After the publication and printing of '' Drum-Taps '' in Brooklyn in April 1865 , Whitman intended to supplement the collection with several additional Civil War poems and a handful of new poems mourning the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln that he had written between April and June 1865 . After returning to Washington , D.C. , in Summer 1865 , Whitman contracted with Gibson Brothers to publish a pamphlet of eighteen poems that would include two works directly addressing the assassination — the elegy '' When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom 'd '' and " O Captain ! My Captain ! " . He intended to include the pamphlet with copies of Drum-Taps . The 24-page collection was titled '' Sequel to Drum-Taps '' and bore the subtitle '' When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom 'd and other poems '' . The title poem , '' When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom 'd '' , filled the first nine pages . In October , after the pamphlet was printed , Whitman travelled to Brooklyn to collate and bind them into copies of '' Drum-Taps '' . Whitman added the poems from '' Drum-Taps '' and '' Sequel to Drum-Taps '' as a supplement to the fourth edition of Leaves of Grass printed in 1867 by William E. Chapin
assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Sequel to Drum-Taps