Peck, Garrett. Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America’s Great Poet [review]

GARRETT PECK, Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America's Great Poet. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2015. 192 pp.Walt Whitman in Washington, D. C. will appeal to readers curious to see Whitman's life overlaid with the evolving urban history of the capital. The book straddles the genres of biography and literary travel guide. Garrett Peck offers a narrative-driven portrait of Whitman seen through the overlapping frames of nineteenth- and twenty-first century D.C. The author of Capital Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in Washington, D.C.; Prohibition in Washington D.C.: How Dry We Weren't; and The Potomac River: A History and Guide, Peck is first and foremost a writer concerned with the history of Washington. Peck's background as a tour guide with the Smithsonian Associates permeates his prose. This is much more an exploration of a city than of a poet.Attuned to general readers not already intimate with Whitman's life and work, this book focuses on the decade that Whitman lived in Washington (1863-1873). Peck seeks to elevate the poet's place within the contemporary cityscape, and to illuminate the impact that the capital had on the trajectory of Whitman's life during and following the Civil War. He begins with the premise that Whitman is most often associated with New York City, or, in his twilight years, with Camden, New Jersey. Aside from the Civil War, Peck argues, Whitman's Washington has not entered the cultural zeitgeist:When people asked why I was writing this book, I explained that Whitman lived in Washington, D. C. for ten years. "He did?!" was the near universal response. They knew he served as a hospital volunteer during the Civil War, but not that he remained in Washington and took a job as a federal clerk or that he wrote his Civil War poetry book Drum-Taps as a Washington resident (14).While there is no other book devoted solely to Whitman's residency in the capital, this period has been extensively covered in the major biographies by Gay Wilson Allen, Justin Kaplan, Jerome Loving, and David S. Reynolds. Additionally, Robert Roper's Now the Drum of War: Whitman and his Brothers in the Civil War (2008) focuses primarily on this era, as does Roy Morris Jr.'s The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War (2000). Both Roper and Morris are biographers writing, like Peck, for a general audience, although the scope of their projects is far greater. Kenneth M. Price's recent article, "Walt Whitman and Civil War Washington" (Leviathan 16, March 2014), and the interdisciplinary digital archive Civil War Washington (civilwardc.org) are two integral sources for scholars seeking to understand Whitman's relationship to the capital.Readers already familiar with the above works will find no new discoveries in Peck's treatment of Whitman, though they may appreciate the author's knowledge of the District's landscape. Peck unites a collage of geographical and biographical material, juxtaposing archival photographs and correspondence with scenes from contemporary D.C. This book aims to reincarnate, visually and textually, the traces Whitman left on the city. Although the apartments he inhabited have all vanished, Peck follows Kim Roberts's footsteps in mapping Whitman's Washington. (Roberts's map of Whitman's boarding houses and work places, published in the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (2005), is another invaluable scholarly resource.) Peck also charts the locations where Whitman's words have been inscribed onto landmarks:Coming out of the north entrance of the Dupont Circle Metro station, you'll see part of Whitman's poem "The Wound-Dresser" carved into the giant stone that surrounds the entrance. . . . The poem was carved into the station entrance in 2007. It echoes the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, when thousands of gay men were dying of the disease. Another Whitman poem is quoted at the Archives-Navy Memorial Metro Station, his "Prayer of Columbus." Two more are carved in pink granite in Freedom Plaza, one from 1855, the other from 1888. …