This Confederate dedicated monument on the Shiloh Battlefield dipicts the South handing the Laurel Wreath of Victory back to Death and Night.
Nestled quitely together on the west bank of the Tennessee River about nine miles south of Savanna Tennessee can be found the enduring
remains of mans struggle with nature and with himself. Somewhere close to 1000
years ago native American people constructed here some type of ceramonial center. (see
archaeology ) The earthen Mounds
seen here in the photo is what is left of an embankment that was, perhaps, part of the border or enclosure of the center. Some people have speculated that these mounds were built as a tribute to a God, or Gods whos name has been lost to history. closeby these ancient mounds can be seen more earthen mounds built up by the hands of modern man.
Though these mounds are now sunken, their contents having long since decayed, they
are yet here as a constant reminder of the terrible costs of our Civil War. These recent mounds were not constructed with any of the legendary Gods
of history in mind, they were built for the Gods of War.
And they were build using the flesh and blood of 24,000 men, all Americans.
This place is Shiloh, Tennessee, and here was fought a great battle, part of a desperate struggle for the soul of this nation. Shiloh is Hebrew for Place of Peace. As historian Shelby Foote noted regarding the battle of Shiloh:
"The Union losses at Shiloh were more than the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War -- combined."
The two-day battle involved about 65,000 Union and 44,000 Confederate troops. This battle resulted in nearly 24,000 killed, wounded, and missing. see The Lady Soldier of Shiloh
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Confederate General Johnston, aware that Union Generals Don Carlos Buell and General U. S. Grant would soon be joining forces at Shiloh, he began
concentrating forces at
Corinth,
Mississippi, which lays
only a short distance south of Shiloh, Tennessee. Johnston's plan was to attack and destroy
General Grant's Army of the Tennessee before General Buell's Army of
the Ohio could arrive to reinforce him. On April 2, 1862, Johnston began
his march from Corinth, and as one Confederate soldier put it,
"The roads were meandering cow paths,"
During the winter of 1861-62 Federal forces pushing southward from St. Louis captured Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. This action forced Gen. Johnston to abandon southern Kentucky and much of West and Middle Tennessee. After withdrawing further south, he established a new line covering the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, the only all-weather link between Richmond and Memphis. Realizing that he could not wait for another Federal advance, Johnston began concentrating forces at Corinth, Mississippi,
where he hoped to take the offensive and destroy General Grant's Army of the Tennessee before it could
be joined by General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio.
Meanwhile, at the Union camp at Shiloh, the Federals troops spent a day drilling and
merry-making. Hundreds went for a swim in Owl Creek. Others rested.
There was also a good deal of diarrhea, which the boys labeled the
"Tennessee quick step".
Grant wired his superior General H.W. Halleck
division commander, was
quoted saying to reporters,
"Take your regiment to Ohio. No enemy is nearer
than Corinth."
Little did he know that the night of April 5, the huge and
powerful Army of the Mississippi was poised to strike just out of sight of the
Union camp.
P.G.T. Beaureguard. , second in command of the Confederates,
felt they had lost the element of suprise because of some shots fired by the men
in front. Beaureguard
pleaded with Johnston to postpone the attack. "I would fight them if they were a million,"
Johnston said.
On the morning of April 6, Johnston told his fellow officers "Tonight we will water our
horses in the Tennessee." When Johnston's powerful Army of the Mississippi hit the
federal camps, they had achived complete suprise. The attack pushed most Union
divisions back to reform elsewhere. Others fought doggedly to hold their line.
Once the attack started, there was mass confusion on both sides. Most of the boys
had never been in battle before, and did not know their orders. "It was a murderous
fist fight."
The Rebels rolled over one Union position after another. Then, amongst the confusion
along a sunken road, the federals finally established and held a line that stopped the
southern advance. The division consisted of Illinois and Iowa farm boys mostly, under
the command of General Prentiss. Grant's orders were to "Hold the sunken road at all costs."
Prentiss greatly understood the seriousness of Grant's orders. Bullets buzzed through the
saplings around the area, and it appeared and sounded like a hornet's nest. The Confederate
infantry launched eleven attacks
on the Hornet's nest. The Union line wavered and bent, but would not break.
