Speaker
The speaker of the poem takes on a pseudo-objective voice, offering commentary that gives the appearance of being that of a third-person narrator. For the majority of the poem, the speaker appears concerned with questions surrounding the commonality found in wartime suffering. That said, there are certain shifts that occur, namely in the way that their focus begins in the sky with the image of swallows before delving into the plight of the soldiers. It is reasonable to assume the speaker is a stand-in for Melville, given his humanist tone and lack of alternative backstory.
The Soldiers
Melville paints a brief but striking composite portrait of the soldiers who died at Shiloh. They began the day consumed with their commitment to a cause, and by night are reaching out for comfort, no longer constricted or concerned with geographical or political division. As such, they are never described with names, colors or markers of any sort. This dissolution of identity in the text encapsulates the poem's central ideas surrounding individuality and war. It is a stark and powerful tale, possessing the narrative intensity of a short story.
