By Shelby Foote
Shelby Foote’s 1952 novel “Shiloh,” is not your typical
Civil War novel. One character does not
happen to be in all the right places at all the right times. Neither does it champion the Union or the Confederate
viewpoint. Nor does if follow multiple
characters during the battle from the first shot fired until its
conclusion. It is rather the story of a
battle told in the form of a relay.
“Shiloh,” Foote’s fourth novel, tells the story of the two
day battle at Pittsburg Landing on the western bank of the Tennessee River,
eight miles south of Savannah, Tennessee, told through multiple viewpoints. One chapter per character (with two
exceptions) in which one piece of the battle is told through its narrator’s point
of view. The flow of the battle is never
once interrupted by the novel’s constantly changing narrators, instead each
character picks up narrative of the battle where the previous character’s
ended. From the battle’s beginning until
its conclusion, the narrative is passed from character to character, much like
the baton in a 4x100 meter relay race.
Foote begins with Lieutenant Palmer Metcalf, an Aide-de-Camp
of General Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the Confederate Army. Through
his eyes the reader is witness to the march of the Army of Mississippi from
Corinth, Mississippi to Pittsburg Landing, and the firing of the first shots of
the battle.
The story continues as Captain Walter Fountain, Adjutant of
the 53rd Ohio Infantry, in Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee, who has
the misfortune of being on duty as Officer of the Day in the early hours of
April 6th, 1862 when the swarming Confederate army overwhelms the unsuspecting
camps of their Federal counterparts.
Switching back to the Confederate viewpoint Foote’s next
narrator, Private Luther Dade of the 6th Mississippi Infantry, continues as the
waves of Confederates gradually push the Union Army from their campsites and
witnesses the death of General Johnston.
Private Otto Flickner of the 1st Minnesota Artillery bears
witness to the hard fighting at “The Hornet’s Nest,” and having abandoned his
post just before the Union line collapses makes his way at the close of the
first fight to the shelter of the
riverbank bluffs of Pittsburg Landing, where several other “demoralized” Union
soldiers have also sought refuge.
Continuing into Sunday night, Foote’s narrative switches
once again to the Confederates with Sergeant Jefferson Polly, a scout in Nathan
Bedford’s cavalry who from atop the Indian mounds next to the river witnesses
the Major General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio crossing the Tennessee
River to reinforce Grant’s troops.
The second day of the battle is carried forward by the first
of Foote’s narrative exceptions. Instead
of being told from one character’s point of view, he instead splits it up into
twelve short vignettes, each told by a member of a squad from the 23rd Indiana
Infantry of Lew Wallace’s division.
In the novel’s final chapter Lieutenant Palmer Metcalf, in
Foote’s second narrative exception, returns as the narrator and from his
vantage point, relates the details of the Confederate withdrawal from Pittsburg
Landing and Nathan Bedford Forrest’s stand at Fallen Timbers.
Each chapter builds from each previous chapter, and as the
narrative progresses, characters from prior chapters appear, if only
briefly. Lieutenant Metcalf, is the only
character to reprieve his role as narrator, and appearing in the novel’s first
and last chapter is a satisfying conclusion to Foote’s narrative.
The book’s best feature is easily its map of the
battlefield. Each chapter’s corresponding
number appears on the map is where the chapter begins. Arrows trace the journey of each character
across the battlefield, allowing the reader to easily follow the action.
“Shiloh” is not your typical Civil War novel. Foote has deconstructed the battle, and
reconstructed it piece by piece, covering the dramatic ark of the battle, in
its entirety, in a clear linear narrative, which is easily followed, and never
once overwhelms the reader.
ISBN 978-0679735427, Vintage, 1991 Edition, ©1952,
Paperback, 240 pages, 1 Map. $15.95
