Battle of Shiloh

“ There was no further attempt at pursuit and the enemy was permitted to return to Corinth where ample time was given him to collect re-enforcements and to strengthen his position.
The battle of Shiloh was the bloodiest of all the western battles. It has been claimed by some that our army was not surprised; but to those who were there, the claim is no less surprising than the fact appeared to be then. The successes at Forts Henry and Donelson had made our men and their leaders over-confident. They counted too much upon the moral effect of those victories upon the enemy. ”

“ I thank you for sending me the printed paper containing the observations and experiences of our friend about the battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburgh Landing, April 6th and 7th, 1862. Having leisure this New Year's Day I have read every word of it, and from his standpoint as a boy in the rear of where the hard fighting was done his account is literally true. His father (a noble gentleman) and I were fighting for time—because our enemy for the moment outnumbered us, and we had good reason to expect momentarily Lew. ”

“ Of course, subsequent events gave General Grant and most of the other actors in that battle their appropriate place in history, but the danger of sudden popular clamors is well illustrated by this case.
The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, was one of the most fiercely contested of the war. On the morning of April 6, 1862, the five divisions of McClernand, Prentiss, Hurlbut, W. H. L. Wallace, and Sherman, aggregated about thirty-two thousand men. We had no intrenchments of any sort, on the theory that as soon as Buell arrived we would march to Corinth to attack the enemy. ”

“ Up to the battle of Shiloh I, as well as thousands of other citizens, believed that the rebellion against the Government would collapse suddenly and soon, if a decisive victory could be gained over any of its armies. Donelson and Henry were such victories. An army of more than 21,000 men was captured or destroyed. Bowling Green, Columbus and Hickman, Kentucky, fell in consequence, and Clarksville and Nashville, Tennessee, the last two with an immense amount of stores, also fell into our hands. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, from their mouths to the head of navigation, were secured. ”

“ The battle was certainly over for the day at least, and neither he nor his comrades had sufficient vitality yet to think of the morrow. The twilight was fast deepening into night. The last rosy glow of the sun faded, and thick darkness enveloped the vast forest, in which twenty thousand men had fallen, and in which most of them yet lay, the wounded with the dead.
There was presently a deep boom from the river, and a shell fired by one of the gunboats curved far over their heads and dropped into the forest, where the Southern army was encamped. ”

“ 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 ”

“ He had learned to estimate ahead how many papers the news of a battle ought to sell, and so he stocked up well beforehand. One day he saw in the advance proofs a harrowing account of the great two-days' battle of Shiloh. He grasped not only the news value but also the strategic importance of that victory.
"Running down to the telegraph office at the Grand Trunk Station in Detroit, he told the operator all about it. ”

“ Grant and his officers did not expect an attack in force by the enemy, or if they did, they made a great mistake in not being prepared. The fact remains, we were not ready to receive the enemy; not a shovelfull of earth had been thrown up for protection, and the several divisions were scattered so as not to form a continuous battle line. [77] If mistake it was on the part of Gen. Grant, he profited by it, for such a thing did not happen ever afterward. That the first day’s battle of Shiloh was a stubborn and desperate battle cannot be denied. ”

“ Shiloh is not distinguished by outstanding generalship on either side, but it is interesting as a battle fought by raw volunteers—young men without previous experience in a major engagement and with little or no military training. ”

“ While Lee had been disposing of McClellan, Pope and Burnside, Grant had remained in comparative idleness near Corinth, Mississippi. He had, it is true, been assigned to high command in the West when Halleck was ordered to Washington, but the battle of Shiloh had prejudiced the authorities against him and his troops were gradually transferred to other commanders, leaving him with an army barely sufficient to guard the territory it already held. ”

“ They saw tanned faces and fierce eyes through the smoke, and the bullets swept down on them in showers. Lucky for them that the little ridge was there, and that they had made up their minds to stand to the last. They replied with their own deadly fire, yet many fell, despite the shelter, and to both left and right the battle swelled afresh. Dick felt again that rain of bark and twigs and leaves. Sometimes a tree, cut through at its base by cannon balls, fell with a crash. Along the whole curving line the Southern generals ever urged forward their valiant troops. ”

“ Dick had been at Shiloh. He had seen the men of the west in a great battle, and now he saw the men of the east in a battle yet greater. There it had been largely in the forest, here it was mostly in the open, yet he saw but little more. One of the extraordinary features of this battle was dust. Trampled up from the dry fields by fighting men in scores of thousands it rose in vast floating clouds that permeated everything. It was even more persistent than the smoke. ”

“ While the Confederate right was engaged with Prentiss, the left, supported by continuous artillery fire, was hurled against the combined forces of Sherman and McClernand who were making a stubborn stand along the ridge at Shiloh Church. This small log building, which gave its name to the battle, was considered the key position of the field, as it commanded the best road from Corinth to Pittsburg Landing. When General Grant reached the church, about 10 a. m., his troops were heavily engaged all along the line. ”

“ In the fight they know no stragglers an' fallers from grace.
“Ay, but they're brave. I jined 'em Sunday night after the battle of Shiloh, when I saw one of their captains stan' up amid the dead an' dyin' of that bloody field, with the shells from the Yankee gun-boats fallin' aroun' him. Standin' there tellin' of God an' His forgiveness, until many a po' dyin' soldier, both frien' an' foe, like the thief on the cross, found peace at the last hour. [Pg 217]
“Befo' I jined the 'Piscopal corps I didn't think I cu'd stan' 'em—too high furlutin' for my raisin'. ”

