Shiloh: In Hell before Night

Colorful, dramatic, blundering, and tragic – these are some of the adjectives that have been applied to the two-day engagement at Shiloh. This battle, which bears the biblical name meaning “place of peace,” was one of the bloodiest encounters of the Civil War. The Union colonel, whose words give the present book its title, foretold the losses when he told his men: “Fill your canteens Boys! Some of you will be in hell before night….”

Fought in the early spring of 1862 on the west bank of…