The Wound-Dresser - Walt Whitman

Summary

The Wound-Dresser, by Walt Whitman, is a poem that was written in 1865. The poem has four
sections. When you write a summary or work with the text in any other way, using these four
sections as a way to organize your paper could help.

The first section has children asking an old man about his time in war. They ask him things like, “…
what deepest remains?” That is, what has stayed with him the longest about the war? This section is
essentially filled with questions from the children.

The second section is all about the old man’s memories of battle. The focus is on how most of what
he remembers is the negative stuff. The idea is that there are often a lot more bad times than good
times as a soldier. There were glories here and there, but pain and death happened more frequently.

The third section is full of graphic depictions of war, especially the hospitals that take in the
wounded.

Finally, the fourth section wraps up the poem as the narrator recalls his memories of trying to
soothe the wounded soldiers, many of whom were very young.

Themes

"The Wound Dresser " was inspired by Walt Whitman's voluntary service in the hospitals of the Civil
War. He visited with the wounded and dying, often writing letters for them to send to their families
and loved ones or reciting passages from the Bible or Shakespeare for them, to try to raise their
spirits.

The speaker in the poem is likewise a presence in the war's hospitals, but as a "wound-dresser" he is
more physically and intimately involved in the treatment of the soldiers' wounds. Among the themes
that emerge from the poem is the pathos of their suffering, and more largely, the agony of soldiers
of all wars. The focus in the poem is not on the heroism of battlefield exploits, but on the humble
suffering of the men who have been devastated physically, psychologically, and spiritually. The
speaker observes a grievously wounded soldier:

His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,
And has not yet look’d on it.
Another theme that emerges from the poem is an exploration of the psychological, emotional, and
spiritual demands on those who care for the wounded and dying. The speaker is accompanied on his
rounds through the wards:
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,
Soon to be fill’d with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill’d again.
Empathy and compassion for the sacrifice of soldiers is exemplified when the speaker is deeply
moved by the extremity of one of the wounded who
...turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.
The speaker also notes how the human spirit and desire to live are primal forces in a soldier who,
though mortally wounded, struggles against death.
I examine,

Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard...

And finally, the speaker reflects on the humanity of the men who die in war not as soldiers sacrificing
for a cause, but as mortal, individual men who left life with acts that reflect the brotherhood of
mankind.

Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested,
Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips.
Themes and Meanings
As a tale told to the young, the poet’s memories act as an offering of wisdom and future direction
for healing the nation: not to remember the glory of battles won, but to remember the pain that
soldiers on both sides suffered, their sacrificial deaths, and the war wounds that need loving healing.
The nation’s people should not pass by the wounded because they are too difficult to look at;
instead they are to become wound-dressers, whose function is a holy one. A few but clear allusions
are made to the divine nature of the soldiers as Christ-like: the soldiers’ “priceless blood,” the poet
dressing “a wound in the side, deep, deep,” the dying arms “cross’d” on the wound-dresser’s neck.
The soldiers are sacrificial soldiers like the dying Christ, the suffering servant, except that they have
died to preserve the unity of the nation. The wound-dresser is also a servant, the one who attends
faithfully and humbly to the greater suffering of the soldiers. The wound-dresser’s love goes as deep
as that of the soldiers’ love for country, for he desires to die in a boy’s stead. The image of the dying
soldiers with their arms crossed on the nurse’s neck and kissing, which closes the poem, is fully
earned through the nurse’s deep compassion and humble service.

Analysis

The Wound-Dresser is one of Whitman’s most famous works. There are many different angles you
can take in analyzing it for an assignment. You can talk about some of the form elements, for
example. The poem is written in free-verse, which was a favorite of Whitman’s, and comparing this
poem to others he’s done in blank verse could be fruitful.

Another angle for analysis is how the poem is based on experiences that Whitman actually had. He
was a wound-dresser, or nurse, himself, and had many experiences in hospitals like the one he
describes in the poem. Going into his backstory and connecting his real-life experiences to different
bits of the poem, especially in the later parts, could give you an in-road into getting done what you
need to get done.

The poem is specifically about the Civil War, so this should help too. Whitman’s recollections about
the war’s focus on the sad elements largely because these are what he saw, namely the aftermath of
the fighting since he served as a wound-dresser.

