As introduction to these letters from Walt Whitman to his mother, I have
availed myself of three of Whitman's communications to the press covering
the time during which the material which composes this volume was being
written. These communications (parts of which, but in no case the whole,
were used by Whitman in his "Memoranda of the Secession War") seem to me
to form, in spite of certain duplications, which to my mind have the
force, not the weakness, of repetition, quite an ideal background to the
letters to Mrs. Whitman, since they give a full and free description of
the circumstances and surroundings in the midst of which those were
composed. Readers who desire a still more extended account of the man
himself, his work and environment at that time, may consult with profit
the Editor's "Walt Whitman" (pp. 34-44), O'Connor's "Good Gray Poet"
(included in that volume, pp. 99-130), "Specimen Days" (pp. 26-63,
included in Walt Whitman's "Complete Prose Works"), and above all the
section of "Leaves of Grass" called "Drum-Taps." I do not believe that it
is in the power of any man now living to make an important addition to the
vivid picture of those days and nights in the hospitals drawn by Whitman
himself and to be found in his published prose and verse, and, above all,
in the living words of the present letters to his mother. These last were
written on the spot, as the scenes and incidents, in all their living and
sombre colors, passed before his eyes, while his mind and heart were full
of the sights and sounds, the episodes and agonies, of those terrible
hours. How could any one writing in cold blood, to-day, hope to add words
of any value to those he wrote then?
Perhaps, in conclusion, it may be as well to repeat what was said in the
introduction to a former volume,--that these letters make no pretensions
as literature. They are, as indeed is all that Whitman has written (as he
himself has over and over again said), something quite different from
that--something much less to the average cultured and learned man,
something much more to the man or woman who comes within range of their
attraction. But doubtless the critics will still insist that, if they are
not literature, they ought to be, or otherwise should not be printed,
failing (as is their wont) to comprehend that there are other qualities
and characteristics than the literary, some of them as important and as
valuable, which may be more or less adequately conveyed by print.