April 19, 1865…what was going on in America on this day? The nation was mourning the loss of President Abraham Lincoln, and a poet by the name Walt Whitman captured the solemn tone.
Hush’d be the Camps To-Day, although the poem is not particularly well know, this was Walt Whitman’s first response to the death of President Lincoln. The poem was dated April 19, 1865, the day of Lincoln’s funeral in Washington. Whitman’s poetry collection Drum-Taps had already begun the process of being published and he felt it would be incompleted without this poem on Lincoln’s death and hastily added it. It also appeared in the 1871 edition of Leaves of Grass in the “Memories of President Lincoln” cluster.
Hush’d be the camps to-day;
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons;
And each, with musing soul retire, to celebrate,
Our dear commander’s death.
No more for him life’s stormy conflicts;
Nor victory, nor defeat—No more time’s dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.
But sing, poet, in our name;
Sing of the love we bore him—because you, dweller in
camps, know it truly.
Sing, to the lower’d coffin there;
Sing, with the shovel’d clods that fill the grave—a verse,
For the heavy hearts of soldiers.
At the time of Lincoln’s assasination, Walt Whitman was at home in Brooklyn, New York on a break from his job. He recalled that the family did not eat that day and “not a word was spoken all day.” Although the poem is narrated from the point of view of a witness of Lincoln lying in state, Whitman probably didn’t see it personally. Whitman left Brooklyn for Washington, DC. on April 24, missing the the display in the East Wing of the White House, and then missing the ceremonies in New York when Lincoln’s body was there on April 24.
After returning to Washington, DC, Whitman contracted with a publisher to print pamphlet of eighteen poems which he intended to include with copies of Drum-Taps. This publication would have two works directly addressing the assasination. The elegies “When the Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” and “O Captain! My Captain!.” This 24-page collection was titled Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’d and other poems. In October 1865, after the pamphlet was printed, Whitman travelled to Brooklyn to bind them into copies of Drum-Taps.
Sources:
Wikipedia
Library of Congress