There is an account of Lincoln's reading Whitman's
Leaves of Grass poetry collection in his office, and another of the president's saying "Well,
he looks like a man," upon seeing Whitman in Washington, D.C. According to scholar
John Matteson: "[t]he truth of both these stories is hard to establish."
Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, greatly moved Whitman, who wrote several poems in tribute to the fallen president. "O Captain! My Captain!", "
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", "
Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day", and "
This Dust Was Once the Man" were all written on Lincoln's death. While these poems do not specifically mention Lincoln, they turn the assassination of the president into a sort of martyrdom.