Thank you for this beautiful post. I appreciate WW's appreciation of this nurse.  However, there are assumptions imbedded in the word "illiterate"  that do not recognize that people of oral traditions, non literate traditions, hold within them their own knowledge and genius.  Joan --- On Tue, 10/14/08, Jean R. <jeanrice@cet.com> wrote: From: Jean R. <jeanrice@cet.com> Subject: [IRISH-AMER] Walt WHITMAN/Poet of ACW -- Observation -- "Irish nurse....tenderly...." To: IRISH-AMERICAN-L@rootsweb.com Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 11:08 AM SNIPPET: During the Civil War, while working as a volunteer throughout the conflict in Washington DC's overcrowded, understaffed military hospitals, American poet Walt WHITMAN wrote in a notebook -- "One of the finest nurses I met was a red-faced illiterate old Irish woman, I have seen her take the poor wasted naked boys so tenderly up in her arms." Whitman was born in West Hills, Long Island, NY, in 1819, and grew up in Brooklyn. He was a printer and journalist in the NYC area, very patriotic and a great observer of people. As a hospital volunteer in his 40s, he did what he could to make the sick and wounded more comfortable -- writing letters, reading to them, bringing them oranges, or merely sitting quietly by so they didn't have to die alone. He wrote his observations regularly in several notebooks. After suffering a stroke in 1873, Whitman spent the rest of his life in Camden, NJ, where he continued to write poems and articles until his death in 1892. His poem, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" was written on the occasion of the death of Abraham LINCOLN. Interestingly, he received literary acclaim from English writers long before American critics recognized him as a great poet. RECONCILIATION Word over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost, That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world; For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin -- I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin. Walt Whitman (1865-6) YEAR THAT TREMBLED AND REEL'D BENEATH ME Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me! Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me, A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me, Must I change my triumphant songs! said I to myself, Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled? And sullen hymns of defeat? Walt Whitman (1865) A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND DIM A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent, Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying, Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket, Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all. Curious I halt and silent stand, Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just lift the blanket; Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes? Who are you my dear comrade? Then to the second I step -- and who are you my child and darling? Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming? Then to the third - face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory; Young man I think I know you -- I think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies. -- Walt Whitman (1865) ====Irish American Mailing List===== Add/check your surname to the Irish-American mailing list Surname Registry at: http://www.connorsgenealogy.com/IrishAmerican/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRISH-AMERICAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Joan, well said - and any woman who chose, from the kindness of her heart, to put herself in that horrendous, bloody environment to comfort the wounded, WAS truly an "angel." J. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joan McKenty" <joanmariemckenty@yahoo.com> To: <irish-american@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 10:02 AM Subject: Re: [IRISH-AMER] Walt WHITMAN/Poet of ACW -- Observation -- "Irishnurse....tenderly...." Thank you for this beautiful post. I appreciate WW's appreciation of this nurse. However, there are assumptions imbedded in the word "illiterate" that do not recognize that people of oral traditions, non literate traditions, hold within them their own knowledge and genius. Joan