The guy lamented the deficiency of attention to the common soldiers and you can for the fortitude and you may love he previously noticed in his of many visits which have troops on medical facilities
Whitman’s hesitancy in order to incorporate the notion of another type of American people where some other races would display rights and electricity led into the 1872 in order to an unlawful argument together with his pal O’Connor, which couldn’t believe that Whitman, of the many anybody, would not endorse instantaneous black colored suffrage. Once the specifics of brand new dispute is actually shrouded for the secret, the latest bitterness led to a separation from the essential friendship, even when O’Connor do later produce passionately once again inside cover out-of Whitman when their book try attacked from the government authorities (see chapter 7).
For the January 23, the guy sustained a coronary arrest; within the March his brother-in-legislation Mattie (wife of his aunt Jeff) died regarding cancer; in-may their beloved mom started to falter
Whitman’s steady techniques regarding existence-mix become a washington clerk together with his constant literary methods-was sooner or later altered when a series of punches turned into 1873 on the among the bad years in his existence.