Civil War historian Mark Neely makes a claim that basically questions how much Whitman valued the African American race at this time, and suggests that he could quite possibly be a racist for not mentioning the Emancipation Proclamation his poem Beat! Beat! Drums. Neely mentions that Whitman was even in Washington at the time that Abraham Lincoln signed the proclamation on January 1, 1863. Therefore Neely proposes, how could Walt Whitman left out such a significant event in history that he was present for, in his poem, unless he was in fact a racist or a “mystical nationalist” as quoted by Neely. The major reason that I believe such enthusiasm toward the Emancipation Proclamation in the Beat! Beat! Drums poem is that Whitman was not necessarily a racist or a mystical nationalist, but rather he just didn’t think much of African Americans therefore failed to mention them. At this point in history, African Americans had just been freed from slavery and were considered the lowest race in the society at the time because the only thing they had been used for was as personal slaves and manual labor efforts. Now take that work necessity away and they can’t read, write, speak well… There are a number of things that the African American people at this time could not do, one of which is vote. This is a major reason that I believe Whitman didn’t mention African Americans in his poem, because he and everyone else in society, didn’t think anything of them to even consider including them in a poem about the struggles the majority of society is having with war efforts coming to every town, and disrupting everyone’s daily lives. Hence the mentioning of issues such as church services, school classrooms, weddings, people sleeping, people singing… all being disrupted in the poem.

Walt Whitman’s poem Beat! Beat! Drums, however mostly supports Neely’s claim that Whitman is a mystical nationalist with racist tendencies. I was just trying to reach as deep as possible to bring up possible reasons that defend his lack of mentioning the Emancipation Proclamation in his poem. Although yes, Neely’s claim does seem to be accurate with all the supported evidence he supply in this quote and could significantly make his audiences follow him in his negative beliefs about Whitman, the man who opened the field of American poets and of modern poetry as we know it in the world today. In Horton’s and Timrod’s poems they differ from Whitman’s poem in that they both mention the Emancipation Proclamation or rather the importance of African Americans and their rights. For instance in Henry Timrod’s poem The Cotton Boll, he says, “Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships, That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips In alien lands.” This quote seems to hint at the presence of slave ships from somewhere like Africa in the narrators’ analysis of the world as he sees it. At this point of the poem, it just so happens that the next very few lines start to transition into strong opposition to the Civil War uprisings. It is only common to relate this to the fact that Timrod is against slavery, war, and killing for the reasons of establishing the Union among the southern rebels.

Whitman does seem to solely support the Union cause as exemplified in his quote, “Beat! beat! drums! blow! bugles! blow! Make no parley – stop for no expostulation, Mind not the timid—not the weeper or prayer.” This quote seems to complain about the Union soldiers or just the war activist common to people’s town, disrupting their common way of life with the beat of drums and blowing of bugles as these lines mention. However when Whitman says, “make no parley—stop for no expostulation,” he suggests a stop for nothing mentality for the Union soldiers, and that flooding these towns with their war-driven minds and men longing to kill, is the only way to get what they want, which is to impose the Union cause upon the whole nation. Also when Whitman mentions, “Mind not the timid – mind not the weeper or prayer,” he is again suggesting more of this erratic war-driven mentality that these Union soldiers should stop at nothing and nobody to effectively force their beliefs upon the whole nation. Towards the end of the poem, at first what seemed like utter shock and madness towards the Union soldiers coming to towns and disrupting people’s lives, has now become a strong support for the Union soldiers to keep marching and pounding their beliefs into everyone’s skulls. As demonstrated through the quote, “So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.”