Not on the Battlefields ~ Walt Whitman

"I was in the midst of it all - saw war where war is worst - not on the battlefields, no - in the hospitals … there I mixed with it: and now I say God damn the wars - all wars: God damn every war: God damn 'em! God damn 'em!

- Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was born in Long Island, New York, the son of a Quaker carpenter. He was not, as an adult, a member of any Quaker meeting but, many have commented on Whitman's Quaker-gray clothing, his Quaker friends, and the Quaker values and speech patterns embodied in his poems.

Whitman denied he ever lived inside the "fence" of Quakerism, yet Quaker references are throughout his poetry and prose, and he stated "I am a good deal of a Quaker." He may have been involved with a little known Quaker group, called the "Friends of Human Progress."

More at   http://leavesofgrass.org/u1698t43/