies the rules – makes its own passage – is its own precedent. Grant was the typical Western man – plain, efficient, the least imposed upon by appearances. There was Grant – going about his work, defying the rules, playing the game his own way – did all the things the best generals told him he should not do – and won out!”
“Oh Walt, tell us about Abe Lincoln,” says a young woman near the front.
I take my time with this one:
“I remember his cheer, his story-telling – always the good story well told. His ways were beautiful and simple. He delighted in simplicity, ruggedness, naturalness, straightforwardness – in plain habits, clear thinking, doing. And he was the same man in all relationships – with a radiant kindliness, humanity, in a natural tone, out of a great heart. Lincoln soars and plays wells beyond them all.
“He reminds me most of a captain – a great captain – chosen for a tempestuous voyage. Everything against him – wind, tide, current, terrible odds, untried seas, balking courses. Yet a man equal to all emergencies. Never at a loss. Quiet, composed, patient – oh how patient! – and coming out at the end, victor.
“The radical element in Lincoln was sadness bordering on melancholy, touched by a philosophy, and that philosophy touched again by a humor, which saved him from the logical wreck of his powers.
“Lincoln was not hasty in action. Far from it. Had almost infinite patience. But he was mighty when aroused.
“See how he went his own lonely road, disregarding all the usual ways – refusing the guides, just keeping his appointment with himself every time.
“Lincoln was more than Western – his habits so, his dress, speech – but in the things which establish the hero, the majestic genius, he was Roman, Greek, Biblical – had the towering individuality which peers over all borderlands of race, is one with the great characters of all ages.
“Who can measure the value of such a personality – such a great, great presence in our age, our land – this greatest, sweetest soul with his world-capaciousness and, in his way, all-seeing – who can measure his value to America?”
“Just a little of my poetry today,” I as Whitman say, “one about a runaway slave, four about the Civil War, and one about Abraham Lincoln and his death and his memory.”
The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him
And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and
bruis’d feet
And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him
some coarse clean clothes
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his
awkwardness
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d
north
The engagement opens there and then
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-tht!
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
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
I see the gaps cut by the enemy’s volleys
I breathe the suffocating smoke
Then the fat clouds hover low concealing all
Then resumed the chaos louder than ever
With eager calls and orders of officers
And ever the sound of the cannon far or near
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions
Batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither
Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles
And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-color’d rockets
I saw old General at bay
He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s lines
A desperate emergency
I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks
But two or three were selected
I saw them receive their orders aside
They listen’d with care
The adjutant was very grave
I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives
Bearing the bandages, water and sponge
Straight and swift to my wounded I go
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground
Or to the rows of the hospital tent
Or under the roof’d hospital
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return
To each and all one after another I draw near
Not one do I miss
An attendant follows holding a tray
He carries a refuse pail
Soon to be fill’d with clotted rags and blood
Emptied, and fill’d again
I onward go, I stop
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable
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
On, on I go
The crush’d head I dress
The neck of the cavalry-man
With the bullet through and through I examine
Hard the breathing rattles
Quite glazed already the eye
Yet life struggles hard
From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough
Wash off the matter and blood
Back on his pillow the soldier bends
With curv’d neck and side-falling head
His eyes are closed, his face is pale
He dares not look on the bloody stump
I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep
But a day or two more
For see the frame all wasted and stinking
And the yellow-blue countenance see
I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray
and pail
I am faithful, I do not give out
The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen
These and more I dress with impassive hand
Thus in silence I thread my way through the hospitals
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young
Some suffer so much
Come up from the fields father, here’s a letter from our Pete
And come to front door mother, here’s a letter from thy dear son
Now from the fields come father, and come to entry mother
Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps
trembling
Open the envelope quickly
O this is not our son’s writing
Yet his name is sign’d
O a strange hand writes for our dear son
O stricken mother’s soul!
All swims before her eyes, flashes with black
She catches the main words only
Sentences broken
Gunshot wound in the breast
Cavalry skirmish
Taken to hospital
At present low
But will soon be better
Ah now the single figure to me
Sickly white in the face, very faint, by the jamb of a door leans
Grieve not so, dear mother
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better
Alas, poor boy, he will never be better
While they stand at home at the door he is dead already
The only son is dead
But the mother needs to be better
She with thin form presently drest in black
By day her meals untouch’d
Then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking
In the midnight waking, weeping
Longing with one deep longing
O that she might withdraw unnoticed
Silent from life escape and withdraw
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son
“And now, if I may read one of my poems about Abraham Lincoln”:
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west
And thought of him I love
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night – O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear’d – O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless – O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the
white-wash’d palings
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves
of rich green
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume
strong I love
With every leaf a miracle – and from this bush in the dooryard
With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich
green
A sprig with its flower I break
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets
peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the
endless grass
Passing the yellow-spear-‘d wheat, every grain from its shroud
in the dark-brown fields uprisen
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave
Night and day journeys a coffin
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land
With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped
in black
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women
standing
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the
night
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the
unbared heads
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising
strong and solemn
With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d around the
coffin
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs – where amid
these you journey
With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang
Here, coffin that slowly passes
I give you my sprig of lilac
What an amazing life...
Whitman provided wounded soldiers, both Confederate and Union, with emotional support, comforting them and frequently writing letters for them. Many soldiers had fond memories of the gray bearded man who gave of himself so unselfishly.
Walt Whitman and the Civil War, NJ.gov