Content:
This manuscript is possibly an early draft of another manuscript held at the University of Texas-Austin, entitled "The
Army Hospitals." That manuscript was
used in the first paragraph of the article "The Great Army of the Sick," which was published in the
New York Times
on February 26,
1863. The contents of both these manuscripts contributed to "Feb. 23," published in
Memoranda During the War
(1875-1876) and "Patent-Office Hospital" published in
Specimen Days
in 1882 (later retained in
the
Complete Prose Works
,
published in 1892).
Content:
Partial manuscript draft of an essay about the Civil War army hospitals.
From its relationship with another manuscript now at the University of
Virginia (tex.00097), it is clear that this manuscript represents a
prepublication stage of the article "The
Great Army of the Sick," which was published in the
New-York Times
on February 26,
1863. Whitman later used a part of the published article (a
part that has no parallel in the present manuscript) for the
one-paragraph description of the "Patent
Office Hospital" in
Memoranda During
the War
(1875–76), labelled "
Feb. 23.
"
The paragraph later appeared as "Patent-Office Hospital" in
Specimen
Days & Collect
(1882–1883) and in
Complete Prose Works
(1892). Whitman's revision of the title (which he made
by cutting the top of the leaf, turning it over, and writing a new
title) indicates both that he originally imagined this to be the first
of a series of articles and that the present manuscript was intended to
serve as a printer's copy.
