Existing comment:
Walt Whitman's Soldiers:
Poet and essayist Walt Whitman came to Washington DC, in 1863 to look for his brother George, whose name had appeared in a newspaper casualty roster after the Battle of Fredericksburg. Whitman visited more than 40 Washington hospitals and eventually located George alive but injured in Fredericksburg. Whitman was so moved by the human cost of battle that he began visiting Washington's hospitals to nurse the sick and wounded. Several of these specimens are from individuals whom Whitman cared for and referred to in his book Specimen Days, first published in 1882. |