Today, Walt Whitman is mostly known as a great American poet. His first book, “Leaves of Grass” was published in 1855. The events of the American Civil War provided the poet with the opportunity to express his dedication to the nation in a different way. In 1862, the 43-year-old found his brother, Lieutenant George Whitman of the 51st New York, listed among the names of those who had been wounded in the Battle of Fredericksburg during the Civil War. In search of George, Walt left home and traveled to Fredericksburg. His search included a stop at Chatham Manor, which launched his Civil War service as a nurse and rejuvenated his creative writing.

Perched on a hillside in Falmouth, across from the Rappahannock River and the City of Fredericksburg, Chatham Manor’s ideal location plus its large size made it popular as a Union headquarters. Known as the Lacy House during the Civil War, Chatham had been converted into a field hospital in the bloody aftermath of the battle. Whitman did not find his brother at Chatham, (who it turned out suffered only a slight facial wound) but he saw for the first time the horrors of war and was deeply moved. Wounded men were crowded into every available space inside the house and outside in tents.  

Whitman remained in the area through the rest of the month assisting doctors, dressing wounds, reading to injured soldiers and even writing letters home for them. Whitman carefully recorded his thoughts and experiences on scraps of bloodstained paper, which he folded over and stuck together with pins. He would eventually have dozens of these little notebooks and would publish many of them, providing sensitive and touching reflections on the war and the men who fought in it.

 At the end of December 1862, Whitman left Fredericksburg and went to Washington, D.C. There he spent the next three years working at various hospitals, Whitman was profoundly touched by his hospital visits and the men that he encountered. Serving Union and Confederate soldiers alike, he symbolically saw himself as binding the wounds of the nation as he bound the wounds of the men.

Excerpts from Whitman's book The Wound Dresser: 

"Began my visits (December 21, 1862) among the camp hospitals in the Army of the Potomac, under General Burnside. Spent a good part of the day in a large brick mansion [Chatham] on the banks of the Rappahannock, immediately opposite Fredericksburg.
It is used as a hospital since the battle and seems to have received only the worst cases. Outdoors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house [probably the still standing Catalpa tree], I noticed a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, etc. -- about a load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each covered with its brown woolen blanket. In the dooryard, toward the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel staves or broken board, stuck in the dirt.
The house is quite crowded, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody. Some of the wounded are rebel officers, prisoners. One, a Mississippian--a captain-- hit badly in the leg, I talked with him some time; he asked for papers, which I gave him. (I saw him three months afterward in Washington, with leg amputated, doing well.)
I went through the rooms, downstairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that night, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, etc. Also talked to three or four who seemed most susceptible to it, and needing it."

 ~Walt Whitman

EXHIBIT: Talking Display. Press the button to hear the only known wax recording of Walt Whitman's voice reading his poem “America”.

(Transcript to talking display inside Interactive Tour Guidebook located in Living Room Area)