This paper examines that Whitman’s hospital experience during theCivil War plays an important role in healing the dismembered nationas well as himself. As his statement “North and South was one vastcentral hospital” indicates, the hospital scenes full of the sick andwounded become the core of Whitman’s imagination. Above all, thehospital experience suggests “the most profound lesson” of his life.His experience as a volunteer nurse in the hospitals engenders avariety of poetry and prose such as Drum-Taps, Memoranda Duringthe War and Specimen Days. Through these works, Whitmanperforms the role of a poet-nurse in relation to feminine andmaternal attributes. His poem “The Wound-Dresser” is a concreteexample. He emphasizes the suitability of middle-aged female nursesbecause their “magnetic touch of hands” signifies the power ofhealing for the sick and wound.As his statement “It [nursing] was a religion with me” indicates,Whitman endeavors to write his nursing experiences pursuing“something considerably beyond mere hospital sketches.” Significantly,the word “convulsiveness” which Whitman coined by going throughthe hospital experience seems to epitomize his psychological pain,namely, trauma. He sharply realizes that writing the “convulsiveness,”which suggests traumatic memories and dreams, can lead toward theindividual and collective healing from the recurring painful memoriesand dreams. It is noteworthy that Whitman’s trauma featuring“absence of verbal narrative” is predominantly encoded in the form of “vivid sensations and images.” This is exemplified in his poetryand prose such as “Old War-Dreams,” “The Artilleryman’s Vision”and the various Civil War sections of Specimen Days. For Whitman,writing the “convulsiveness” awakens the essential meaning ofreligion within him which engenders the “most fervent views of thetrue ensemble and extent of the States.”