[to start upon] | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: [to start upon]
Whitman Archive ID: tex.00297
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
Date: between 1864 and 1874
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript fragment was originally part of a larger leaf which comprised two other fragments as well: tex.00308 and tex.00247. Before the sheet was cut into three pieces, this fragment formed the upper part. The writing it contains is related to a section headed "Specimen of the Army Hospitals Now in and around Washington" in "Our Wounded and Sick Soldiers," an article published in the December 11, 1864 issue of the New York Times. Whitman also used this material in "Still More of the Hospitals," a section of the article "'Tis But Ten Years Since. (Fourth Paper.)," published in the New York Weekly Graphic on February 21, 1874. Further revised, it was later published in Memoranda during the War (1875–76) as "Aug., Sep., and Oct., '63—The Hospitals." This was reprinted, unchanged, in Two Rivulets (1876). Finally, it appeared as "Hospitals Ensemble" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). It is uncertain whether Whitman created this manuscript as he drafted material for the 1864 article or wrote it as he worked to synthesize earlier pieces for the "'Tis But Ten Years Since" series, though the latter scenario is more likely.