From battlefields rising

When Confederate Troops fired on Fort Sumter in April of 1861, Walt Whitman declared it "the volcanic upheaval of the nation"--The bloody inception of a war that would dramatically alter the shape and character of American culture along with its political, racial, and social landscape. Prior to the war, America's leading writers had been integral to helping the young nation imagine itself, assert its beliefs, and realize its immense potential. When the Civil War erupted, it forced them to witness not only unimaginable human carnage on the battlefield, but also the disintegration of the…