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Walt Whitman's O Captain ! My Captain

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Walt Whitman's O Captain ! My Captain
“O Captain! My Captain!” is a poem written by Walt Whitman. Whitman wrote the poem to honor Abraham Lincoln after his assassination in 1865 and describes him as a captain sailing his ship. The “ship” is the divided United States, and it is enduring a “storm”, which is the American Civil War. Lincoln eventually brought the Union and Confederate States back into one nation. Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery and reunited the country but was seemingly destined to die afterward.

Whitman was most likely inspired by the American Civil War, which was the bloodiest war in American history. The Southern states broke from the Union under the name “Confederate States of America” in an attempt to preserve slavery. However, during September

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