News at Eleven: [Walt] Whitman knew what happened to boys shot

in the chest; he knew how such news affected families since he often met them on their visits to the hospitals; he knew what terrible truths the consoling letters sent to families concealed, since he had often written such letters himself. Whitman was a great poet of the Civil War because he understood the nature and purpose of the war, which was to inflict suffering on the American imagination.

from Telegraph: The American Civil War: the gruesome suffering of soldiers exposed

~~~~~~~~~~~