The American poet Walt Whitman greatly admired Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, and was deeply affected by his assassination, writing several poems as elegies and giving a series of lectures on Lincoln. The two never met. Shortly after Lincoln was killed in April 1865, Whitman hastily wrote the first of his Lincoln poems, "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day". In the following months, he wrote two more: "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". Both appeared in his collection Sequel to Drum-Taps later that year. The poems—particularly "My Captain!"—were well received and popular upon publication and, in the following years, Whitman styled himself as an interpreter of Lincoln. In 1871, his fourth poem on Lincoln, "This Dust Was Once the Man", was published, and the four were grouped together as the "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn" cluster in Passage to India. In 1881, the poems were republished in the "Memories of President Lincoln" cluster of Leaves of Grass.
From 1879 to 1890, Whitman's lectures on Lincoln's assassination bolstered the poet's own reputation and that of his poems. Critical reception to Whitman's Lincoln poetry has varied since their publication. "My Captain!" was very popular, particularly before the mid-20th century, and is still considered one of his most popular works, despite slipping in popularity and critical assessment since the early 1900s. "Lilacs" is often listed as one of Whitman's finest works.
Abraham Lincoln was raised on the frontier in the early 19th century, living in Kentucky and Indiana before settling in Illinois, serving in the state legislature, and marrying Mary Todd. He gained a reputation on the national stage with his 1858 debates against Stephen Douglas during a race for a seat in the United States Senate, which Douglas won. Two years later Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States. In that capacity, he led the United States through the American Civil War until his assassination on April 14, 1865.[1]
Walt Whitman established his reputation as a poet following the release of his poetry collection Leaves of Grass (1855); the volume came to wider public attention following a positive review by American transcendentalist lecturer and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.[2][3] Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic and had developed a free verse style inspired by the cadences of the King James Bible.[4][5] Reviewing Leaves of Grass, some critics objected to Whitman's blunt depiction of sexuality and what they perceived as an undercurrent of homoeroticism.[6][7]
At the start of the American Civil War, Whitman moved from New York to Washington, D.C., where he had a series of government jobs—first with the Army Paymaster's Office and later with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.[8][9] He volunteered in the army hospitals as a nurse.[10] Whitman's wartime experience greatly influenced his poetry, and he shifted to writing reflections on death and youth, the brutality of war and patriotism. He later wrote that the war offered "some pang of anguish—some tragedy, profounder than ever poet wrote."[11][12] Whitman's brother, Union Army soldier George Washington Whitman, was taken prisoner in Virginia in September 1864, and held for five months in Libby Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Richmond, Virginia.[13] On February 24, 1865, George was granted a furlough to return home because of his poor health. Whitman traveled to his mother's home in New York to visit him.[14] While visiting Brooklyn, Whitman signed a contract to have his collection of Civil War poems, Drum-Taps, published.[15] In June 1865, the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, discovered a copy of Leaves of Grass and fired Whitman from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, describing the collection as "obscene".[16]
To say that Whitman admired Lincoln would be a terrific understatement—he saw the Union itself, America itself, incarnated in him.