Walt Whitman Quotes
This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. James R. Osgood and Company, 1881, p. 354.
Confederate General Wheeler had introduced a new tactic of mining the roads with improvised explosive devices which took their toll on Sherman’s troops. At the time, this was against the ruled of war. Sherman ordered a few Confederate prisoners to the front and required them to walk ahead of his troops and demine the roads. He then allowed some of the prisoners to return to General Wheeler with a note from Sherman, explaining that if the Confederates persisted in this unethical form of warfare he would march all of the Confederate prisoners in the front of the troops and force them do remove the explosives by hand regardless of the danger. Wheeler never planted land mines again.
Many have speculated that this personal grudge may have been one of the motivating factors leading Bush to his disastrous Iraq War decisions.
Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality. Whitman's own life came under scrutiny for his presumed homosexuality.
