The Battle of Shiloh
Following the battles of Fort Donelson and Mill Springs, Confederate
forces began to fall back to Corinth, Miss. to protect the shipping
yards of the Memphis-Charleston Railroad. Along with the soldiers,
were numerous officials and representatives of Tennessee’s
Confederate government. Under the command of General A. Sidney
Johnston and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, the Confederates began
concentrating their forces in Corinth, Miss.
The Army of the Ohio under the command of General Don Buell
was steaming south on the Tennessee River with two goals. One
was to cut the railroad lines in order to prevent supplies from
reaching the Confederates and to also start preparations for
an assault on Corinth, Miss.
Federal forces under the command of Generals C.F. Smith and
William T. Sherman, moved south of Pittsburg Landing, but, finding
the countryside flooded from Spring rains, decided to retire
to the landing and muster the men a couple miles away from it
at Shiloh Methodist Church.
General Smith decided to remain in nearby Savannah and establish
it as a command post. When Gen. U.S. Grant was restored to command
of the Union forces, he quickly made his way to Savannah and
started mustering the army around Pittsburg Landing to prepare
for the march to Mississippi.
By March 20, 1862, Union forces were established in the Pittsburg
Landing region. Union intelligence showed no major Confederate
activity and acting on it Grant and Sherman decided not to fortify
the Landing with earthworks. Troops continued to arrive at the
site and were positioned around the area with no thought of
an attack by Confederate forces.
It would prove to be one of the bloodiest errors made in the
War Between the States.
While reports of a Confederate cavalry buildup several miles
to the front were reported April 4 to Union officers, Sherman
wrote Grant a day later about his condition.
"All is quiet along my lines now," wrote Sherman."
We are in the act of exchanging cavalry according to your order.
The enemy has cavalry in our front and I think there are two
regiments and one battery six miles out."
The same day Sherman ordered one of his regiments to cut a road
and bridge a creek for the Army’s march to Corinth, Miss.
Later in the day Sherman dispatched another message to Grant.
"I have no doubt nothing will occur today more than some
picket-firing," wrote Sherman. "I do not apprehend
anything resembling an attack on my position."
General Grant telegraphed General Halleck with Sherman’s
information.
"I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack being made
upon us, but will be prepared should such a thing take place,"
said Grant’s telegram. "It is my present intention
to send General Nelson’s and General Buell’s men to
Hamburg, some four miles above Pittsburg when they all get here.
From that point to Corinth the road is good and a junction can
be formed with the troops from Pittsburg at almost any Point."
Later that day Grant telegraphed Buell telling him the enemy
troop strength at Corinth was around 60,000 to 80,000.
While Federal officers were interchanging opinions on enemy
strengths and movements, the Confederate leaders were not missing
the Union’s moves in and around Pittsburg Landing.
The Confederate Army had marched from Corinth on April 3 expecting
to attack two days later, but heavy storms delayed the proposed
attack until Sunday morning on April 6. Union sentries and subordinate
officers saw the enemy buildup and informed central command
only to have the information discredited by General Sherman.
This meant no orders were given to medical, ordinance, quartermaster,
or commissary officers that an attack was pending. The Union
was not aware that General A.S. Johnston’s entire army
was close to the front awaiting daylight to begin the attack.
Sherman had strengthened the pickets, but nothing was done that
even suspected an enemy force was building on the front.
On the morning of April 6, 1862 while General Grant was eating
breakfast in Savannah, the Confederate forces opened fire on
the Union Army and engaged the battle.
The Union was caught completely off-guard. Confederate General
Hardee’s men pushed the Union picket’s back opening
a hole that Confederate forces hit on the run. With Union soldiers
still encamped and preparing for early-morning drills, no central
command could be established on a battle line. Close to 10,000
Union troops dropped their rifles and ran away from the well-ordered
Confederate troops. Some Union officers managed to hold their
men together and began to mount a resistance to the assault.
The battle was fierce and bloody.
Union General Lew Wallace had pulled his men together on an
old roadbed and started laying down a field of fire that was
forever remembered as "the hornet’s nest". Around
lunchtime, the Confederates were dealt a serious blow when General
A.S. Johnston was struck in the leg by a bullet. With his saddle
covered in blood, his men tore off his shirt to find the wound.
They never thought to look at his thigh where the bullet had
penetrated the femoral artery. He died within thirty minutes
in the arms of Tennessee Governor Isham Harris and became the
highest-ranking officer killed in combat. Command of the Confederate
forces fell to General P.G.T. Beauregard. There was a lull in
the battle due to the transfer of command, but, by 5 p.m., Confederate
forces were pushing Grant’s troops back towards the Tennessee
River and coming close to claiming a victory.
