The poem centers around a family living on a farm in Ohio who receives a letter informing them that their son has been killed, and chronicles their grief, particularly that of the boy's mother.
It was one of his most frequently anthologized poems during his lifetime, and resonated with many Americans who had experienced the death of family members in the Civil War.
[2] However, Pete's mother is grief-stricken and "catches the main words only,/Sentences broke," and notes that the letter is not written in her son's handwriting, but it was signed with his name.
At the end of the poem, the mother is yearning "silent from life [to] escape and withdraw,/To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son".
Drums" as a poem of "vigorous public militarism", which stands in sharp contrast to the "intimate family tragedy" of "Come Up from the Fields Father".
Folsom felt that the poem found its success because of the vast populations that could relate to the loss of a family member during the war.
Steinroetter wrote that the mother's unresolved grief separates the poem from contemporary ones with similar themes, because many of them ended with religious sentiments or the grieving returning to work or patriotic support as a way of resolution.
"[10] Steinroetter writes that Whitman's description of "flashes" of black ink from the letter swimming before the mother's eyes ties her emotional pain to her son's physical injury.
"[10] The Cambridge Companion to Walt Whitman notes the juxtaposition of two narrators throughout the poem, the family learning of the death of their son and an unknown sympathetic onlooker.
Additionally, the letter they receive was written by a "strange hand" and understates the severity of the news it delivers, saying, for instance, "At present low, but will soon be better".