Drum-Taps and Memoranda During the War

Walt Whitman experienced first-hand the ravages of the Civil War as a volunteer nurse in the hospitals of Washington DC. During that time, he filled notebooks with "impromptu jottings" that became the basis of two works: Drum-Taps, a collection of seventy-one poems, and

Memoranda during the War, an intimate diary of his experience tending to the sick and dying during the war. These two historical ...