"BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!" - Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman wrote this poem differently than some of the rest of his poems. This poem is about the Civil War, and how the Civil War changed the lives of many Americans. This poem is talking about how all of the troops would march through all of the towns. Whitman was explaining that they should not stop for any reason at all, and that the drums and the bugles should never stop playing their music. Whitman said that they should not listen to any requests from anyone along the streets that wanted them to stop. They should not listen to the mothers that wanted their children back, and they should not listen to the people that just wanted to sit there and talk about the war. The whole point of a war is that negotiations did not work, so all of the soldiers need to go to war. Whitman may also be saying that the drummers and buglers should not stop not matter what, because the soldiers count of the musicians to help give them all the commands, and if the drummers or the buglers stopped, some soldiers could die that did not need to, because they would not know what they should be doing. He could be telling the soldiers the same message in turn through the musicians, because they can never give up as well. This poem fits well with his theme of the "Everyman", because this applies to every person that was in the military. It would have been easy for him to write this poetry, because he was a nurse in the army during the Civil War. This poem fits everyone in the military, because he is telling every single person that they should not give up. They are all going through some of the same things and understand what the others are experiencing, so they can all relate to these poems really well. This poem does not have anything to do with Christianity, because this poem is about the Civil War and how the soldiers in it should do their best, and since the Civil War was not about Christianity or how it relates to the world, Christianity is not in this poem. Walt Whitman also carried a notebook with him where he wrote some things that eventually turned into poetry. This could have easily been inspired by him seeing soliers walk by, which makes the poem that much more meaningful. Whitman wrote many poems from the Civil War era, and they probably came from many different inspirations, but Whitman had the chance to remember where he came up with every single poem that he wrote because he wrote all of his notes in the notebook that he carried everywhere with him. People are able to relate to his poems more easily since the know that they all had legitimate, good inspiration. Walt Whitman was a very controversial poet that wrote some awkward things, but this poem was good and it helped explain to many people the difficulties of wars.


"Whitman's Wartime Washington." American Studies @ The University of Virginia. Web. 08 Mar. 2011. .

Whitman, Walt. "BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS! (Leaves of Grass [1891-1892])." The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. 09 Mar. 2011. .