scene in the woods on

About This Item

Title: scene in the woods on
Date: 1863
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00484
Source: Notebook LC #101 [Hospital Notebook] | The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1842–1937, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images of the original and from microfilm images at the Library of Congress's website "Poet at Work: Walt Whitman Notebooks 1850s–1860s," part of the "American Memory" project. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the notebooks, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: The contents of this notebook were written during Whitman's hospital visits to wounded soldiers. The dated entries are from mid-1863, and the other notes probably date to about the same time. The prose narrative at the beginning probably describes the battle of White Oak Swamp and is the basis for the poem "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown," which first appeared in Drum-Taps (1865).
Contributors to digital file: Brett Barney Eric Conrad Nicole Gray Ashlyn Stewart
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "scene in the woods on." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 12 November 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: loc.00484.xml (TEI)

Textual Feature	Appearance
Overwritten	brown with strikethrough
Added inline	purple with double underline
Uncertain	gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source	turquoise with brackets
Metamark	green with triple underline
Long deletion	gray background with top and bottom border

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loc.00484.001.jpg Hospital Note Book Walt Whitman [ begin leaf 1 verso ]

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loc.00484.003.jpg scene in the woods on the peninsula—told me by Milton Roberts, ward G (Maine) after the battle of White Oaks church, on the retreat, the march at night—the scene between 12 & 2 o'clock that night at the church in the woods, the hospital show at night, the wounded brought in—previous the silent stealthy march through the woods, at times stumbling over the bodies of dead men in the road, (there had been terrible fighting there [ begin leaf 2 verso ]

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loc.00484.005.jpg ~~the~~ ^that day, only closing at dark)—we retreating the ^^artillery horses feet muffled. orders that men should tread light & only speak in whispers— Then between 12 ^midnight & 1 oclock we halted to rest a couple of hours at an opening in the woods—in this opening was a pretty good sized old church used ~~improm~~ impromptu for a hospital for the wounded of the [ begin leaf 3 verso ]

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loc.00484.007.jpg battles of the day thereabout—with these it was filled, all varieties, horrible beyond description— ^^{—the darkness dimly} lit with candles, lamps, torches, moving about, ~~but dark~~ but plenty of darkness & half darkness.—the crowds of wounded, bloody & pale, the surgeons operating—the yards outside also filled—they lay on the ground ^^{some on blankets,} some on stray planks, or [ begin leaf 4 verso ]

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loc.00484.009.jpg —the ~~desp~~ despairing screams & curses of some out of their senses, ^{the murky darkness, the
great gleaming of the torches, the smoke from them too,} the doctors operating, the scent of chloroform, the glisten of the steel instruments as ^as the flash of lamps fell upon them [ begin leaf 5 verso ]

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loc.00484.011.jpg Sept 12 ward I bed 35 Levi W Tarkett co E 143rd NYV admitted July 11 find D C Tarkett West Brookville NY [ begin leaf 6 verso ]

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loc.00484.013.jpg ~~after~~ ^at Antietam there was a very large barn & farm house—the barn was filled with wounded, & the barn yard, an the ~~farm~~ house as full as it could stick—a peaceful barn, ^{now bloody} the fragrant hay they used to place the men on for operations—they turned the cattle out of their stalls [ begin leaf 7 verso ]

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ward F. bed 50 admitted Aug 19 Adelbert Dolliver co B 111th Penn mother Mrs. Melinda Morrison Tidioute, Warren co Penn Fever, (only 15 yr's old 22d Nov.'62)

ward G. H. or I. young man I promised to come in & read to—sick with fever—he cannot read steadily himself—his head swims—take him the paper—

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ward D bed 37 Isaac Livensparger co H. 55th Ohio gun shot w'd left leg admitted June 15th father John Livensparger Lykenston Crawford co Ohio

ward K bed 37 Asbury Allen co D. 27th Indiana diarrhea, bronchitis, & trouble in privates some quince jelly father W Allen Noblesville Hamilton co Ind

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ward A. Aug 28-9-'63 Bethuel Smith cavalry, wounded in foot. father ~~Mclauclin hon~~ ^Christopher? Smith ? Glen's Falls, Warren co. N.Y.

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ward H bed 3 Aug 29 Willis Northrop, (age 19) co G. 108th N.Y. chronic pleuritis, pretty weak. has had diarrhea father Ranson Northrop Webster, Monroe co N.Y. some brandy

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