Examines one of America's greatest cultural and literary figures, Robert Leigh. This book details the literary and social significance of Walt Whitman's career as a nurse during the American Civil War.
"Not only does Davis encourage us to re-value work that used to be dismissed as minor . . . he also places Whitman at a peculiar nexus of diverse groups, and diverse cultural practices, that turn out to be surprisingly exemplary of American (and democratic) concerns."-Tenney Nathanson, University of Arizona
"This is a powerful and innovative study of Whitman's Civil War hospital writings. It offers the best reading so far of these challenging texts. . . . Davis makes one of the most persuasive and fascinating cases I've seen for the much-contested relationship between artistic representation and political representation."-Ed Folsom, author of Walt Whitman's Native Representations
