Drum-taps and Memoranda During the War

Walt Whitman experienced first-hand the ravages of the Civil War as a volunteer nurse in the hospitals of Washington D.C. During that time, he filled notebooks with “impromptu jottings” that became the basis of two works: Drum-Taps, a collection of 71 poems including When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and O’ Captain My Captain, and Memoranda During the War, an intimate diary of his experience tending to the sick and dying during the war.