When night fell, Confederate forces were scattered across the
battlefield. Col. Nathan B. Forrest had acquired Union uniforms
and sent his men into the enemy lines where he learned of General
Buell’s reinforcements on a forced march to the battlefield.
The thirty thousand troops would spell disaster for the Confederate
forces. The scattered command, however, prevented Forrest from
getting the information to the generals to warn them of the
advancing troops. His warnings of disaster went unheeded.
During the uneasy silence on the battlefield, a thunderstorm
had lit the night sky with an image of horror long remembered
by the troops on both sides. Wild pigs had discovered the carnage
of the battle and were raiding the field where the dead and
dying laid. Too afraid to fire at them for fear of starting
another round of combat, the men helplessly watched the animals
eat the remains of their comrades.
When dawn broke the next morning, the fighting resumed. The
Union with 30,000 fresh troops and their ability to shell the
Confederates from the steamships pushed them back in a vicious
counter-attack. The Confederates lost the ground they had captured
and led General P.G.T. Beauregard to order the troops to fall
back to Corinth and protect the railroad.
General Sherman was ordered after the retreating troops. He
got his first taste of combat against Forrest who, covering
the southern retreat, successfully beat the Union General back
towards the battlefield.
The Union forces were stopped cold at Shiloh and were unable
to advance to Corinth. They stayed encamped at the site for
weeks following the battle. An exhaustive military inquiry was
done by the Federals to investigate why the Union failed to
fortify their encampment and allow the Confederates to attack
without warning the troops.
Union casualties at the Battle of Shiloh were 13,047 and Confederate
losses totaled 10,694. The two-day battle cost the lives of
more men than America had lost in any war to that date. The
battle proved to leaders on both sides that it would not be
a quick and easy war.
The men who fought at Shiloh on both sides regarded it as one
of the bloodiest battles in history. The alumni involved in
the conflict would go on to become some of the most respected
men in history. U.S. Grant and James Garfield would go on to
become President of the United States. General Lew Wallace would
later serve as Governor of New Mexico and pen the novel "Ben
Hur". Among the Confederates, was a young corporal named
Henry Morton Stanley who would go on to trek through the wilds
of Africa and find Dr. Livingston. He would be elected to Parliament
and eventually knighted by Queen Victoria for his service to
Britain.
In 1866, the United States government established the Shiloh
National Cemetery. It contains the remains of 1,227 known and
2,416 unknown Union dead recovered from the battlefield and
other wartime graves along the lower Tennessee River Valley.
The cemetery would continue to serve as a National Cemetery
as a final resting place for American veterans in wars since,
including the grave of former Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton.
The Confederate dead from the battles were gathered from the
woods and fields and buried in trenches. Five of the sites are
marked, but historians believe others exist that haven’t
been found.
The park was officially established on Dec. 27, 1894. Shiloh
National Military National Military Park was officially consolidated
into the National Park System in 1933. In the 1930s, a gardener
uncovered human remains believed to be a casualty of the battle.
It would prove to be another footnote in the Battle of Shiloh.
Scientists later discovered the remains were that of a female
and determined the musket ball in her side was the injury that
killed her. The "Jane Doe" is the only known female
to be killed in the battle of Shiloh. During the War Between
the States, women were commonplace on the battlefield. Many
worked as nurses and in other support positions in both Union
and Confederate armies. In addition, generals and officers would
often take their wives or mistresses into battle zones.
Today Shiloh National Military Park encompasses over 3,960 acres
and protects 96 percent of the battlefield proper. The park
contains 151 commemorative monuments, 600 troop markers, and
over 200 cannons from the War Between the States.
If you would like more information on the Battle of Shiloh,
a score of books are available on the subject. Shiloh National
Military Park is opened daily and a small admission fee is required.
Rangers provide programs on weekends in the spring and fall,
and daily in the summer. These programs include walks, talks,
and demonstrations, which provide an in-depth understanding
of the battle and its impact on American history. Shiloh United
Methodist Church is an active congregation and privately owned,
but visitors are allowed and welcomed onto the church grounds,
which includes a small cemetery.
Shiloh National Military Park made national headlines in the
1990s when rising waters on the Tennessee River partially destroyed
a 1,500 year old Mississippian Indian mound and a causeway that
ran along the battlefield to the site. The Mississippian village
is a little known archaeological wonder of the Park. The isolation
of the Park near Savannah made it difficult to attract media
organizations to the plight of the erosion problem.
For more information on Shiloh National Military Park, you can
call the park at (901) 689-5696.
