Herman Melville’s Poem Shiloh: A Requiem

Herman Melville in 1861

The April 6-7, 1862 Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee was by far the costliest battle in terms of casualties up to that point in the year old Civil War. Each side suffered over 1700 killed and over 8000 wounded in the Union victory, numbers that shocked the public.

The writer and poet Herman Melville paid homage to those who suffered and died in the battle in a short poem called Shiloh: A Requiem. In it, he noted that “April rain solaced the parched ones stretched in pain.” It did indeed rain in the night between the two days of battle, with thousands of casualties lying on the battlefield in between the lines of the two sides. Melville also noted that the former enemies, now dead, no longer were concerned about the reasons for the war.

Shiloh: A Requiem was part of a collection of 72 poems Melville wrote about the Civil War, published in 1866 in a book called Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.

Shiloh
A Requiem

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh—
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh—
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there—
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve—
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.

Battle of Shiloh by Thure de Thulstrup