Whitman, Walt:

$17,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

[AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT NOTES, UNSIGNED, ABOUT THE BATTLE OF IUKA] "MEM OF SOLDIERS" [caption title]. A remarkable and poignant Whitman manuscript, comprised of notes based on the recollections of one or more of the soldiers he encountered either while in search through hospitals and in the areas of action around Maryland for his brother George, who had been reported wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862, or during his eventual tenure as a volunteer at the military hospitals. Whitman located his brother, who was fortunately only slightly wounded, and returned to Washington as an escort, assisting seriously wounded troops from Fredericksburg. As a consequence of his intimate view of the tragedy and carnage of battle, rather than return to New York, he remained in Washington, visiting those soldiers and others in the Campbell and Armory Square hospitals on an almost daily basis. "Whitman's attention to the wounded was extraordinary—he estimated that over the course of the war, he had made 'over 600 visits or tours, and went...among from 80,000 to 100,000 of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need'" (Murray). For those soldiers, he fetched daily necessities, wrote letters home, and otherwise provided comfort and support. It is quite possible that it was while listening to the personal stories of the wounded that he made these notes.The Battle of Iuka was fought on September 19, 1862, in Iuka, Mississippi, in the o

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