Walt Whitman: Biographical Note     Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, at West Hills, Long Island, New York.  He was the second child of Walter Whitman and Louisa Van Velsor-Whitman.  In 1823 his family moved to Brooklyn where he later attended public school.  At the age of twelve he began working as an office boy for the law firm of Edward C. Clarke, he helped Whitman with his handwriting and composition, and, "subscribed [him] to a big circulating library."  This was the beginning of Whitman's largely self-taught career in literature and art.  At thirteen he became an apprentice in a print shop, he worked in this industry until 1835, when a great devastating fire brought an economic depression, then, in 1836, at the age of seventeen he began to teach country schools in Long Island.  While teaching he was writing and publishing sentimental poems and stories.  At the age of nineteen, he founded a weekly newspaper, The Long Islander, which he himself wrote, printed, and delivered.  In 1842 he edited the Aurora newspaper in New York City, and from 1846 to 1848, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  In 1848 he went to New Orleans to be editor of the New Orleans Crescent.  Here is where he closely experienced the horrors of slavery.   After a few weeks in New Orleans, and upon his return to Brooklyn, he took part in the antislavery "Free Soil" movement founding and editing The Brooklyn Freeman.  From 1848 to 1855, Whitman worked on the poems of Leaves of Grass, developing then, a very unique style in poetry which shocked many early readers.  The first edition of Leaves of Grass was published in 1855; this volume was only ninety five pages consisting of twelve poems and a twelve page preface.  Whitman himself published the first edition and sent a copy to Ralph Waldo Emerson who answer him with a letter in which he tells Whitman "I greet you at the beginning of a great career."  Walt Whitman worked on Leaves of Grass until his death, nine different editions were published during his lifetime.  Each edition included new poems that had been published in periodicals or in smaller collections of his poetry, such as Drum - Taps The last edition included such poems as Song of Myself, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, Passage to India, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed, and O Captain! My Captain!             At the outbreak of the Civil War, Whitman was supporting himself, his elderly mother, and an invalid brother by newspaper correspondence.  In 1863 his brother George was wounded in battle, and Whitman went to the battle field to find him, and took care of him at the hospital during his recovery.  It was there where his compassion and sympathy were aroused by the suffering of the wounded, and decided to remain there and volunteer his work in army hospital for the rest of the war.  During this period he wrote his war experiences in Drum - Taps.  After the war, Whitman worked in several government departments until 1873 when he suffered a stroke.  After this he settle in Camden, New York where he stayed with his brother George, and then in his own house which he was able to buy with the royalties of Leaves of Grass, in this house he spent the rest of his years working on adding and revising Leaves of Grass and writing a volume of poetry and prose titled Good - Bye My Fancy.  Whitman died on March 26, 1892 and was buried in Harleigh Cemetery in a tomb he design.  Although Whitman never gained full recognition in the United States until after his death, he had won recognition in Europe and Latin America during his lifetime and was greatly admired by his contemporary writers and poets.