In honor of the “I Sing the Body Electric: Walt Whitman and the Body” exhibit (drawn from our extensive Whitman collection) on display until October 28th in the Biddle Rare Book Room, I will be writing several blog posts about Walt Whitman and his life.
One of the cases in the exhibit is about Whitman’s experiences during the Civil War because it greatly influenced how he thought about and wrote about the body. You can see this in his writing, particularly in Drum Taps, Specimen Days, and Memoranda during the War (selections from his journal entries)
Here are several resources related to Whitman and the Civil War, if you want to learn more:
“Daybreak Gray and Dim”: How the Civil War Changed Walt Whitman’s Poetry
Traveling with the Wounded: Walt Whitman and Washington’s Civil War Hospitals
Walt Whitman In Washington, D.C. : The Civil War And America’s Great Poet by Garrett Peck
Walt Whitman and the Civil War: America’s Poet during the Lost Years of 1860-1862 by Ted Genoways
Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and his Brothers in the Civil War by Robert Roper
The Better Angel : Walt Whitman in the Civil War by Roy Morris, Jr.
Walt Whitman’s Civil War, Compiled & edited from published & unpublished sources by Walter Lowenfels, with the assistance of Nan Braymer
Walt Whitman and the Civil War; a Collection of Original Articles and Manuscripts edited by Charles I. Glicksberg
To find out more about Whitman, check out the previous blog posts in this series: Reading Walt Whitman and Whitman and the Body.