Gathered from this specimen day, i believe Whitman has returned home from his sojourn, traveling various clinics and encampments, tending the wounded and dying from the war. (civil war) He has collected various notes, diary entries, postings, scrapbook material for a book he is writing. But has stated that he will not publish most of his private notes which are often stained in blood, perhaps a reference of the trauma he experienced tending to so many wounded.
I noted the excitement in this entry and the manner of which he scans all these premature and rough artifacts of a sordid and strong experience. He encountered the war first hand, not kill and shooting, but rather the aftermath, the part where most history books leave out, the numbered wounded, crippled and dead. Those that are broken are left out. It's easy to talk about going to war and the decorum of various campaigns, but once your knee deep in the blood and gore, and your stomach has been churned and curdled, your perspective is shifted and tainted.
In relation to Leaves of Grass, i believe these notes are the progenitor of his first transcript. They may have laid the foundation for what might have been the first draft or possibly a second. Experiences shape who we are as individuals and i'm certain that the war had a drastic impact on Whitman and his writings, leaving a traumatic stain upon his verses. And i believe that is why Whitman forcefully tries to convey our relation to one another, how we are all one and the same, united by some spiritual means. He wants to show us that once we see how were all brothers and sisters, fighting amongst ourselves in war, would be unimaginable.
Very nice! His civil war experience is, in a sense, where W's philosphical/poetic ideals hit the road of experience . . . do you think Song of Myself has sufficiently prepared him for this?
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