Calvary Crossing A Ford

Calvary Crossing A Ford is about a group of soldiers crossing a river...hence the title Calvary crossing a Ford. This sort of goes against Henry David Thoreau because he did not like government. He was all about civil disobedience. The army was part of government because government controls army. Thoreau even went as far to call them robots. Whitman wrote a whole poem about an army(Whitman). Also most of the poems by Thoreau and Emerson during the Transcendentalism period were about self and about one person because the Transcendentalism period valued self worth over intuition(Quinn). This poem is all about a group of people, and those group of people are also people that Emerson and Thoreau did not like because they were "robots". During the time this poem was written Whitman the writer of this poem was a medic in the civil war. So he would of seen something very similar to this poem if not the exact scene. Most of the Transcendentalism period writers did not appreciate government especially Thoreau. Walt Whitman must of had some sort of respect for the government because he technically worked for them. He is not very similar to all of the other writers in this time period. However, I have heard that later in his writings he gets more into the typical themes of transcendentalism and writes more about self other than groups. He changes a lot in his writings and does more of typical piece of the time period. I think I like Whitman's works a little bit better than Thoreau's and Emerson's because I do not always agree with their idea of civil disobedience. Especially the whole idea of hating the army and calling them robots. Just because they are in the army does not mean that they are robots. They are actually doing a lot of good for our country, fighting for our freedom. It is a little messed up that they could look at people that I have a lot of respect for in that way.


Quinn, Edward. "Transcendentalism." A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= DLLT1007&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 26, 2012).
Whitman, Walt. "Cavalry Crossing a Ford - Walt Whitman (1819-1892)." Books & Literature Classics. Web. 10 Feb. 2012.