Walt Whitman had a deep sympathy for America’s common people

When Walt Whitman heard his brother was wounded in the Civil War he rushed to his side and saw the suffering that war had brought to many ordinary men

US poet Walt Whitman circa 1869 with his friend Peter Doyle.

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When journalist and poet Walt Whitman read a list of casualties from the American Civil War’s Battle of Fredericksburn in a newspaper in 1862, he was shocked to see what he thought was his brother George’s name among the wounded. He immediately caught a train to be with his brother, but his pocket was picked while he was changing trains in Philadelphia. He had to borrow money to make his way to Washington where he was told his brother was in a hospital.

When he finally found George he was relieved to discover he only had a minor cheek wound. But during his search he had seen some of the terrible wounds sustained by troops in the war.

Whitman had been antislavery
and for the Union cause, but as a humanist he had baulked at picking up a gun. However, now he felt compelled to do something and gave himself
over to dressing soldiers’ wounds, running their errands, writing their letters and doing anything he could to help them heal.

It would profoundly affect the writer, born two centuries ago today, and shape his poetry over the last decades of his life. His influential work Leaves Of Grass, first published in 1855, would be revised and updated to reflect some of his Civil War experiences. It remains one of the great works of American poetry.

Born on Long Island in New York in 1819, the son of a farmer turned carpenter, Walt left formal schooling aged 11, but then worked in a series of jobs that added to his education. He worked, initially as a law clerk, but at 12 he became a typesetter’s apprentice, also learning journalism.

Becoming increasingly literate, and reading as much as he could, he became a teacher, teaching at schools around Long Island in 1838. But he began to have literary aspirations. From 1841, taking on the personal style of flamboyant writer, complete with fancy clothes and walking cane, he talked his way into newspaper jobs.

An undated portrait of American poet Walt Whitman.

But he lived up to his own hype. In 1846 he became editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. By then he was already writing poetry, which was published in various papers and periodicals. He published the novel, Franklin Evans; Or, The Inebriate, in 1842. An attempt to preach the evils of alcohol, Whitman later dismissed it as “damned rot”.

His personal political views, on stopping slavery being introduced to new states and his support for the Free Soil Party, resulted in him being sacked from the Eagle in 1848.

Meanwhile his poetry was rapidly evolving He was experimenting with blank verse and by 1855 had 12 poems which gathered in a manuscript he called Leaves Of Grass. Its topics ranged from singing the praises of the body to preserving American democracy. It showed a unique voice, drawn from America’s common men rather than its literary elite.

Unable to find a publisher he used his own money, made from selling houses and investing in real estate,
to put it out, with a print run of only 795 copies.

About two dozen sold, some people were shocked by the sexual content others mystified by his blank verse. Despite that, he gained many admirers, including essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson who praised it as the most “extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom” produced in America. A second edition was published in 1856 containing 20 extra poems. He would continue to revise it until his death.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Whitman supported the war but didn’t want to take up arms against slavery. After his brother was wounded he went to look after soldiers. He wrote about his experiences in newspaper articles and his poems.

In 1865 he published Drum Taps based on his war experiences. His poetry also gained world attention through expurgated editions (presumably minus the sex) in England from
1868. In the 1870s he became ill and lost his job in the attorney-general’s office. In 1881 the Society for the Suppression of Vice threatened to stop a new edition of Leaves
Of Grass. When it was finally published it was a big seller, bringing financial security.

He bought a New Jersey cottage where he spent his declining years.

He died in 1892, never having married — his only long-term relationships were with men, including Peter Doyle, who was rumoured to be his lover.

Leaves Of Grass, revised and added in nine editions, was his greatest legacy. Words from the poem Song Of Myself are something of an epitaph:

“I bequeath myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again, look for me under your boot sole.”