My great great grandfather, John G. Windsor, died on April 25, 1862. He was 31 years old. His death was the cause of wounds suffered at the Battle of Shiloh a few weeks before. That battle was critical in turning the tide of the Civil War and opened the door for the North to invade the South. It also made a hero of Ulysses S. Grant and catapulted him to national fame.

Sadly, great great grandpa was on the wrong side of history during that battle. He was with the Alabama 25th Infantry, and he died protecting what he must have thought was a great cause. I’m hoping he’s in heaven so I can ask him about it someday.

That’s one reason why I picked up the book Shiloh, 1862 by Winston Groom. The author is known for his keen insights into the nuances of a great battle and this recent effort is no exception. The years, months, weeks, days and even hours before the battle are the backdrop Groom uses to build to the suddenness of a Confederate attack on the Union forces on April 5, 1862. And then the book gets really good and describes the events that defined the battle.

Told from the perspective of individuals, this is not a book about battle strategy. Or at least not so much that it feels like a textbook. This is a book that has personality and you begin to sense the characters involved, the people who fought and died in two days of pitched battle. How pitched? In the two days of the battle, more Americans died than in all previous American wars combined.

The Battle of Shiloh was exactly 150-years ago last month. John G. Windsor was just a foot soldier, a man doing his duty. He had a wife and family at home on his farm in Alabama. He died in Corinth, Mississippi, as the Confederate Army was encircled by Union troops.

Needless to say, the book is personal for me. But even if it wasn’t, this is a very good book that brings alive a critical moment in American history. You’ll enjoy it.