SHILOH BATTLEFIELD

While we have been awaiting the completion of repairs to our transmission, we have not sat idle by.  Rather, we have taken advantage of the very inexpensive use of the Grand Harbor Marina courtesy car to travel around this beautiful countryside to visit certain sites of significance or of interest.  We have traveled as far north as Savannah, Tennessee, as far west as Memphis, Tennessee, and as far south as Tupelo, Mississippi.  We have learned much about this part of our great country.  However, one of the more intriguing things we have learned was of the Civil War action that took place just a few miles north of us at Shiloh.  Here's the story.  Entire books have been written of this battle, so I will cover it generally here so the gist is taken fairly away.

Outside of Savannah, Tennessee in a little corner of the state known as Pickwick Landing, on 4200 acres overlooking the Tennessee River, sits the site of the Civil War's first, and perhaps bloodiest, major battle in the western theater. 

The battle took place on April 6th and 7th, 1862 at Shiloh.  It was also known as The Battle of Pittsburg Landing.  This battle represented a serious test of General U.S. Grant's mettle as a commander and as a man.  While thousands of men died here, this is also the place where the highest ranking American ever killed in combat died, General Albert Sidney Johnston. 

Both Union and Confederate commanders realized that the key to the West was the rail center in Corinth, Mississippi, less than 50 miles to the southwest. Thus, large contingents of both armies were headed that way.  But, before they got to Corinth, their destinies declared they would meet first in Shiloh.

The battle began on April 6, 1862 when a platoon sized contingent of Federal soldiers was out on patrol in the early morning hours.  You could say their encounter with the Confederates was like walking into or stepping on a bee hive.  With no warning, out of their hiding places stormed a massive group of Confederates who came smashing down upon and wiped out the Federal patrol at daybreak on April 6. The rest of the Confederate soldiers soon stormed out of the woods and assailed the forward Federal camps around Shiloh Church. Grant and his nearly 40,000 men present for duty were surprised by the onslaught.

Despite having achieved surprise, The Confederate troops led by General Albert Sydney Johnston soon became just as disorganized as the Federals.  They were inexperienced and had not received any real training as soldiers.  As a result, the Confederate attack lost coordination as corps, divisions, and brigades became irretrievably entangled. The Federals soon rallied, however, and bitter fighting consumed “Shiloh Hill.”

This is the Shiloh Meeting House, the log Methodist Church that gave the battle its name

Throughout the morning, however, Confederate brigades slowly gained ground, forcing Grant's troops to give way.  The day's fighting could be accurately described as a series or succession of defensive stands at a series of locations on the battle field all the way back to where General Grant made his last stand of the day before hostilities concluded that afternoon.  These locations included Shiloh Church, the Peach Orchard, Water Oaks Pond, and an impenetrable oak thicket battle survivors named "the Hornets' Nest."

The Hornet's Nest

During all the fighting at Pitsburg Landing, America lost one of her most acclaimed sons. In the middle of the afternoon, as he supervised an assault on the Union's left flank, General Albert Sydney Johnston was struck in the right leg by a stray bullet.  Apparently, an artery took the brunt of the hit, and General Johnston bled to death. According to reports prepared after the fighting, the wound itself was not fatal.  But, General Johnston refused to leave his men or mount, and continued to lead on horseback.  Ultimately, he became too weak, had to be removed from his horse, and bled to death in the mud at Shiloh.  He was the highest ranking American soldier ever to die in battle.  Johnston's death left General P.G.T. Beauregard in command of the Confederate army.

By the end of the first day, General Grant's battered divisions had been pushed quite a ways back from where they started that faithful day.  Fighting ended at nightfall (around 4:30 pm) and General Grant's armies retired to a position extending west from Pittsburg Landing where massed artillery and rugged ravines protected their front and sides. During the night, something happened that changed the face of this conflict.

Bloody Pond:  Throughout the battle, soldiers of both sides came here to drink and bathe their wounds.  Both men and horses died at the pond, their blook staining the water red.

Duncan Field - Union Troops defended this position for seven hours on April 6 before finally giving ground.  They retook it in the counter attack the next day.

The artillery along this ridge marks the final position of Grant's line on April 6.  From this front, the Federals launched their counterattach on April 7.

