When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

This was probably the longest poem I have ever seen or read. I could understand that this was written about Abraham Lincoln, after he was assassinated. There are some obvious connections to the Civil War, for example, "And I saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundred of battle-flags, Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierced with missiles I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence, ) And the staffs all splinter'd and broken." This poem encompasses the authors entire time period, more or less. From the way he writes to the things he describes allows me to see what he is seeing and think about what he is thinking. This poem allows me to enter the mind of the author, which is the purpose of any story or poem. Some minds are interesting to go into, while others are not. I would say that Walt Whitman's mind is something that I am not used too.