Although it marked a major victory for the Union, the Battle of Shiloh was also notorious for its incredibly high death toll. The battle made it clear that while the Union might win the war, the Confederacy would fight bitterly to the end and that the loss of life on both sides would be titanic. A historical summation of the battle marks it as both pivotal and tragic. It is against this backdrop that Herman Melville's "Shiloh" occurs, on the rainy night between the initial Confederate assault and Union counterattack. The poem wrestles with the human wreckage this conflict left behind.
The battle itself unfolded in a series of surprising turns, with few clear outcomes for either side. General Ulysses S. Grant went into the battle with the expectation of a swift Union victory, a sentiment shared by most of the North at that time. However, it became plain that this would not a tidy win. An early morning attack from the Confederate soldiers caught the Union army off guard and forced them to fall back. They then formed a defensive line, named the "Hornet's Nest," which withstood multiple Confederate charges. At this point, the Confederacy suffered one of its most notable casualties, that of General Albert Smith Johnston. Johnston sustained an injury to the leg and perished from blood loss. The Union made a tactical retreat to Pittsburgh Landing and successfully repelled several Confederate assaults.
A short pause followed that evening, giving the Union time to regroup and bolster their ranks with reinforcements. The following morning, the Union staged a counterattack, surprising the Confederates with their newly increased numbers. What followed was a series of successful and devastating strikes on the Confederate army that forced them to retreat, ending their premature claim to victory. Small skirmishes occurred the following day, but the battle was over. The Union had come through to a challenging, and costly, win.
Early on, Grant was critiqued viciously for his handling of the conflict. Some journalists claimed Grant was drinking heavily and was deliberately careless with the lives of his men. Subsequent evaluations of his military strategy have acknowledged it as a prudent response, carried out under significant pressure. Still, there was no denial of the fact that the victory resulted in a terrible loss of human life. In his memoir, Grant recounts vivid horrors: "I saw an open field, in our possession on the second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the day before, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing, in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground." Melville's poem "Shiloh" is a sobering reminder of the casualties that this Union triumph was built upon.
