The soldiers who fought in the Civil War were fighting for their livelihood. Northern soldiers had to bring the South back to the North, and Southerners fought to maintain their way of life. Whitman was amazed at how far each side was willing to go and was amazed at the sacrifices the men made to their causes. According to Whitman, soldiers went through hell just to fight, which in the case of Gettysburg was even worse. Food was hard to come by, their clothes were in tatters, they walked through heat, cold, rain, mud and whatever else they needed to get to where their next battle would be, only to leave once again. the battle ended (Whitman 333). While Whitman worked as a nurse, he was moved by the strength of the soldiers, and when traveling from Fredericksburg to Washington, D.C., he wrote to the families of wounded soldiers, as he felt it was one of the best ways to comfort. soldiers on their way to hospitals (Home). Whitman's dedication to these wounded soldiers shows that even though he could not fight in the war, he could help in the recovery of the wounded. Walt Whitman believed that the way the developing artistic culture began to take shape was in what was happening in America. Claiming the wilderness for fertile agricultural land, being able to ship goods anywhere along the coast and beyond, and expanding the railroad so that it could reach the farthest reaches of the Louisiana. The purchase allowed new ideas to circulate and mix in the new areas and then be condensed into literature. And