the Scribner series of
"Campaigns of the Civil War," is good.
But no study of the battle can be complete without the aid of General
Buell's articles in the Century Magazine, and the maps of the field,
which he has so carefully prepared.
What were the results of this first great battle of the war? Its
influence upon the gigantic contest which was to be waged for three
years longer was probably not great. It was too near a drawn battle.
But if it was necessary to demonstrate to the world and to ourselves
the courage of our people, that generations of peace and peaceful
pursuits had not one whit lessened the force or the enthusiasm of the
race that peopled this Western Continent, then here was demonstration
the most positive.
The people of the South for the first time realized the nature of the
conflict they had provoked. Until this campaign, the great mass of the
Southerners could not be made to believe that the students and farmers
and mechanics and merchants of the North loved their country and its
institutions more than they loved the gains of peace; nay, more than
they loved their lives. They saw here an army of young men representing
their kindred of the North, fighting, not for their own homes and
firesides, but for the perpetuity of the Nation, with a courage and
pertinacity which showed that this generation was resolved to transmit
what it had received from the fathers of the country. They saw this
army attacked at every disadvantage, rally at the call of a chief
worthy of it, and who was a type of its character and its lofty
motives, and then bravely endure a storm unparalleled on this
continent.
The thousands of youthful dead left on that bloody battlefield
demonstrated that we have a country and a race worthy to take the lead
in the march of human advancement.
WARREN OLNEY.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier, by
Warren Olney
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