'Leaves Must Be Green in Spring'

The Battle of Malvern Hill was fought near Richmond, Va., the capital of the Confederacy, on July 1, 1862. Not as well remembered as Antietam or Gettysburg, it was the last of the Seven Days Battles in the Peninsula Campaign, and prompted Confederate General Daniel H. Hill to say: “It was not war -- it was murder.” Union artillery from its position on the hilltop slaughtered General Robert E. Lee’s troops. Confederate casualties in one day of fighting totaled some 5,550; Union, about 3,000. In a grim twist, Union General George B. McClellan and his forces, despite the victory, retreated to Harrison’s Landing on the James River and Richmond remained securely behind Confederate lines until the war was nearly concluded, almost three years later. Herman Melville’s “Malvern Hill” was included in his Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866). The poem is a dialogue between a Union soldier and the elm trees standing on the battlefield. It is notably unromantic and unconsoling: “Ah wilds of…