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Shiloh

By Shelby Foote
Shiloh This fictional re creation of the battle of Shiloh in April fulfills the standard set by his monumental history conveying both the bloody choreography of two armies and the movements of the comb

  • Title: Shiloh
  • Author: Shelby Foote
  • ISBN: 9780679735427
  • Page: 217
  • Format: Paperback

    • This fictional re creation of the battle of Shiloh in April 1862 fulfills the standard set by his monumental history, conveying both the bloody choreography of two armies and the movements of the combatants hearts and minds.

    • Unlimited Shiloh - by Shelby Foote
      217 Shelby Foote
    Shiloh

    About Author

    1. Shelby Foote says:
      Shelby Dade Foote, Jr was an American novelist and a noted historian of the American Civil War, writing a massive, three volume history of the war entitled The Civil War A Narrative With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta, Foote s life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the Old South to the Civil Rights era of the New South Foote was relatively unknown to the general public for most of his career until his appearance in Ken Burns s PBS documentary The Civil War in 1990, where he introduced a generation of Americans to a war that he believed was central to all our lives.

    Comment 174 on “Shiloh”

    1. Bob Mayer says:
      I read this as part of my research for a series on West Point graduates in the Civil War I remember Shelby Foote from his appearances on Ken Burns Civil War mini series which I ve watched untold number of times Shiloh was a particularly bloody battle and Foote captures the feelings and essence of it What s most unique about this book is how he changes point of view from the various soldiers on both sides You truly get a feeling for it.Visiting the battlefield a couple of years ago, it was intere [...]
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    2. Francisco says:
      If you like Shelby Foote the man, his slow Southern drawl, his humor and scholarship all wrapped up in one, you ll like this book Truth and beauty at their single hearted best Books like this make my heart beat faster, they take my breath away.
      Reply

