I have trouble reading cursive, so I cannot read nearly as much as i would like. Several stamps, maybe representing addresses, though one is a red circle stamp with wings in the center and is listed as a Library of Congress mark. “Lessons for a President-Elect” is a phrase below one of the stamps. It is another indicator of Whitman’s conversation with Lincoln. On page 4, where Whitman contemplates “two religions.” I find it interesting that he lists these two opposing forces as the “divine Jew” and the “Greek sage”, though I am missing some historic frames of mind with those two. “Libertad” is someone who Whitman is referencing but I do not know if he is a specific individual or a general type of person. There seems to be a lot of lines and poems based on nature, which is not unusual for Whitman, but seeing so many written in his notebook suggests that he got several ideas and wrote them down while out and about. His profile sketches seems to be of middle age white men, some of them in a cartoon character style. He has an honest and realistic style in the faces, kind of like his writing. The last sketch is of a skull with a heart as a torso with a sword through it with a sunset in the background. It reminds me of Mexican Día de los Muertos art. The last written words are “Here stood Washington/The last war” with some words before them. This seems to either be in reflection of the Civil War and its horrors or in anticipation of the war.
In the comments, it also says that the two opposing religions also represent the two slavery sides clashing. I didn’t know that Whitman was like Lincoln in wanting to take a third side outside of his personal beliefs about slavery for the sake of maintaining unity with slaveholders. That is something I did not know before, but it does fit in with Whitman’s literary themes of brotherhood. There are extensive imaginary conversations between Lincoln and Whitman. I think it is also a marker of how unsuccessful Whitman was as a contemporary poet because he never had occasion to have a real conversation or meet-and-greet with the president in contrast to how well known his works became later on. Though, that measure of success of being called to the White House to perform or do a reading is probably more modern and not going to be taken advantage of during a war. The early version of “Chanting the Square Deific” with the four-sided version of God reflects the internal conflict better than any nature-based metaphor because those often exist in a two-sided conflict (hot vs cold, wet vs dry, etc.). This multi-faceted conflict within God probably reflected the internal conflict of Whitman and many others of what they should do. “Libertad” is Spanish for liberty and connects the efforts of the Union with the struggles of Latin America colonies and other global struggles. This gives a new perspective on the Union’s reason for going to war and the desperation of so many who believed in American democracy and that they were being held as an example for the rest of the world. It gives perspective to how Whitman might have been committed to the Union later on in the midst of the worst of it despite the Civil War turning brother against brother. It also seems that the sketches of the old white man is of Whitman himself done by a friend.
