Memoranda of a Year | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: Memoranda of a Year
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00095
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts at the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
Box: 1
Folder: 57
Date: between 1863 and 1875
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 2, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Content: On one side of these leaves is a fragmentary set of notes concerning Whitman's belief that the system whereby U.S. military officers are chosen should be reformed to reflect the nation's democratic spirit. This is an idea that Whitman introduced, although briefly, as early as the 1855 preface to Leaves of Grass, though the present manuscript is most likely related to one or more of Whitman's later, more extended expressions on this topic. The most likely possibility is that these notes represent draft material for the 21 October 1863 letter that Whitman sent to James Redpath, pitching a book idea for his newly established publishing house. On the reverse of the second leaf is a title page mock-up for the proposed book, Memoranda of a Year (1863). Unable to get a publisher for his book at that time, Whitman waited for over a decade to publish Memoranda During the War (1875–76), in which appears a short essay on the topic of military reform, "A New Army Organization Fit for America Needed." Subsequently shortened to a single paragraph when republished in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83), it was given the slightly altered title "A New Army Organization Fit for America." The present manuscript may also represent draft material that eventuated in a note on the topic that Whitman added to Democratic Vistas (1871) when he created that book-length essay from several earlier pieces.