“ In this 2-day battle, April 6 and 7, 1862, both the Union and Confederate Armies suffered heavy casualties, bringing home the horrors of war to the North and South alike. Nearly 24,000 were killed, wounded, or reported missing—a number equal to more than one-fifth of the combined Union and Confederate Armies engaged in the battle. By their failure to destroy the Federal Armies at Shiloh the Confederates were forced to return to Corinth, Miss., relinquishing all hold upon West Tennessee, except a few forts on the Mississippi which were soon to be wrested from them. ”

“ The wounded that died on the way were left by the wayside.
Some days after the battle Beauregard reported to his government at Richmond as follows: "This army is more confident of ultimate success than before its encounter with the enemy."
18 In his address to his soldiers he said: "You have done your duty. Your countrymen are proud of your deeds on the bloody field of Shiloh: Confident of the ultimate result of your valor."
The two days at Shiloh were astonishing to the American people. Bull Run was a skirmish in comparison with Shiloh. The loss on each side was more than 10,000 men. ”

“ The duels between the sharpshooters of the two armies were fierce and deadly. All of us like heroes. There were many heroes beside the great Generals. Here is one from the ranks. John Battle Harrison was wounded at Shiloh and again at Champion Hills. When told by the surgeon to go to the hospital, he refused and remained fighting in the ranks with a wound that would have taken hundreds of others to the hospital. ”

“ I fought we could fight live men but when it come to fightin dead men, don't know what to tink about it. Wi dey come to our house, rode up to de fence called for water; said they hadn't any water since the battle of Shiloh. Wi, one man drank a bucketful, and den call for mo. I thought to my soul that they would never get enuf water." The author replied, "Auntie, when these rebels are killed, they never get back here; the bad man keeps them to build fires for him. These Kuklux are the men that ran away from the battle of Shiloh and have just crawled out of their dens. ”

“ Buell's command was ordered to proceed by forced marches to Shiloh to reinforce Grant, about to give battle to the Confederate General Johnson, and on April 6, 1862, my regiment, the 18th U. S. Infantry (two battalions, nineteen companies) , as a part of the Third Brigade, First Division, Army of the Ohio, marched all day in the rain toward the sound of the cannon at the battle then raging at Shiloh Church. ”

“ The admissions of the highest Confederate officers engaged at Shiloh make the claim of a victory for them absurd. The victory was not to either party until the battle was over. It was then a Union victory, in which the Armies of the Tennessee and the Ohio both participated. But the Army of the Tennessee fought the entire rebel army on the 6th and held it at bay until near night; and night alone closed the conflict and not the three regiments of Nelson′s division. ”

“ The more one studies Shiloh, the more contradictory it becomes. It will ever remain an incongruous battle. On the Union side it was a battle of unpreparedness—though not of dishonorable surprise—and on both sides a battle of blunders. And never in any battle of any war that I have ever read did Chance—old-fashioned, historic, blind Chance—play a more conspicuous part.
Some of the big chances, standing out in the light of to-day like gray ghosts above the battlefield, are:
First—The chance that cut Buell off one day too late for the Union cause. ”

“ The fire now grew so hot and deadly that the Union regiments were forced to give ground. It was evident that they could not carry the formidable earthworks, but on the right, where Dick's regiment charged, and just above the little town of Dover, they pressed in far enough to secure some hills that protected them from the fire of the enemy, and from which Southern cannon and rifles could not drive them. Then, at the order of Grant, his troops withdrew elsewhere and the battle of the day ceased. ”

“ Of many of the important battles of the civil war I have written, and desire to dwell somewhat on Shiloh, but will first say a few words about Gettysburg, because of recent publications there-anent.
Some facts concerning this battle are established beyond dispute. In the first day's fighting a part of Lee's army defeated a part of Meade's. Intending to continue the contest on that field, a commander not smitten by idiocy would desire to concentrate and push the advantage gained by previous success and its resultant morale. ”

“ We then took our position on the right of our brigade, supporting a battery.
The enemy soon opened on us with a heavy artillery fire, and either having the best guns [66] or gunners silenced our cannon. The horses were killed, men wounded and killed, but the infantry held the line; we felt strong and courageous now, with plenty of cartridges. The men began to realize that this line must be held though every man fall.
The fight in the peach orchard at Shiloh
There was one place on the battle line of Sunday which was occupied by the gallant troops under Gen. ”

“ All of the divisional camps, except this one, were captured by the Confederates on the first day of the battle.
The siege guns southwest of the monument are the heaviest pieces used in this battle. They had an accurate range of about 2,000 yards whereas, the ordinary cannon were effective at only about 1,100 yards. These cannon represent the last Union line, formed late Sunday afternoon, extending from the river to Snake Creek Bridge, a distance of about 2 miles.
The small earthwork beyond the siege guns is the only one thrown up on this battlefield. ”

“ Hophni and Phinehas were slain - They probably attempted to defend the ark, and lost their lives in the attempt.
Verse 12
Came to Shiloh the same day - The field of battle could not have been at any great distance, for this young man reached Shiloh the same evening after the defeat.
With his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head - These were signs of sorrow and distress among all nations. The clothes rent, signified the rending, dividing, and scattering, of the people; the earth, or ashes on the head, signified their humiliation: "We are brought down to the dust of the earth ”