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Walt Whitman in the Civil War The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War; by Roy Morris, Jr.; Oxford University Press; 270 pages; $25.00. 
I have been a student of Walt Whitman ever since my high school days when
my English teacher--who must have been gay (he later got in trouble for taking his class to a production
of Hair)--saw fit to tell us that the "Good Gray Poet" was gay. I look
forward to any new book about Whitman, though all too often the author's
homophobia ruins his book as far as I am concerned.
The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War claims to be the first comprehensive study of Whitman's Civil War Years (1861-1865). Though this is not strictly true its appearance at this time almost guarantees the book a welcome reception from the reading public. (Civil War books are very popular these days, as any look at a History Book Club catalog would tell you.) Its author is certainly qualified. As editor of Civil War magazine, and biographer of Phil Sheridan and Ambrose Bierce, Roy Morris, Jr. is a recognized authority on the American Civil War and its literary manifestations. To Morris, as to Whitman himself, "the Civil War saved Walt Whitman"; saved him from writer's block and a stagnating life in Brooklyn with his dysfunctional family. When Walt's brother George, a Union soldier, was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 13, 1862), Whitman rushed down to Washington, D.C. to take care of him. Moved to pity by the young wounded and dying soldiers (both Union and Confederate), Whitman settled in Washington, got himself a civil service job to keep him (barely) above water, and devoted the next four years to visiting, aiding and nursing the sick and the wounded. Whitman's "service in the hospitals tested him physically, mentally, spiritually, and artistically," a test that he passed with flying colors though at some cost to his health. It also served Whitman as a muse, inspiring among other productions the "Drum-Taps" series and the elegy to Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd".
"Modern gay writers have seized on the poet as an early role model of unembarrassed male love," Morris complains, "some going so far as to read into every casually expressed, written endearment a hidden level of sexual activity that, given the tenor of the times and the sheer physical overcrowding of the hospitals, seems highly unlikely if not ridiculous." Though I tend to agree with "modern gay writers" on this issue, I realize that we should not impose 21st century standards on a 19th century poet. For instance, though Whitman's views on race appalls us we have to remind ourselves that this was a time when virtually all white Americans (even including Lincoln) were racist by today's standards. By the same token, Whitman was no gay liberationist; certainly not as we understand the term. Still, the fact that Morris is willing to deal with Whitman's homosexuality at all adds greatly is to his credit--and the benefit of his book. Though Whitman saw Abraham Lincoln several times, he "declined the opportunity to speak to Lincoln", thus cheating history of what would have been an epochal dialogue between the two titans. Whitman's impressions of Lincoln, who was probably gay himself, are certainly recorded, and are certainly more incisive than those of most contemporaries. Later in life, weakened by a stroke and living with his brother George in Camden, New Jersey, Whitman would mark the anniversary of Lincoln's death (April 15) with a memorial lecture that would become a literary event in its own right. Whitman himself, ministering to the youths festering in military hospitals, performed a service that was almost as worthy as Lincoln saving the Union. They were the greatest Americans of their generation; whose lives and achievements continue to inspire and impress us to this day. Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer who lives in South Florida with his domestic partner. He may be reached at jessemonteagudo@aol.com |
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