A programmatic Civil War era piece designed to convey the mood of a retreat. It relies on simple harmonic shifts and rhythmic repetition to tell a musical story.
Use careful voicing to highlight the melody while keeping the 'retreating' accompaniment steady and subdued.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Beauregard's Retreat from Shiloh is rated Henle level 3 of 9 — late beginner repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 4–5. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 4.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 3 — meaning you can already play level 2–3 pieces cleanly. Learning it one level early is possible as a stretch piece, but more than that usually leads to months of frustration.
A typical performance of Beauregard's Retreat from Shiloh lasts about 3 minutes.
Beauregard's Retreat from Shiloh is available as free public-domain sheet music on IMSLP — the score is linked directly from this page.
Pieces at a comparable difficulty and character include 'Who Knows?' by Ernest Roland Ball, Canto del Bardo by José Ferrer, Blumenklage by Gustav Lange — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.