To a greater or lesser extent, a war marks a turning point in the lives of people.The Civil War for Walt Whitman was no exception.Whitman was etching his literary career in his way, since he debuted as a poet with Leaves of Grass in 1855, several years before the War.His attitude towards the War was typical of Northern intellectuals 1 : the United States was facing the most serious crisis of splitting the country since it was founded; if the war were inevitable, they were willing to fight for the Union 2 .To lead the North to victory, Whitman played an active role as a journalist.The time of war is when history and culture are reconsidered.In addition to giving war and war-related information and analyses, Whitman energetically wrote such series as "Brooklyniana" in Brooklyn Standard and "City Photographs" in New York Leader 3 .His writing often collaborated with his interest in social reform activities, to which he devoted himself mostly in Brooklyn from the improvement of asylums to park planning to make the community more liveable.It was the time that rapidly growing New York was beginning to put infrastructure and improve urban functions.As an American bard, Whitman heightened fighting spirits with his war poems.In "City of Ships," he affirms loyalty to America, the "City," saying that he has "rejected nothing" the city offered him and declaring, "In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine."He indicates the city, his beloved hometown New York, a representative city of the United States, as highly commercialized and industrialized with vibrant "wharves and stores," contrasting to the rural land of the Confederate South whose industry is
Rika TAMURA (Fri,) studied this question.