Shiloh: A novel

by Shelby Foote

Book Overview

This fictional re-creation of the battle of Shiloh in April 1862 is a stunning work of imaginative history, from Shelby Foote, beloved historian of the Civil War. Shiloh conveys not only the bloody... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0880298456
• ISBN13: 9780880298452
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.

Customer Reviews

snooze fest

Book was so boring I couldn't finish it. Total waste of money!

You Are There

In this beautifully written book, Shelby Foote takes the reader straight to the battlefield of Shiloh. By telling the story from the points of view of the participants, both North and South, there is a real sense of being present. The guns fire and the smoke and rain penetrate the entire area. We are wet and cold and scared and puzzled by the battle and how it moves. Any student of the Civil War should enjoy this story emensely.

Awesome descriptions and accuracy

You can tell Shelby Foote really did his research before sitting down to write this book. The book alternates point of view from chapter to chapter from the Confederacy to Union soldiers. Throughout the civil war novel, their are letters from the soldiers to their wives which Foote obtained from old manuscripts. In my opinion, even the weather adds to the accuracy of the novel. The major turning point of this book is when Johnston of the Confederacy is killed in battle which led to the advance of lost territory by the Union. If you feel you like you still need more info. on this thrilling novel please visit my website at the following

Very Descriptive

The description of the battle's gore and the common soldiers' reaction to it make the battle come alive. The battle seems to literally unfold infront of you. If you have prior knowledge of the Civil War or are just getting into it buy this book.

"Great in-the-trenches episodes"

This book gives the battle at Shiloh a perspective that is often missed in books about war. Seen through the eyes of different combatants on both sides of various ranks and purpose. The map at the front gives real meaning and depth to the battle.

The Soldier's Tale, War comes to a Place of Peace

Told from the perspective of several of the participants (a Mississippi rifleman, a Minnesota artilleryman, one of N. B. Forrest's calvalrymen, an Ohio infantry squad leader), this first person narrative tells the tale of the first great cataclysm in the ACW's western theatre with convincing insight and emotion. The axiom of war - no strategy can survive contact with the enemy - was never proven truer than at Shiloh. Foote's narrative (this work undoubtedly proved to hone Mr. Foote's great skills for his monumental American Iliad - Civil War Narrative ) takes the reader to the most basic level of human experience. These are not troops - they are unique individuals, each with their own unique story to tell. Confusion, noise, smoke bombard overwrought senses - there are no God's eye view maps with red and blue arrows diagramming troop movements to try to give false sense to the chaos. Heroes and cowards, leaders and followers from North and South, crash into each other in a cacophony of violence near a Methodist meeting house named for Place of Peace, a few miles west of Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Albert Sidney Johnston's plan for the destruction of Grant's Army of Tennessee achieves limited success on the first day, only to be defeated on the second day after Buell comes up with the Union Army of Ohio. (Woe to the South at the loss of the great man Johnston, the South's first soldier.) The lives of each of the narrators are inextricably and forever linked by their experiences on 6 and 7 April (a Sunday and a Monday, lest we forget) 1862. What brought them together at that place, at that time; what were their thoughts and cares; why and for what and for whom did they fight, and how? These are basic, difficult questions to answer. Mr. Foote addresses each of these questions, for each individual, in a thoughtful manner, as a sort of personal history. This work is much over-looked and under-appreciated. It should stand next to Crane's 'Red Badge of Courage' in our national treasury of works of art, filed under: 'Fiction - American Civil War'.