"Beat! Beat! Drums!" --long post

I think “Beat! Beat! Drums!” does support what Neely is saying because the fact that he wants the drums to be heard insinuates that he wants everyone involved in the fight. In reading this poem I imagine a troop of soldiers marching through a town to the beat of drummer boy and to the blow of a bugle. Whitman wants all citizens to stop what they are doing and pay attention to and join along with soldiers as they march through the town. He wants the sound of the drums and the bugle to reach everyone—in the church, in the schools, on the farms, on the streets, in every home. His desire for everyone to hear these drums implies that he is supporting a war of union because he wants everyone in the town to unite for one cause—he is a nationalist. I think that if Whitman classified Lincoln as a nationalist as well, he was correct. Although Lincoln is focused on winning the war for the North, his ultimate goal after winning the Civil War is to unify the country. He considered the secession of the Confederacy to be illegal and used force to preserve the unity of the country. He took a lot of criticism for the way he treated the South after the war was over. A lot of people felt that Lincoln was favoring the south, but in reality he was trying to make the people of the South feel welcome in the Union and make their rebuilding process as easy as possible. He clearly wanted one unified nation just as “Beat! Beat! Drums!” makes it seem as though Whitman wanted one unified nation.

In comparing “Beat! Beat! Drums!” to the poetry we read by Horton and Timrod, I think Whitman seems to be advocating a war for the union of the North and the South where as Horton and Timrod are taking sides. Horton, although a Southerner, was clearly not a Confederate. He was a slave in North Carolina and sold his poetry to UNC. Throughout his poetry it becomes evident that he is clearly taking sides with the North, for obvious reasons. Also, Horton addresses more of the casualty and the destruction of war, where as you don’t see this addressed in Whitman’s poem. In “The Spectator of the Battle of Belmont”, Horton vividly describes the “blood veil” that covers the battle scene. In the second poem we read for Horton, “Jefferson in a Tight Place”, Horton describes the chase and capture of a fox, and I think in a lot of ways this was meant to parallel the chase and capture of a runaway slave. I’m sure that Horton, being a slave himself, witnessed the capture of several runaway slaves and therefore it would make sense for him to make this subtle comparison. In this respect, Horton seems to be viewing this war as more of a fight against or for slavery, where as Whitman seems to view it as a war for the preservation of the union. In contrast to Horton and Whitman, Timrod’s staunch loyalty to the Confederacy is conveyed through his poem “The Cotton Boll”. Timrod presents the Confederacy in his poem as independent nation, one that will survive, and rebuild. His Confederacy is everlasting, “it shall not end as long as rain shall fall and heaven bend in blue above thee”. Horton also addresses the issue of slavery in his poem, although not in an obvious manner. As he describes himself reclining against a tree, relaxing in the shade, he describes a “dusky fingers” that hand him a cotton boll. These “dusky fingers” belong to a slave, who in Timrod’s mind is not considered a person but merely dirty fingers. Clearly, Timrod shares in Horton’s view that the war is based on the issue of slavery, although he is on the side of the Confederacy. Therefore, it appears that Timrod and Horton do not share in Whitman’s opinion that this war is primarily about union, not about emancipation.