May 13, 1861. Courtesy: Library of Congress Whitman was forty-two years old when the Civil War started. Some critics would charge that he should have joined the Union Army, but anyone who knew ...

In the process, Americans were forced to reconfigure ideas about death and the Civil War body. Volunteer nurse Walt Whitman often wrote to his mother about his hospital visits and recorded his ...

(Perhaps this notebook was in his pocket that day.) Later, when Whitman lived in Washington during the Civil War, he often stood near the corner of 14th and L Streets to glimpse Lincoln en route ...

Family and friends of slain Whitman nurse Maggie Mbitu gathered Sunday for a prayer vigil at Grace and Faith Anglican Church as they anxiously await word of an arrest in Kenya, where Mbitu’s ...