The Confederate artillery lined up sixty-two cannons at point blank range
and fired on the sunken road. It was the largest number of
cannons ever used at that time in a war effort. Under protection of the
cannons the Rebel troops were able to move in and take the sunken road.
The Union troops were forced to surrender.
They had fought well holding the Confederates for six hours. For years to come Union
veterans were proud to say, " I fought with Prentiss at the Hornet's Nest."
There was also a great deal of fighting at a peach orchard, just yards away from the
Hornet's Nest. The peach trees were in full bloom. Many soldiers lay dead. Peach blossoms
covered the dead like a fresh-fallen snow. Gen. Johnston led the last raid on the peach
orchard. He came out with his clothes tattered from bullets that had grazed him, and his
boot sole was shot. A Confederate officer saw him wobbling in his saddle and ask if he
were hurt. "Yes," he replied. "And I feel seriously."
His aid took him to a nearby tree. He was shot in the back of the leg. He bled to death.
He could have easily
been saved with a touniquet, but he had sent his surgeon off to care for Union prisoners.
A farm pond near the peach orchard was covered with soldiers from both armies. Many
men went to bathe their wounds and drink from the water. For many it was their last drink.
The water was stained red with blood.
That night dead lay everywhere. Neither army had developed a system for gathering the
dead General Grant said a peson can walk in any given direction without stepping on ground."
In a Confederate camp that night one soldier said, "You can hear the screams of the injured.
They screamed for water, God heard them for the heavens opened and the rain fell." Flashes
of lightening showed vultures feeding on the ungathered dead.
On the night of April 6, the long-awaited arrival of Don Carlos Buell's reinforcements
arrived. Through the cover of gunboat fire, his troops came in on steamboats. The gun
boats fired on fifteen minute intervals, allowing Buell's forces to come aground, and
robbing the Confederates of their greatly needed rest.
That morning the Confederates were pushed back on the ground that they had fought so
hard to win the day before. With the fresh troops, the weary Rebels had little chance to
win a complete victory. The Southerners were forced to maKe a retreat back to Corinth.
On the 7th General Grant took a ride out beyond the lines to assertain for himself the
situation at hand. From his personal memoirs this is what he had to say about that first
day following the Battle of Shiloh.
"
I rode forward several miles the day after the battle, and found that the enemy had
dropped much, if not all, of their provisions, some ammunition and the extra wheels of
their caissons, lightening their loads to enable them to get off their guns. About five miles
out we found their field hospital abandoned. An immediate pursuit must have resulted in
the capture of a considerable number of prisoners and probably some guns.
Shiloh was the severest battle fought at the West during the war, and but few in the East
equalled 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
National and Confederate troops 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 ploughed 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.
The final number of dead or missing was 13,000 on the Union side and 10,500 on the
Confederate side. There were as many people killed at Shiloh as there were at Wateloo.
The difference between that Napoleanic war and the Civil War is that there weren't
twenty more Waterloos to come.
Shiloh was a decisive battle in the war. The South needed a win to make up for land lost
in Kentucky and Ohio. It also needed to save the Mississippi Valley. Memphis and
Vicksburg were now vulnerable to Union attack, and after Corinth there is now doubt
that those cities would be the next targets.
However, Grant and his men had been rid of their over-confidence by the battle of Shiloh.
They now knew that hopes for and easy victory over the south were ill-founded. Grant
knew then that this war was going to be, in the words of a Union Soldier, "A very bloody
affair."
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Below is a CivilWarStory Video Minute
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Please take a moment to check it out. Running time is just about 10 minutes
Tennessee River 
about nine miles south of Savanna Tennessee can be found the enduring
remains of mans struggle with nature and with himself. Somewhere close to 1000
years ago native American people constructed here some type of ceramonial center.
Don Carlos Buell 
General U. S. Grant 
Owl Creek. 
General H.W. Halleck 
William Tecupseh Sherman 
P.G.T. Beaureguard. 
