Before “Leaves of Grass,” Walt Whitman spent three years comforting wounded Civil War soldiers

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The Good Gray Poet During the Civil War

In December 1862, Walt Whitman rushed to Virginia after seeing his brother’s name on a casualty list. What started as a family emergency turned into something much bigger.

Whitman spent the next three years visiting wounded soldiers in Washington DC hospitals every single day. He brought them oranges, wrote letters to their families, and just listened to their stories…

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