[xoxoxoBruce]

A goal for Walkin' Man.

Walt Whitman's haversack is going on display at the Library of Congress.

Moved by the horror of the war’s damage to helpless young patients, Whitman made hundreds of visits, toting the haversack packed with fruit, brandy, sweets, tobacco, clothing, money, newspapers. He often sat with dying soldiers, comforting them, holding their hands. He wrote letters to their families after they died. He even dressed a few wounds and stayed for days and nights in a row. He wore his gray hair and bushy beard long, to seem more avuncular, but was always clad nicely to help cheer the men up.

The library plans to exhibit the haversack, which is extremely fragile, along with some of Whitman’s letters. Also on display will be one of his notebooks, in which he has penciled his terse observations: “Dec 20th Sight at the Lacy house — at the foot of tree immediately in front a heap of feet arms and human fragments . . . bloody black and blue swollen and sickening.”

The items will be presented some time next month, as the library removes pieces currently in its Civil War in America exhibit for preservation purposes and replaces them with new objects.

In combing the archives for Civil War material, they're finding many of the letters Whitman wrote for hospitalized solders because many of the letters were returned to Washington to prove the injuries were war related when applying for pensions.
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