Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America's Great Poet

By Garrett Peck and Martin G. Murray

Walt Whitman was already famous for Leaves of Grass when he journeyed to the nation's capital at the height of the Civil War to find his brother George, a Union officer wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Whitman eventually served as a volunteer "hospital missionary," making more than six hundred hospital visits and serving over eighty thousand sick and wounded soldiers in the next three years. With the 1865 publication of Drum-Taps, Whitman became poet laureate of the Civil War, aligning his legacy with that of Abraham Lincoln. He remained in Washington until 1873 as a federal clerk, engaging in a dazzling literary circle and fostering his longest romantic relationship, with Peter Doyle. Author Garrett Peck details the definitive account of Walt Whitman's decade in the nation's capital.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Mar 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781625854858

Garrett Peck

Garrett Peck is a literary journalist, local historian and author of four books, including "The Potomac River: A History and Guide" and "Prohibition in Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren't". He leads the Temperance Tour of Prohibition-related sites in Washington. Peck is a VMI graduate. Richard Stamm is the Smithsonian Castle Collection Curator. He is the author of "The Castle, An Illustrated History of the Smithsonian Building" (Smithsonian Books, 1993).

Reviews for Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.

[iambookish-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love reading stories about DC and its history, so when I spotted this title I knew that it would be something that would interest me. I'm not very familiar with the life of Walt Whitman, so everything I read between the pages was new information. There was so much packed into this small book, historical photos, fascinating stories and a few stanzas of Whitman poetry.
Really enjoyed it.