The 133rd Pennsylvania Volunteers Regiment at Fredericksburg

                                                            

Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen 
   blanket,
Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.
Curious I halt and silent stand,
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first 
   just lift the blanket;
Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray’d 
   hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and darling?
Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory;
Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself,
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

                                         -"A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Grim." Walt Whitman.

Writing in the current issue of Humanities, Randall Fuller, professor of English at Drury University says:

"Standing in the aftermath of battle, Whitman could 'hear plainly the music of a good band, at some Brigadier’s headquarters, a mile and a half away.' He continued: 'Then the drum tap from one direction or other comes constantly breaking in. . . . I hear the sound of bugle calls, very martial, at this distance.' Something about the music altered his mood, made him both pensive and hopeful. The landscape was suddenly transformed. 'Amid all this pleasant scene, under the sweet sky and warm sun, I sit and think over the battle of last Saturday week.' That battle was Fredericksburg."

"A Sight in Camp" was written by Whitman for the Battle of Fredericksburg. Whitman's brother George was wounded in the battle.