IV.

Civil War and Later Life

During the Civil War Whitman ministered to wounded soldiers in Union army hospitals in Washington, D.C. He remained there, working as a government clerk, until 1873, when he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He then went to live with his brother George in Camden, New Jersey, until 1884, when he bought his own house. He lived there, writing and revising Leaves of Grass, despite failing health, until his death. In his later years Whitman also wrote some prose of lasting value. The essays in Democratic Vistas (1871) are now considered a classic discussion of the theory of democracy and its possibilities. The collection Specimen Days and Collect (1882) contains his earliest recollections, descriptions of the war years and of the assassination of Lincoln, and nature notes written in old age.