You can find quotes to help support ideas around the section where it says, “… I recall the
experience sweet and sad.”

The Poem
Walt Whitman’s “The Wound-Dresser” is a sixty-five-line free-verse poem in four sections describing
the suffering in the Civil War hospitals and the poet’s suffering, faithfulness to duty, and developing
compassion as he tended to soldiers’ physical wounds and gave comfort. Published at war’s end, the
poem opens with an old veteran speaking, imaginatively suggesting some youths gathered about
who have asked him to tell of his most powerful memories. The children request stories of battle
glory, but the poet quickly dismisses these as ephemeral. He then narrates a journey through a
military hospital such as Whitman experienced in Washington, D.C., during the second half of the
war.

In three lines added in 1881 (lines 5-8, previously the epigraph to “Drum-Taps”) he admits he was at
first “[a]rous’d and angry” and “urge[d] relentless war,” but soon relinquished his war-as-glory
stance to dress wounds of soldiers both Northern and Southern, to “sit by the wounded and soothe
them, or silently watch the dead.” The poem then takes the reader into his “dreams’ projections,”
the horrors of the hospitals that vividly haunt him while others around him are happy and busy
making money on the economic recovery.

Characters

The main character in this poem is Whitman himself, who is the narrator describing his experiences
nursing the wounded in the Civil War. The poem details his journey from being a man who wanted
war ("I’d thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war") to becoming a nurse to the wounded
who sees the evils and suffering that the war brings.

In the first stanza, young men and women ask him about his previous experiences in the war. Then,
the narrator discusses his earlier work among the wounded. The other characters are the soldiers he
recalls having nursed, along with an attendant who follows along with him to collect the bloodied
rags he uses. The narrator recalls a cavalry man with such a bad neck wound that the narrator prays
for the soldier's merciful death. He also nurses a soldier whose hand has had to be amputated. The
wounded he nurses are important characters in this poem, as the narrator recalls his experiences in
the war hospitals. The public is also a character in this poem, as the poet writes that the world has
moved on from the battles and does not remember them, while he still recalls his sad and painful
experiences in the war.

Quotes

Here are some quotes from the poem "The Wound-Dresser" by Walt Whitman:

"(Arous’d and angry, I’d thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d and I resign’d myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)"
In a parenthetical aside, the narrator speaks about how he had wanted to go to war but instead
decided to become a nurse to the wounded.
"Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,
Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?"
In the first stanza, the narrator asks an older man, who has seen earlier wars, to recall what he has
seen. Though the young people around him think he will recall scenes of wondrous battle
maneuvers, he instead recalls sad and painful memories of the wounded.
"While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, So soon what is over forgotten, and
waves wash the imprints off the sand"

The narrator speaks about how the world of the well goes on while the wounded struggle. All too
quickly, the blood is washed off the battle field like waves washing footprints off the sand, and the
world goes on without remembering the dead and wounded, as if the war had never happened.

"One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you,/Yet I think I could not refuse this
moment to die for you, if that would save you."

The narrator thinks that he would give anything to save the dying soldier, including dying in his
place.

"(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!

In mercy come quickly.)"
Watching a suffering soldier, the narrator speaks directly to death, which is personified and referred
to as someone who is wanted. The soldier is struggling so much that death is welcome.
"His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,
And has not yet look’d on it."
The narrator sees a soldier whose leg has been amputated but who dares not look at his leg.
Walt Whitman
What does it mean to be an American? How is American writing separate from British--or any other--
writing? These were questions plaguing American poetry in the first part of the nineteenth century,
but it wasn't until Walt Whitman boldly wrote in a new style that an American poetic tradition
began. Whitman was born in Brooklyn in 1819. He went into his father's business of printing and
found his love in the written word. His dramatic focus coupled with his use of free verse, or
unmetered and usually unrhymed lines of poetry, led to his own style. Along with Emily Dickinson,
he is considered to be one of the poets who established a distinctly American style of poetry.

Poem Background

''The Wound-Dresser'' is one of Walt Whitman's most famous poems, published in 1865 in his
collection Drum Taps. It gives a graphic yet unsentimental view of war and the inglamorous side of
what happens to the men who go to fight it. It also uses his signature free verse, which was so out of
fashion when Whitman wrote that many of his contemporaries ignored his work.