    3. Stenwjohnson says:
      Shelby Foote s novel Shiloh was published in 1952, but Civil War aficionados will notice a striking technical similarity to Michael Shaara s 1974 Gettysburg novel The Killer Angels Since Foote belatedly gained his largest audience after his participation in Ken Burns Civil War series in 1990, many readers will have experienced Shaara s novel first Both recreate the events of major Civil War battles through shifting, multiple narrators, with Shaara s focused on the broader historical record, rely [...]
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    4. Steve says:
      The battle of Shiloh was fought early in the war, the troops were undisciplined, the terrain difficult due to creeks, swamps, underbrush and deadfalls Foote captures all of these details, and , in a relatively short book For a historical novel, that can be a bit dicey, since the novelist is wrapping a lot of details in some fictional gauze At points, historical details can start to poke through, shredding the intended fiction This occurs a few times in Shiloh, but Foote s a fine writer, and for [...]
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    5. DROPPING OUT says:
      I was introduced to this book almost 50 years ago, when I was at a summer program for teenagers at the University of Rhode Island I cannot say today that I enjoyed it, for after having just read it now, I do not see how I could have understood much of it.It is hard to fathom that Foote s fictionalized battle of Shiloh appeared almost 60 years ago But Foote had been in World War II and he was writing for a generation that had lived through that war Looking back on the umpteen war novels I have re [...]
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    6. Nate says:
      I read the first volume of Foote s The Civil War A Narrative earlier this year and was stunned by what a titanic work it was, not just in its scope but in its detail and propulsive readability on every single page After a quick reread to refresh myself on the progression of the war up to the end of the first volume I ll be diving into the second volume and I thought reading this relatively short novel would be a good way to whet my appetite It did, but not particularly in the way I had imagined [...]
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    7. Jim says:
      Shelby Foote is the author of the magnificent three volume The Civil War A Narrative He also wrote a historical novel about the Battle of Shiloh with Shiloh This is a pointillist work, looking at the battle from the point of view of four Confederate and three Union participants, based on actual historical records There are interesting portraits of Albert Sidney Johnston killed early in the battle , Ulysses S Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and most of all Nathan Bedford Forrest, the most brilli [...]
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    8. Paul says:
      This is a classic Civil War novel, and I thought that it lived up to that reputation According to Foote, he wrote this novel with the battle itself as the protagonist, and the characters in the story are combatants from both sides, ranging from lowly privates who are still wet behind the ears to high ranking officers.The novel consists of some fictional characters, but the author a renowned historian of the Civil War uses diaries and official histories particularly where historical participants [...]
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    9. Michael says:
      I finished reading Mr Foote s book a few hours before visiting the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park in Georgia Although I did not plan it that way, I could not have picked a fitting occasion As my friend Mike and I walked the grounds of the battlefields at Kennesaw Mountain and nearby Cheatham Hill, Shiloh was very much on my mind Mr Foote s first person accounts of the action in and around Shiloh, Tennessee in the spring of 1862 brought the protagonists to life Although Shiloh is a [...]
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    10. Joyce says:
      Shelby Foote the author, not to be confused with his cousin, Horton Foote, screenplay author and playwright, was unknown to me until the Civil War series on PBS He impressed me as charming, intelligent and knowledgeable so I was pleased to find his book Shiloh recently at a thrift store This story of the Battle of Shiloh, named for a local chapel, is told in the first person by a both Yankee and Rebel soldiers who participated in the battle Ironically, Shiloh means heavenly place but this place [...]
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    11. Steve Woods says:
      I read my first accounts of the Civil war some time ago Stephen Crane s classic The Red Badge of Courage when I was quite young and Stephen Sears account of Antietam Landscape Turned Red when I was on attachment from the Australian Army to the US Army Office of Military History in 1986 My counterpart, a Civil War buff, kindly took me to the battlefield, organised and early entry with the Parks Service and we walked the battle throughout that day That was probably one of the most poignant and sur [...]
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    12. Theo Logos says:
      The essence of Shelby Foote s book Shiloh is summed up by one of his narrators, Corporal Blake, who speaking to the men in his squad says, books about war were written to be read by God Almighty, because no one but God ever saw it that way A book about war, to be read by men, ought to tell what each of the twelve of us saw in our own little corner Then it would be the way it was not to God but to us Shiloh is definitely a man s eye view of the battle every chapter consisting of first person acco [...]
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    13. Bill Rogers says:
      Shelby Foote is one of the great writers of our time I know him for his history writing, specifically The Civil War, his massive and masterful three volume history of the war that defined the United States of America Before he wrote that, though, he was a novelist His 1952 novel Shiloh did much to make his reputation, both as a novelist and a historian.Historical novels run the gamut from costume novels 900 interminable pages of the worthless Scarlett O Hara agonizing that she doesn t have a new [...]
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    14. Bap says:
      In 1952, Shelby Foote, wrote this historical novel before he turned to narrative history in the grandest style in his magisterial three volume account of the civil war In this slender novel, Foote, writes in six segments an account of the battle as it progresses from the view point of three confederates and three union soldiers A near confederate victory became a federal victory when union reinforcements arrived after the first day of battle It captures the fog of war and the intensity of combat [...]
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    15. Keith Currie says:
      Foote s short novel is centred round the battle of Shiloh It is based on the as it were reports of a number of participants in the battle from both the Union and the Confederate sides The novel strives for as close to historical accuracy as is possible and provides a template for other novels based on Civil war battles, most famously The Killer Angels While there is clearly a mild bias towards the confederacy in the book especially with regard to the talents of Forrest , what I found most person [...]
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    16. C. Scott says:
      Shelby Foote is without question my favorite part of Ken Burns s Civil War series If you feel the same way this is the Shelby Foote book you should read first.Shiloh has so many great moments mentioned in the film Albert Sydney Johnston saying Tonight we will water our horses in the Tennessee River, a rumpled U.S Grant chatting with Sherman under a tree on Sunday night Well Grant, we ve had the devil s own day, haven t we Yes Lick em tomorrow, though, and of course Nathan Bedford Forrest s solo [...]
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    17. Grace says:
      Shelby Foote s Shiloh A Novel is a unique telling of the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 during America s Civil War Told from the perspective of six different soldiers from both north and south, the reader can glimpse into lives of Civil War soldiers heading into battle The sense of urgency, the mounting fear, and the human and animal carnage are vividly portrayed It is difficult to walk away from reading this book without mental images of battlefields full of dead soldiers, mass graves, and the [...]
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    18. Jeff says:
      This story was set at the battle of Shiloh which at the time was the bloodiest battle ever fought by the United States The story follows several people in both the Union and Confederate armies and gives a description of the two days of battle from different view points It was a fascinating story and very gripping The one complaint that I had was that I had a hard time following all of the characters because there were so many I also felt that the author may have been a little biased to the south [...]
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    19. Jim Martin says:
      This is the novel that launched a 1,000 pages of prose If you have not read Foote s The Civil War, or any of its components that have been published since the 1990s, and want to find out if it is worth the time and effort to do so you could do worse than to start with this work The novel mainly recounts the action of the two day battle, and provides us the thoughts of the common soldier and junior officers The chaos and uncertainty of the battle are aptly portrayed and at the end we know, along [...]
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    20. Chris says:
      A great book by a great writer Written in 1952 it is surprisingly really, REALLY graphic The book tells the story of the battle of Shiloh in April 1862 Instead of following one character through the entire book each chapter is told from the point of view of a different person or in one case a squad from the Union and Cofederate armies It usually takes me 1.5 to 2 weeks to read a book, but this one I finished in just over three night Great stuff.
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    21. Shirley Brown says:
      This was a pretty graphic story of the battle at Shiloh, as told by officers and illiterate foot soldiers, heroes and cowards I think this is the most personal, bloody description of this two day battle It s easy to tell that Mr Foote had done his research, as his descriptions of the lay of the land and trails and roads, hills, etc are well defined I think Mr Foote is known as an expert on the Civil War I enjoyed this short story.
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    22. Mike Montesa says:
      Shelby Foote is the guy you saw doing all that great commentary in Ken Burns The Civil War His massive three volume history of the Civil War is brilliant, but his much slimmer fictional account of the battle of Shiloh, one of the Civil War s greatest slaughters, is really good It tells the story through the eyes of the participants, none of whom can see the big pictures The characters are in turns shocked, exhilarated, stunned, and finally left wondering just what the hell just happened.
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    23. Phillip Bryant says:
      Foote breaks the battle down into its parts, taking different characters to describe their specific role and dealing with other issues of the war like slavery and secession, abolitionism and union Foote covers the few days before and after the battle drawing its prelude drama and its aftermath in the cost of human lives.
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    24. M Carmichael says:
      a pleasure to read foote is our modern homer
      Reply

