Existing comment:
Walt Whitman:
Poet Walt Whitman stayed at the Willard during the Civil War while he searched for his wounded brother and subsequently cared for sick and injured Union soldiers recovering at a wartime hospital set up in the Old Patent Office Building. Poems and recollections from this pivotal period in the author's life are filled with details of Washington such as the one shown here describing the bustling, ever-present soldiers at "Willard's" hotel. |