The Sacrificial Years: A Chronicle of Walt Whitman's Experiences in the Civil War [Hardcover]

Walt Whitman (Author), John Harmon McElroy (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1999 | ISBN-10: 1567920799 | ISBN-13: 978-1567920796

In Late 1862, at the height of the Civil War, the poet and former newspaperman Walt Whitman traveled to a Virginia base camp in search of his wounded brother. The unattended misery he found there -- rows of unburied corpses, piles of amputated limbs, wounded men lying on the frozen ground -- moved him to (as he wrote) "a profound conviction of necessity" that he had to help relieve it. Whitman spent the next four years, at great personal and professional sacrifice, working as a voluntary nurse at military hospitals in the frontline capital of Washington, tending the sick and wounded well past the war's end.

The Sacrificial Year, is Walt Whitman's story of his involvement in the Civil War, and of his thoughts and feelings about this great crisis. Whitman himself never kept a diary of his experiences -- a fact he later regretted -- but he did write hundreds of letters, newspaper articles, and "memoranda." While many of these works have been published individually, editor John Harmon McElroy is the first to select and arrange Whitman's prose writings on the war in chronological sequence -- including previously unpublished extracts from his recently discovered Civil War notebook -- thereby reconstructing a continuous narrative of his month-to-month experience in his own words.

Poignant and powerful, encompassing all the horror and scope of that immense conflict, Walt Whitman's war chronicles are among the essential documents of those crucial years. This edition contains nearly 300 entries, and is further enhanced with over 50 compelling period photographs of the places, people, and events that Whitman captured so vividly in his prose.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Walt Whitman served as a volunteer nurse in Civil War hospitals from 1862 through 1865. He recorded his experiences in hundreds of letters and "memoranda" describing the suffering and heroism of both Union and Confederate soldiers. Although some of this material has been previously published, it has never before appeared in the chronological sequence of the events described, thus producing the effect of a diary--something Whitman didn't keep (but wished he had) during the war years. Accompanying the text are a series of 50 painstakingly reproduced period photographs capturing both the field hospitals where Whitman worked and the war leaders (Lincoln, Grant, Lee) he discusses. The vividly written text reflects the author's reverence for the details of life (and death) in the hospitals. Whitman's grasp of specifics is reminiscent of Hemingway's similar approach to documenting the physical sights, sounds, and smells of the battlefield. There is much here of interest to both Civil War buffs and students of Whitman. Bill Ott

From Kirkus Reviews

The sight of defeated soldiers returning from battle is one America hasnt seen on its own turf since the Civil War. Its a sight that was vividly recorded by Walt Whitman, whose letters, newspaper articles, and other writings from the war are collected here chronologically for the first time. His descriptions are immediate and chilling. Here are soldiers in the wake of the first battle of Bull Run: During the forenoon Washington gets all over motley with these defeated soldiersqueer-looking objects, strange eyes and faces, drenchd (the steady rain drizzles on all day) and fearfully worn, hungry, haggard, blisterd in the feet. So compelled was he by the sight of wounded and dying soldiers that he volunteered as a nurse to attempt to relieve their suffering. Editor McElroy, professor emeritus of American literature at the University of Arizona, gathers here Whitmans dispatches from his years of service, 186166. The great poets admiration for those who have seen battle will resound today, when we are re- learning respect for the silent heroism of American GIs: There is something majestic about a man who has borne his part in battles, especially if he is very quiet regarding it when you desire him to unbosom. I am continually lost at the absence of blowing and blowers among the old-young American militaires. (16 pages b&w illustrations) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 167 pages
• Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567920799
• ISBN-13: 978-1567920796
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,494,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, near Huntington, Long Island, New York. On July 4, 1855, the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the volume of poems that for the next four decades would become his lifes work, was placed on sale. Although some critics treated the volume as a joke and others were outraged by its unprecedented mixture of mysticism and earthiness, the book attracted the attention of some of the finest literary intelligences. His poetry slowly achieved a wide readership in America and in England, where he was praised by Swinburne and Tennyson. (D. H. Lawrence later referred to Whitman as the"greatest modern poet, and"the greatest of Americans. Whitman suffered a stroke in 1873 and was forced to retire to Camden, New Jersey, where he would spend the last twenty years of his life. There he continued to write poetry, and in 1881 the seventh edition of Leaves of Grass was published to generally favorable reviews. However, the book was soon banned in Boston on the grounds that it was obscene literature. In January 1892 the final edition of Leaves of Grass appeared on sale, and Whitman's life work was complete. He died two months later on the evening of March 26, 1892, and was buried four days afterward at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best editing of Whitman's Journals, February 16, 2006

By 

Herschel Greenberg (Chino, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sacrificial Years: A Chronicle of Walt Whitman's Experiences in the Civil War (Hardcover)

Walt Whitman wrote many journals, letters and diaries during his years volunteering at the hospitals in Washington DC. There are many books out there which claim to combine all those elements into one book. This book does an OK job of combining everything. The editor organizes the book by Month, which makes referencing easy. However, the editor chose not to include the original date the piece was written. Whitman dated almost everything, but this editor took those out in favor or numbering in passage in sequence. If you want to know WHEN a passage was written, you will need to find it in another book. In addition, the editor removed the context for each piece. For example, some passages are letters to his mother or an article for the newspapers in New York. Because this information is removed, and because each passage has text removed in order to make each passage short, this book lacks some of the important detials needed to see the big picture of Whitman's life. I am currently studying Whitman during the Civil War, and although I have used this book as reference, I have needed to go to other books to find out when and where each passage was written. This is a good starting point for someone who wants to quickly glance at Whitman's experiences, but I would also recommend Walt Whitman's Civil War, edited by Lowenfals and The Better Angel, by Roy Morris Jr.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Special Vision of War, June 10, 2011

By 

John F Walker Jr (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sacrificial Years: A Chronicle of Walt Whitman's Experiences in the Civil War (Hardcover)

Fabulous. This book collects Whitman's diary entries during the years he spent as part-time federal clerk and 'hospital visitor' in Washington hospitals during and after the Civil War. As a war vet, I have never seen such beautiful and balanced writing about the experience of being in and around a war zone. Whitman also shares his observations of Washington (under construction) and New York (oblivious), as well as of Abe Lincoln as he passed back and forth every day from the White House to his sleeping quarters in the Soldiers Home. A vivid, moving, birds eye view, written by one of the most sensitive writers in our history.