The following are excerpts from Whitman's memoir Specimen Days. I've included them to give you a sense of Whitman's experiences during the Civil War. If you're intrested in them, click on the link above to go to the Whitman Hypertext Archive's version of them (available from the pull-down menu at the top).

DOWN AT THE FRONT

FALMOUTH, VA., opposite Fredericksburgh, December 21, 1862. -- Begin my visits among the
camp hospitals in the army of the Potomac. Spend a good part of the day in a large brick mansion on the
banks of the Rappahannock, used as a hospital since the battle -- seems to have receiv'd only the worst
cases. Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of
amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, &c., a full load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each
cover'd with its brown woolen blanket. In the door-yard, towards the river, are fresh graves, mostly of
officers, their names on pieces of barrel-staves or broken boards, stuck in the dirt. (Most of these bodies
were subsequently taken up and transported north to their friends.) The large mansion is quite crowded
upstairs and down, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can
be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody. Some
of the wounded are rebel soldiers and officers, prisoners. One, a Mississippian, a captain, hit badly in leg, I
talk'd with some time; he ask'd me for papers, which I gave him. (I saw him three months afterward in
Washington, with his leg amputated, doing well.) I went through the rooms, downstairs and up. Some of the
men were dying. I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, &c. Also
talk'd to three or four, who seem'd most susceptible to it, and needing it.

THE WOUNDED FROM CHANCELLORSVILLE

May, '63. -- As I write this, the wounded have begun to arrive from Hooker's command from bloody
Chancellorsville. I was down among the first arrivals. The men in charge told me the bad cases were yet to
come. If that is so I pity them, for these are bad enough. You ought to see the scene of the wounded
arriving at the landing here at the foot of Sixth street, at night. Two boat loads came about
half-past seven last night. A little after eight it rain'd a long and violent shower. The pale, helpless soldiers
had been debark'd, and lay around on the wharf and neighborhood anywhere. The rain was, probably,
grateful to them; at any rate they were exposed to it. The few torches light up the spectacle. All around --
on the wharf, on the ground, out on side places -- the men are lying on blankets, old quilts, &c., with
bloody rags bound round heads, arms, and legs. The attendants are few, and at night few outsiders also --
only a few hard-work'd transportation men and drivers. (The wounded are getting to be common, and
people grow callous.) The men, whatever their condition, lie there, and patiently wait till their turn comes to
be taken up. Near by, the ambulances are now arriving in clusters, and one after another is call'd to back
up and take its load. Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers. The men generally make little or no ado,
whatever their sufferings. A few groans that cannot be suppress'd, and occasionally a scream of pain as
they lift a man into the ambulance. To-day, as I write, hundreds more are expected, and to-morrow and the
next day more, and so on for many days. Quite often they arrive at the rate of 1000 a day.

This afternoon, July 22d, I have spent a long time with Oscar F. Wilber, company G, 154th New York,
low with chronic diarrhoea, and a bad wound also. He asked me to read him a chapter in the New
Testament. I complied, and ask'd him what I should read. He said, "Make your own choice." I open'd
at the close of one of the first books of the evangelists, and read the chapters describing
the latter hours of Christ, and the scenes at the crucifixion. The poor, wasted young man ask'd me to read
the following chapter also, how Christ rose again. I read very slowly, for Oscar was feeble. It pleased him
very much, yet the tears were in his eyes. He ask'd me if I enjoy'd religion. I said, "Perhaps not, my dear, in
the way you mean, and yet, may-be, it is the same thing." He said, "It is my chief reliance." He talk'd of
death, and said he did not fear it. I said, "Why, Oscar, don't you think you will get well?" He said, "I may,
but it is not probable." He spoke calmly of his condition. The wound was very bad, it discharg'd much.
Then the diarrhoea had prostrated him, and I felt that he was even then the same as dying. He behaved very
manly and affectionate. The kiss I gave him as I was about leaving he return'd fourfold. He gave me his
mother's address, Mrs. Sally D. Wilber, Alleghany post-office, Cattaraugus county, N. Y. I had several
such interviews with him. He died a few days after the one just described.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

August 12th. -- I see the President almost every day, as I happen to live where he passes to or from his
lodgings out of town. He never sleeps at the White House during the hot season, but has quarters at a
healthy location some three miles north of the city, the Soldiers' home, a United States military
establishment. I saw him this morning about 8 1/2 coming in to business, riding on Vermont avenue,
near L street. He always has a company of twenty-five or thirty cavalry, with sabres drawn and held
upright over their shoulders. They say this guard was against his
personal wish, but he let his counselors have their way. The party makes no great show in uniform or
horses. Mr. Lincoln on the saddle generally rides a good-sized, easy-going gray horse, is dress'd in plain
black, somewhat rusty and dusty, wears a black stiff hat, and looks about as ordinary in attire, &c., as the
commonest man. A lieutenant, with yellow straps, rides at his left, and following behind, two by two, come
the cavalry men, in their yellow-striped jackets. They are generally going at a slow trot, as that is the pace
set them by the one they wait upon. The sabres and accoutrements clank, and the entirely unornamental
cort ge as it trots towards Lafayette square arouses no sensation, only some curious stranger stops and
gazes. I see very plainly ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, the eyes,
always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. We have got so that we exchange bows, and
very cordial ones. Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche. The cavalry always
accompany him, with drawn sabres. Often I notice as he goes out evenings -- and sometimes in the
morning, when he returns early -- he turns off and halts at the large and handsome residence of the
Secretary of War, on K street, and holds conference there. If in his barouche, I can see from my window
he does not alight, but sits in his vehicle, and Mr. Stanton comes out to attend him. Sometimes one of his
sons, a boy of ten or twelve, accompanies him, riding at his right on a pony. Earlier in the summer I
occasionally saw the President and his wife, toward the latter part of the afternoon, out in a barouche, on a
pleasure ride through the city. Mrs. Lincoln was dress'd in complete black, with a long crape veil. The
equipage is of the plainest kind, only two horses, and they nothing extra. They pass'd me once very close,
and I saw the President in the face fully, as they were moving slowly, and his look, though abstracted,
happen'd to be directed steadily in my eye. He bow'd and smiled, but far beneath his smile I noticed well
the expression I have alluded to. None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and
indirect expression of this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or
three centuries ago is needed.