As the subtitle suggests, Herman Melville honors the dead in this "Requiem", both blue and gray, who fought at the Battle of Shiloh, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Melville writes a modernized poem for the time period and, both in tone and sentiment, Melville gives the fatally wounded the opportunity to overcome their malice. Americans all, they live as foe and die as friends: the schisms of civil war are healed in deaths which transform churchyard into graveyard. That the battlefield should have been a site of Christian worship emphasizes the appalling costs of this killing of brothers as well as the possibilities for its redress. Through an American perspective of the Civil War on the frontier, Melville exemplifies the cruelty of war through symbolism, structure, and literary technique and has managed to transform a painful experience into one that is peaceful.
             Although the symbolism of this poem addresses the brutality of war in general, the poem is still a very American work. Shiloh is a "forest-field" (line 4), a piece of land cleared so recently that it is still trying to return to its previous state. The church is "log-built" (line 10), architecture specifically associated with the American frontier. The church is also "lone" (line 10), isolated from any other buildings, farms, or traces of civilization. Like America was largely left alone during its bitter struggle, the church and those who suffered there are profoundly isolated inside the now-silent church, suggesting the abandonment of even God through America's bitter struggle amongst brothers. This silence is a recurring theme that is addressed in each the first and last lines of the poem through the medium of the swallows flying overhead. They do not chirp or sing in their individual calls, instead they are "skimming" and "wheeling" through the air without sound. This silence is part ...