Rhea Field - Exposed to converging fire from the Federal troops defending Shiloh Church, Confederate units here sustained devastating losses in repeated attachs across Shiloh Branch on April 6.  The 6th Mississippi Infantry suffered 70% casualties.

Ruggles' Battery - When infantry attacks failed against the Hornet's Nest (the location where parts of three Federal Divisions stubbornly defended themselves, and so called because of the stinging shot and shell they faced there), the Confederates concentrated 11 batteries of artillery to bombard the position, allowing their infantry to encircle and capture General Benjamin Prentis and nearly 2100 Union soldiers.

General Grant described the night as follows: 

"During the night rain fell in torrents, and our troops were exposed to the storm without shelter. I made my headquarters under a tree a few hundred yards back from the river bank. My ankle was so much swollen from the fall of my horse the Friday night preceding, and the bruise was so painful, that I could get no rest. The drenching rain would have precluded the possibility of sleep, without this additional cause. Some time after midnight, growing restive under the storm and the continuous pain, I moved back to the log house on the bank. This had been taken as a hospital, and all night wounded men were being brought in, their wounds dressed, a leg or an arm amputated, as the case might require, and everything being done to save life or alleviate suffering. The sight was more unendurable than encountering the rebel fire, and I returned to my tree in the rain."  The Battle of Shiloh by U. S. Grant, From The Century Magazine, Vol. XXIX, Feb., 1885

Dill Branch Ravine:  Wooden US Gunboats, Lexington and tyler, anchored opposite the mouth of Dill Branch to support General Grant's defense of Pittsburg Landing.  These naval assets lobbed shells into Confederate positions all night long, every 15 minutes.  You can only imagine what effect that had on the moral of the Southerners.

Pittsburg landing - General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio arrived here on the night of April 6-7 to reinforce Grant.

The Union reinforcements arrived all night long and crossed the river at Pittsburg Landing down by Dill Branch Ravine.  Confederate General Beauregard was totally unaware of the arrival of these reinforcements.  He was probably having breakfast planning to finish off Grant and his army when, much to his suprise, it was Grant and his Army that counterattacked first thing in the morning.  The fight was on again.  Unfortunately, now the Confederates were badly outnumbered by fresh Union troops and equipment.
Throughout the day, the combined Union armies, now numbering over 54,500 men, hammered Beauregard's depleted ranks, now mustering barely 34,000 troops.  The Confederates were outmanned and out gunned.  Union soldiers skillfully employed artillery in a number of configurations including morter barges, big guns firing exploding shells, and big guns firing grape shot.  Clearly, the Northerners used all destructive means at their disposal to push the Confederates all the way back to, and beyond, the point where hostilities began the previous day.

Despite mounting desperate counterattacks, the exhausted Confederates could not stem the flow of the Union tide and were forced all the way back to Shiloh Church.  Beauregard, not wanting to lose all of his army, skillfully withdrew his outnumbered command and returned to Corinth. Fortunately, Grant saw things similarly and did not press the pursuit. The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, was over. 

General Grant describes the field of battle:
"Shiloh was the most severe battle fought at the West during the war, and but few in the East equaled it for hard, determined fighting. I saw an open field, in our possession on the second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the day before, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing, in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground. On our side Federal and Confederate were mingled together in about equal proportions; but on the remainder of the field nearly all were Confederates. On one part, which had evidently not been plowed for several years, probably because the land was poor, bushes had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten feet. There was not one of these left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all cut down."  (Ibid.)

In his post battle report, General U.S. Grant stated the following:

"The Confederates fought with courage at Shiloh, but the particular skill claimed I could not, and still cannot, see; though there is nothing to criticise except the claims put forward for it since. But the Confederate claimants for superiority in strategy, superiority in generalship, and superiority in dash and prowess are not so unjust to the Federal troops engaged at Shiloh as are many Northern writers. The troops on both sides were American, and united they need not fear any foreign foe."  (Ibid.)

23,746 men lost their lives in two days of bloody battle on the fields of Shiloh in 1862. Many, many thousands more were wounded, and many were missing. At the time, Shiloh was both the bloodiest day and the bloodiest two days in American history. And never forget, these were Americans fighting against Americans.

That's all for now......Actually, that's more than enough.