One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look I
 shall never forget,
One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground,
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my way,
Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of
 responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the
 moderate night-wind,
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the
 battlefield spreading,
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my
 chin in my hands,
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest
Walt Whitman’s  brothers George and Andrew enlisted in the Army when the Civil War started. While Andrew died three months into his service from an illness, George wrote to Whitman describing his experience on the front lines. Looking at the poem, the audience can’t tell if the fallen soldier is a Union soldier or a Confederate one. 
 Rather than commemorate a fallen soldier from the North or South, the soldier represents every fallen soldier and others who were hurt by this war. And even then, it’s an oddly peaceful tone where a man dug another man’s grave during the night with no tears or signs of grief. Does the speaker of the poem have a somewhat optimistic tone for his fallen comrade? Does the speaker believe that Death only ends a person’s time in his body, but not his soul that goes on into the Universe, the Unknown? Whitman does, with a Transcendentalist tone. What’s present in this poem is not only peace but also silence, which are very difficult to find in the middle of a war.
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night