Beat! Beat! Drums!

I agree with Neely in his claim that Whitman saw the Civil War as primarily about union, not emancipation. According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, Whitman came to see the war as a necessary step in nation-building. He admired Abraham Lincoln and later mourned his death with the elegy “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” and the minor but famous “O Captain! My Captain!” (Wikipedia). If great influences in Whitman’s life are reflected in his poetry, the void of mentioning the Emancipation Proclamation would anticipate criticism from Civil War Historians, like Mark Neely. Perhaps he saw the executive order as a means of restoring the union which affirmed his humanist philosophy on the worth and dignity of all people (Wikipedia).

“Beat! Beat! Drums!” depicts the Civil War as challenging all people of the nation to rise up and hear the beat of the drum. No one can escape the sound of the drum; “Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows -- through doors -- burst like a ruthless force, [i]nto the solemn church, and scatter the congregation, [i]nto the school where the scholar is studying.” The Civil War tested the strength of the entire nation, divided by two. “Make no parley -- stop for no expostulation” recognizes the different voices in the war and tests the character of the American people to “[m]ind not the timid -- mind not the weeper or prayer, [m]ind not the old man beseeching the young man, [l]et not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties.” Despite natural tendencies to sympathize with the aforementioned, war tears at every soul in the nation. “So strong you thump O terrible drums -- so loud you bugles blow.” These terrible drums steal peace from the nation and rob people of our decency.

Whitman’s perspective in “Beat! Beat! Drums!” speaks to everyone in the nation and does not use illusions to describe the influence the war has on the union. In Timrod’s “The Cotton Boll,” the cotton ball is linked to the earth (from which it came) and a bird pulls the narrator up into the sky to view the confederacy. This view is difficult for the reader to understand since it challenges normal perception of the world. It is more easily understood by the reader in Whitman’s poem that the sound the drums beat at the heart of everyone in the nation, including the dead. “Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses.”

There is a sense of nationalism in both Timrod and Whitman’s poem. Timrod describes “In offices like these, thy mission lies, My Country! And it shall not end as long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend in blue above thee.” The notion of “My Country” is great and he later describes that war is hard, but worth it to fight for. In Whitman’s poem, the nation is not directly described, the people who make up the nation are. I feel there is a greater humanist view portrayed in Beat! Beat! Drums! in that it personalizes the war and the toll it takes on the people. The strength of a great nation is tested in Whitman’s depiction of the war and yet Timrod exclaims “Oh, help us, Lord! to roll the crimson flood back on its course, and, while our banners wing Northward, strike with us!” Timrod’s perspective is more aggressive and begs the Lord to take sides. Whitman depicts a passive role that individuals play in hearing the sound of the drum instead of beating the drums themselves.