Shiloh--In Hell Before Night

the long version

"If you want to know what it was like to be caught up in a confused Civil War battle complete with a 100,000-man cast, inept generals, missed opportunities, and grim humor amid suffering and death, here is your chance. McDonough has done a fine job of research which, for all that, recaptures the agony of Shiloh ("A place of peace") in twelve highly readable chapters...The author's special skill, however, is his use of revealing, perceptive quotes from the mouths of the participants so as to make this controversial slaughter come alive over a century later." -- The Virginia Quarterly Review.