The Wounded From Chancellorsville

“The men, whatever their condition, lie there, and patiently wait till their turn comes to be taken up. Near by, the ambulances are now arriving in clusters, and one after another is call'd to back up and take its load. Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers. The men generally make little or no ado, whatever their sufferings. A few groans that cannot be suppress'd, and occasionally a scream of pain as they lift a man into the ambulance.”

This stark description of the wounded from Chancellorsville—a battle fought between the armies of General Robert E. Lee and Major General Joseph Hooker, considered the former’s greatest success in the Civil War—reminded me of this spirited passage from “Song of Myself:”

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my

        drums,

I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play

        marches for conquer’d and slain persons.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?

I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit

          in which they are won.

That the soldiers are patient in their agony and “make little or no ado, whatever their sufferings” is tragic, but it seems to reiterate the last two lines quoted here, which suggest, in a way, that the defeated are as triumphant and honorable as the victorious. Similarly, despite everything, there’s strength and, to a certain extent, dignity to be found in the utterly wretched scene that Whitman records (I could possibly be reading too much into it, I don’t know). However, I’m also tempted to feel that there’s no dignity at all here, and nor would you have seen it among the Condederate wounded (Lee’s army lost a total of 12,764 men at Chancellorsville—hardly a victory, I should say). The scene is hopeless, and worst of all, it feels completely meaningless.

                                                                                Matthew Brady, 1863--Battle of Gettysburg

I am in fact reminded of Matthew Brady's photographs that documented the Civil War, specifically those  that show the battlefields and the dead wasted and wrecked in the fields. Brady’s photographs hardly idealize the dead —they are face down in the dirt, upturned with their heads blow off, lying ontop of one another in mass graves, or looking toward the camera with twisted, broken faces. The photographs are invariably desolate, and when you see the men scattered across the ground, you hardly think "honor" or "dignity" or "triumphant." Battles may be lost in the same spirit which they are won, but that spirit feels, like I said before, meaningless.

Very Well Then

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself.

These two lines, though perhaps not as stirring as other moments in “Song of Myself,” are deeply humane and telling about the poem as a whole. I noticed that the narrator was inconsistent on occasion, even downright naive in some places, and I had trouble reconciling these passages with the rest of the poem. Consider the following lines for instance:

The disdain and calmness of martyrs,

The mother of old, condemn’d for a witch, burnt with dry

        wood, her children gazing on,

The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the

        fence, blowing, cover’d with sweat,

The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the

        murderous buckshot and the bullets,

All these I feel or am.

Now compare them to this passage which appears later in the poem:

Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my

       my brother, my sister?

I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous

       upon me,

All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with

       lamentation

(What have I to do with lamentation?)

Clearly, there’s a contradiction here (one of several within the poem). In the first passage, Whitman presents us with this noble sense of empathy and connectedness with mankind. He suffers where the people suffer. He hurts where they hurt. He recognizes the cruelty and wrong being committed. In the second passage, however, Whitman seems to bask in ignorance and good fortune, untroubled by the world and the same cruelty. I cannot help but feel that “I am sorry for you” is written with a condescending and churlish tone. It’s almost like he’s saying “too bad—that sucks for you.” It’s infuriating since this doesn’t sound like the same narrator that we readily listened to for the first half of the poem (not to mention the fact that we're dealing with issues like slavery and bigotry). He’s now difficult to trust, and I doubt everything that he’s told me before.

But when Whitman admits to his contradictions — and embraces them  — in these two lines, he is repeating this idea that he is imperfect (which makes him perfect). He is willing to admit to whatever mistakes he’s made because they are human mistakes, human contradictions. His intention is not be consistent but to encapsulate all human experience, to be “made up of multitudes.” “I resist any thing better than my own diversity,” he says. He seems to be exploring these different ideas haphazardly. And however frustrating and oblique this might make the poem, it nonetheless makes it something that, I think, lives and breathes—its a poem that changes its mind, wavers, perhaps says things that it doesn’t mean to say, balances different points of view, enters different skins, and puts on different faces. 

Wilmot Proviso As It Relates to Whitman

The Wilmot Proviso, introduced in 1846 by the Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania David Wilmot, was a controversial amendment tacked onto legislation that provided President James K. Polk with two million dollars to negotiate the end of the Mexican War and to ultimately secure the present-day territories of California, Nevada, Utah and parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. The proviso, which passed the House on several occasions but never the Senate, would have barred slavery from the newly acquired territory. It sparked a rancorous debate between Northerners and Southerns, and served as a mere prelude to what would be ensuing agitation and the build up to the Civil War. 

At the time that the debate over the Wilmot Proviso was heating up in Washington, Walt Whitman was writing editorials for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, becoming increasingly more passionate in his support of the amendment. Whitman's arguments, however, made little mention of the moral atrocity of slavery. Martin Klammer in his book Whitman, Slavery, and the Emergence of Leaves of Grass notes that, in his editorials, Whitman "parrots the various arguments of Northern congressmen" and "bases his argument on the economic opportunities of white labor, and nowhere does he mention concern for the slave." In other words, Whitman's editorials show that he favored the proviso because he favored a white working class, which wouldn't stand a chance in the new territories should free slave labor be permitted. Indeed, Whitman even opposed the hardline abolitionists of the day in his editorials, and recognized slavery as a Southern right. 

In 1848, once the Wilmot Proviso appeared to have failed for good, the conservative faction of the Democratic party moved toward the idea of “popular sovereignty,” which would allow states to decide the issue of slavery for themselves. Whitman, knowing that this could still mean slavery in the new territories, shot out an editorial that vehemently opposed the idea, reiterating his support for the proviso. As a result, he was fired from the newspaper.

Interestingly enough, losing his editorial job would turn out to be a crucial event in the soon-to-be poet's life, as he became more and more frustrated with the party, and generally speaking, being limited as an individual. Around this time, Whitman zealously read Emerson's essays, many of which express the importance of the individual over everything. Again, Klammer: “The peculiar combination of Whitman’s increasing radicalization over slavery, on one hand, and the inspirational influence of Emerson, on the other, encouraged—even compelled—Whitman to begin his poetic explorations.”  

Whitman possibly turned to poetry as a means to freely express himself, without any affiliations or restraints. And clearly, when one reads “Song of Myself,” Whitman appears to have embraced this Emersonian notion whole-heartily. The poem is perfectly unique, the project of an original, unbridled voice. The poem's free-verse form alone was a radical step away from Whitman's contemporaries and predecessors, and the same goes for its down to earth subject matter.

With regards to Whitman's views on slavery, is it possible that they had drastically changed by the time he wrote "Song of Myself?" The section where the narrator accepts a runaway slave into his home stands out in particular as perhaps a statement. He lets the slave, "sweated" and "bruis'd," stay in his home for a week where he nurturers him with a parental tenderness, making him a bath, tending to his wounds, and restoring his strength. Notably, the narrators states: "I had him sit next me at the table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner." This shows that, by having his gun out in the open in the corner, the narrator wasn't afraid. Also, Whitman seems to be saying that he has put down his guns for good; that he was now accepting the slaves at his table not as slaves, but as human beings. Nobody with a sound mind could write "In all people I see myself" and allow slavery to continue in any shape or any form.

Cited: http://books.google.com/books?id=QPKCam_mBiQC&dq=Whitman+slavery&source=gbs_navlinks_s