Walt Whitman 1819-1892

Who was Walt Whitman and what did he stand for?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_og_kultur/Litteratur/Engelsksproget_litteratur/Amerikansk_litteratur_1824-80/Walter_Whitman

Whitman was part of a movement in American literature called Transcendentalism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism

One of the founders of Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson viewed transcendentalism as  “an original relation to the universe”....

The Wound-Dresser:
http://www.bartleby.com/42/818.html 
Here you will find a short commentary on the poem:
http://americanpeople2.blogspot.dk/2010/11/wound-dresser-by-walt-whitman.html

Oh Captain! My Captain:
http://www.bartleby.com/142/193.html

Here you can learn about the context of the poem:
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/poems/my_captain.html 

love letters in the Civil War

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/cwlove/testerman.html