    25. Thomas Moriarty says:
      Thomas Moriarty 824 Winter break post ELA 8th Grade Vacation Homework We have been hard at work on many different things right now Over break, I would like you to continue working, but rest a little too Here is what I expect you will be able to do in a week in order to keep your minds working Read Every day You should be able to finish an entire book over break Personally, I will read at LEAST two, so I know you can read one as well Post your review of the book you finish on For extra credit, co [...]
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    26. Alex says:
      Obviously Foote is a superb writer, and Shiloh is well done, but it also fits a niche that I m not certain exists Why read the narratives of fictional soldiers written a century later when we have the diaries of actual Civil War soldiers Assuming that one will read a limited number of books about the Civil War, I recommend Foote s Narrative instead, which is obviously much, much longer but also factual and written in an approachable style If one is diving deep into Civil War literature or lookin [...]
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    27. Bob Harris says:
      Okay read but not what I was looking for.
      Reply

    28. Diane says:
      Wonderful Civil War novel about the battle at Shiloh, the death of Johnston, the terrible two days in April, told by soldiers on each side.
      Reply

    29. Bil says:
      I read this the same week that I visited the Shiloh battlefield, and it s a great companion to the high level stories of the officers and the tactics.
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    30. Bob says:
      Characters from the the Confederate and Union forces comment on the experience.
      Reply

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