Whitman sees it all in his mind’s eye⁠—the tears of the two women⁠—the strange look on the men’s faces, awake or asleep⁠—the dripping, smoke-colored rain. Perplexed and deep in his heart, something stirs and moves⁠—he is each one of them in turn⁠—the beaten men, the tired women, the boy who sleeps there quietly with his musket still clutched tightly to him. The long lines of a poem begin to lash themselves against his mind, with the lashing surge and long thunder of Montauk surf.

Horace Greeley has written Lincoln an hysterical letter⁠—he has not slept for seven nights⁠—in New York, “on every brow sits sullen, scorching, black despair.”

He was trumpeting “On to Richmond!” two weeks ago. But then the war was a thing for an editorial⁠—a triumphal parade of Unionists over rebels. Now there has been a battle and a defeat. He pleads for an armistice⁠—a national convention⁠—anything on almost any terms to end this war.