Walt Whitman Reflection

The Cavalry Crossing a Ford by Walt Whitman shows the military approach to war and that was different from the view of the war and his feelings towards violence. Walt Whitman was a medic during the Civil War and was extremely patriotic towards his country and believed in the American system of government unlike the writers of both Thoreau and Emerson. " Scarlet and blue and snowy white, The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind" (Whitman 7). This line in his poem describes the American flag and the love that Whitman has for his country. The great description of the colors of his nation's flag are bright and pure just like the nation. He was a fighter and hoped that the country could be successful as a whole where as Emerson and Thoreau were were more into the personal rights of the individual and against war. "Thoreau, hopeless of any good coming of the United States Government, thoroughly sympathized with a man who had courage to break its bonds in the cause of natural right" (Emerson). Both of these men were against slavery and they wanted to attack it in different way like Emerson and Thoreau wanted to go fight slavery by individual rights and through a way without violence and war. Where as Walt Whitman was wanting to fight against slavery as a whole and with the nation behind him carrying the flag. He went out and joined the fight as a whole and wanted the change to happen for a nation and not just in little individual spots. "They present new aspects of things, or at least old familiar objects in new dresses, the various subjects of thought and inquiry in new relations, break up old associations, and excite to greater and fresher mental activity"(Brownson). Emerson gives people new options to the rules that they have been taught. Whitman was for the government and having the government be in control where as Emerson and Thoreau were against the government and having their own ideas and creating their own laws.

Emerson, Edward. "Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend." 1917. Quoted as "Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Henry David Thoreau, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Brownson, Orestes Augustus. "Emerson's Essays." Boston Quarterly Review, July 1841: 292. Quoted as "Emerson's Essays" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Whitman, Walt. "Cavalry Crossing a Ford" Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009.341. Print.