The poem details Whitman's experiences during the Civil War as a volunteer in Washington's
hospitals. At the age of 43, he traveled to Washington, DC, to find his brother. Once he found his
brother healthy, he stayed on to help care for the wounded soldiers.

Summary: Section 1

An old man is asked to recount war memories by children. Just a few lines into the poem the speaker
thinks,
Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,

But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself,

To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead.

In these lines, the speaker begins as someone motivating others to fight. Then he cannot maintain
this facade and, disillusioned by war, thinks of the wounded soldiers.

He relates the excited, innocent questions of the listeners:

What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,

Of hard-fought engagement or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

The listeners are excited to hear of thrilling battle scenes which remain with the old man. On closer
inspection, however, what ''deepest remains'' are not positive memories.

Most of this section is narration or questions from the children. It is a frame for the sections to
come, asking questions of an old man, while the rest of the poem will be his memories.

Summary: Section 2

The section begins with the speaker charging boldly into battle. Then he notes,

I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys,

Both I remember well--many of the hardships, few the joys.

He points out that the soldiers have good times, but there are much more terrible times. The idea
that all of the soldiers' wartime glory is quickly forgotten is made clear with the lines, ''So soon what
is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand.'' Like a footprint in the sand washed
away by the tide, the war glory passes. Then the speaker describes the wounded lying on the ground
and in hospital tents. The work of tending the wounded appears neverending. The section ends with
the speaker beginning to dress wounds.

The speaker tells of his experience as soldier. He is quickly disillusioned with war when he sees all
the wounded soldiers, and he then begins helping to care for them.

Summary: Section 3

Right away the speaker jars the reader with graphic descriptions of a war hospital tent and the
soldiers struggling to stay alive. From bullet holes to amputations to crushed heads, the speaker
provides a seemingly endless catalogue of incapacitating wounds. Disgusted by their terrible
wounds, Whitman writes of ''a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive.''

The Wound Dresser is an intimate, graphic and deeply moving expression of the act of nursing the
sick and dying. The poem is remarkable for its lack of exaggerated portrayals of pain and suffering.
Yet, the attention to detail, the depiction of images, etc. are very sophisticated for a poem written in
the nineteenth century. In other words, The Wound Dresser is a description of what Walt Whitman
deemed significant to the nursing profession at the time of the poem’s composition. He describes
with poignancy, the “devotion, sacrifice and compassion” that is essential to this noble profession.

The Wound Dresser brought its author much deserved literary recognition. For example, his style of
free-verse poetry was not in vogue at the time. But yet, the author’s faith in this style resulted in an
American literary masterpiece. The use of language in the poem is quite interesting. During the later
half of the nineteenth century, the free-verse style and the rhyming verse style were two competing
styles of poetry. But the rhyming verse style received more popular recognition. This meant that
Whitman had difficulties to find publishers for his style of writing, although it is full of artistic merit.
Eventually, Whitman published his works himself. The first of his compilations came out as Leaves of
Grass. The following excerpt from the poem is a good example of its free-verse style.

“Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,

Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground,”
The descriptions of the wounded soldiers in the poem is very authentic because Whitman has had
plenty of nursing experience and had an intimate knowledge of the hospital scene for wounded
soldiers. As a matter of fact Whitman describes to “being in the world” as a nurse and a healer. The
sixty five lines in the poem are arranged in four sections depicting the goings on in hospitals at the
time of the Civil War. The poet captures the “faithfulness to duty, and developing compassion as he
tended to soldiers’ physical wounds and gave comfort”. (Zweig, 1985) Having composed the poem
at the end of the war, the poem serves as a war veteran’s monologue. In this, the veteran recollects
with nostalgia some of the bitter realities of war; as opposed to stories of victory and glory.
Whitman has had prior personal experiences with people wounded in the battlefield. For example,
his brother (who was a soldier in the Civil War) was wounded during a time of high attrition in the
war. Whitman had to attend to wounded soldiers for as long as two years during and immediately
after the war. It is a culmination of these personal events that led to Whitman the poet to put
together the experiences of the wounded in a free-verse form.

