Although they never met, the poet Walt Whitman saw Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, several times between 1861 and 1865, sometimes in close quarters. Whitman first noticed what Whitman scholar Gregory Eiselein describes as the president-elect's "striking appearance" and "unpretentious dignity". Whitman wrote that he trusted Lincoln's "supernatural tact" and "idiomatic Western genius". His admiration for Lincoln grew in the years that followed; Whitman wrote in October 1863, "I love the President personally." Whitman considered himself and Lincoln to be "afloat in the same stream" and "rooted in the same ground". Whitman and Lincoln shared similar views on slavery and the Union, and similarities have been noted in their literary styles and inspirations. Whitman later declared that "Lincoln gets almost nearer me than anybody else." As president, Lincoln led the Union through the American Civil War.