Ken Burns Classroom

Walt Whitman

Ken Burns Film: The Civil War

Collections: Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)

Subject: US History

Grade Level: 6-12

Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman.

1819–1892

Later regarded as one of America’s finest poets, Walt Whitman had already published his famous Leaves of Grass when he visited his wounded brother at Fredericksburg. Shocked at the carnage of the battlefield scene, Whitman decided to spend the war years visiting other wounded soldiers in Union field hospitals, and even though untrained, worked as a volunteer male nurse.

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