In a letter to his mother, Whitman says the following: “Upon a few of these hospitals I have been
almost daily calling as a missionary, on my own account, for the sustenance and consolation of some
of the most needy cases of sick and dying men…One has much to learn to do good in these places…
Here,…I like to flourish…I can testify that friendship has literally cured a fever, and the medicine of
daily affection, a bad wound…” (Bucke, 1949)

The poem reflects how Whitman genuinely believed about the realities of war. Hence, The Wound
Dresser is a memory poem about how the soldiers during the Civil War period were treated not as
per their rank, seniority or bravery but by the severity of their wounds. Whitman presents this fact in
contrast to the civil society of the times where one’s socio-economic background, ethnicity and race
precede all consideration of “needs”. The following concluding stanza from the poem captures its
essence.

“I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,
(Many a soldier’s loving arms about his neck have cross’d and rested, Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on
these bearded lips.)”
----------------------------------------------------------

First published in Drum-Taps as "The Dresser" and given its present title in 1876, "The Wound-
Dresser" distills Whitman's wartime hospital experiences and his urge to be the war's memorialist,
"to be witness again" (section 1), in an America reconciled in the future, to the deaths and sufferings
of the soldiers and his own health-destroying sacrifices. As his Memoranda During the War and
Specimen Days volumes attest, he felt that deaths and agonies were the ultimate truths of the war.
The poem's persona is a stoical remembrancer committed to performing his nation's grief work; in
his consciousness (as in the poet's) a tragic past is projected as a dream-like continuous present.

In the Washington military hospitals, Whitman comforted thousands of ailing and dying "boys" as a
bedside attendant and—rarely—as a wound-dresser: "I have some cases where the patient is
unwilling anybody should do this but me" (Whitman's Civil War 123). He chiefly benefited the
bedridden by his presence and "soothing hand" (section 4). Despite the physical and psychological
breakdowns that these ministrations caused him, he felt drawn to this voluntary service: "You can
have no idea how these sick & dying youngsters cling to a fellow," he wrote to his mother, "& how
fascinating it is, with its hospital surroundings of sadness & scenes of repulsion and death"
(Correspondence 1:118).

The poem's first two verse paragraphs (which together with the final paragraph form a poetic
"envelope" for the central action) portray the persona as a seasoned veteran summoning up
("resuming") memories of "the mightiest armies of earth" (section 1) and his own "perils" and "joys"
(section 2). But three semi-autobiographical lines (originally an independent introductory poem
incorporated here in 1881) confess that his strength failed him "and I resign'd myself / To sit by the
wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead" (section 1). In an incantatory stanza (lines
20–24) he conveys the reader into the hospital milieu.

For thirty-four lines thereafter the persona becomes the ambulatory wound-dresser, moving among
"my wounded" (section 2) on the ground or in the (often makeshift) hospital. "Bearing the bandages,
water, and sponge" (section 2), he attends each soldier "with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast
a fire, a burning flame)" (section 3). Looking into the eyes of one dying soldier, he reflects, "I could
not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you" (section 2). He appeals to "beautiful
death" to "come quickly" (section 3). He observes a "yellow-blue countenance" and (using the
unsterile sponges and homemade bandages of the time) cleans and dresses amputations and
wounds with "putrid gangrene" (section 3) and blood infections that were fatal to more than half the
soldiers wounded in the chest or abdomen. Although most hospital fatalities, as Whitman observed
in Memoranda During the War, resulted from diarrhea, fevers, and pulmonary infections, the poem's
wounded more poignantly represent the agonies of the armies and the wounded American nation.

Rehearsing "the experience sweet and sad" of serving the suffering soldiers and pacifying them "with
soothing hand" (section 4), the poem's final stanza merges the close-ups of the empathetic healer-
persona and the silently grieving Walt Whitman, perennially recalling the bittersweet embraces of
these grateful soldiers.

Among the finest "hospital" or "war" poems in English, "The Wound-Dresser" demonstrates
Whitman's mastery of poetic and dramatic structure, of direct and simple diction, and of conveying
actions and tightly controlled depths of feeling in an intimate conversation with the reader.