Herman Melville 
Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War 

Poems by the author of Moby Dick. He explains, ‘With few exceptions, the Pieces in this volume originated in an impulse imparted by the fall of Richmond. They were composed without reference to collective arrangement, but being brought together in review,

naturally fall into the order assumed. The events and incidents of the conflict—making up a whole, in varied amplitude, corresponding with the geographical area covered by the

war—from these but a few themes have been taken, such as for any cause

chanced to imprint themselves upon the mind. The aspects which the strife as a memory assumes are as manifold as are the moods of involuntary meditation—moods variable, and at times widely at variance. Yielding instinctively, one after another, to feelings not

inspired from any one source exclusively, and unmindful, without purposing to be, of consistency…’