Walt Whitmans work as a nurse to the wounded soldiers of the Civil War had a profound effect on the way he saw the world. Much less well known is the extraordinary record of his younger brother, George, who led his men in twentyone major battles, almost to die in a Confederate prison camp as the fighting ended. Drawing on the searing letters that Walt, George, their mother Louisa, and their other brothers, wrote to each other during the conflict, and on new evidence and new readings of the great poet, Now the Drum of War chronicles the experience of an archetypal American familyfrom rural Long Island to workingclass Brooklynenduring its own long crisis alongside the anguish of the nation. Robert Roper has constructed a powerful narrative about Americas greatest crucible, and a compelling story of our most original poet and one of our bravest soldiers. Together, the brothers Whitman define the complementary aspects of a full human response to a catastrophe like the Civil War. One is on the side of nurturing and empathy, a loverfigure who becomes a tender friend or father; the other more in line with classical definitions of masculine virtue, a man who protects his fellowfighters while resolutely destroying the enemy...The Whitmans did not arrive at their vocations independently, or out of nowhere; their familys stalwartness in terrible trials, especially their mothers, and their own continuing awareness of each other as the war darkened, year by year, for both of them, awoke in both a kind of greatness.