Memoranda During the War by poet Walt Whitman, opens as follows: "During the Union War I commenced at the close of 1862, and continued steadily through '63, '64 and '65, to visit the sick and wounded of the Army, both on the field and in the Hospitals in and around Washington city. From the first I kept little note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to refresh my memory of names and circumstances, and what was specially wanted, &c. In these I brief'd cases, persons, sights, occurrences in camp, by the bedside, and not seldom by the corpses of the dead. Of the present Volume most of its pages are verbatim renderings from such pencillings on the spot" (p. 1). He also wrote about other observations he made around the city during that time.

I liked this better than most of Whitman's poetry, as it is short (92 pages) and more succinct. I can see some of the inspiration for the poems in Drum-Taps and Sequel to Drum-Taps (small poetry collections written during the Civil War and folded into later editions of Leaves of Grass). One example is the memorandum about the murder of Lincoln, where he writes (page 60): "...there were many lilacs in full bloom. By one of those caprices that enter and give tinge to events without being at all a part of them, I find myself always reminded of the great tragedy of that day by the sight and odor of these blossoms. It never fails." In Sequel to Drum Taps (1865) there is a poem called "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" which is an elegy to Lincoln.

The memoranda actually only take up the first 76 pages, which is followed with 16 pages of "notes" added later. The first half of these clarify parts of the memoranda, but the last half, particularly the section starting on page 89: "Future History of the United States, growing out of the War—(My Speculations,)" is merely wordy and superfluous.
The book was originally published in 1875, ten years after the end of the Civil War. I read a 1990 edition of this public domain work available on Google Books. ( )

Walt Whitman's Memoranda During the War is the best book I have read about a seldom thought about aspect of the Civil War. Having gone to Washington D. C. at the end of 1862 to visit his wounded brother George, Walt stayed there to tend to the sick and wounded through the end of the War. He writes about the known and the unknown, the anonymous soldiers who all too frequently did not survive their wounds.
"Common People . . . to me the main interest of the War, I found, (and still, on recollection find,) in those specimens, and in the ambulance, the Hospital, and even the dead on the field.)" (p 6)

The narrative displays the sort of interior history that you cannot get in history books. There is present in his prose a sort of ethereal innocence at times and an immediacy that comes from the contemporaneous notes that Whitman maintained in small notebooks. Throughout the narrative is imbued with thoughts of Homer's Iliad that Whitman held close to his heart. But even closer to his heart were the beautiful young boys who were being sacrificed on the battlefields. The contradictions of those he saw who would often be dead before the week was over contrasted with the bodies that lay on the battlefields, sometimes for a week or more before they were retrieved.

He found time to insert his observations from his walks around Washington. One poetic moment he described The White House at night; "the brilliant gas-light shining---the palace-like portico---the tall, round columns, spotless as snow . . ." What a contrast with his days in the hospitals surrounded by blood-soaked wounded soldiers, too young to be called the veterans that they were.

He concludes the narrative with his speculations about the future for the country. This provides a fitting ending for what is a fascinating, moving, and above all a heartfelt account of our greatest poet's experiences during the Civil War. ( )

Found WW's references to the wounded men in the camp as "specimens" disturbing.

10.0