Shiloh and Corinth

One of the pivotal battles of the Civil War was Shiloh. 

This quiet, peaceful place, which provided an alternative name for this battle, is Pittsburg Landing. 

This, courtesy of  www.civilwar.org is what it looked like a little over 152 years ago when General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee disembarked from a flotilla of riverboats.

 This reproduction of the Shiloh Meeting House gave the battle its better known name.

There is still an active United Methodist church and an active cemetery on this site.

The Hornet's Nest, so called because the constant whizzing of bullets sounded like an angry nest of hornets, was the site of the fiercest fighting on April 6, 1862, the opening day of the battle.  Each foot of ground changed hands several times. The dense woods and the rolling terrain, made both attack and defense difficult.  How frightening it must have been to the very green troops who fought here, often, not knowing the location of friend or foe.

Union forces fought stubbornly, but yielded ground.  This artillery emplacement marks the site of Grant's last line at the conclusion of fighting that first day.

Perhaps the greatest Confederate loss was the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston who was killed on this spot in the early afternoon of April sixth.  He was the highest ranking general of either side killed in action during the Civil War.  Jefferson Davis considered him the South's most capable general and often called his death the turning point of the war.

Despite their gains, the Confederates failure to turn Grant's left flank, which ran from this area down to the Tennessee River, sealed their fate.  The evening, of April sixth, General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio arrived to reinforce Grant.  On April seventh, Confederate forces, now commanded by General P.G.T. Beauregard, expecting to finish the battle and capture Grant's army, charged, but found the Union Army in countercharge.  The Confederates were routed.  The battle claimed 23,746 casualties, slightly more than one fifth of the soldiers who fought here.  It was the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil.  Unfortunately, scarcely more than a year later, it would be eclipsed by the Battle of Gettysburg which would be marred by nearly twice as many casualties.

It is very difficult to find positives coming out of such a tragic event, but perhaps there was one here.  This was the site of one of the first field tent hospitals.  Established much closer to the front than previous practice, it saved many lives that might have been lost had a longer trip to a hospital in the rear been required.  In the present day, the same principal has also been applied to reduce casualties resulting from a number of natural disasters.

Dogwoods, redbuds, and sand plums were in bloom throughout the park as if in commemoration of those who died here.  We had to wonder how many of these beautiful trees marked the exact spot where a soldier fell. 

This interpretive center in Corinth, Mississippi marks the real objective of this campaign. It was a crossroads of two railroads vital to the Confederacy. The Mobile and Ohio railroad ran north and south from here while the Memphis and Charleston ran east and west.  Less than a month after the battle of Shiloh, Grant, understanding that a direct attack was a pointless waste of resources, laid siege to the town.  The confederates suffered almost as many losses here as they did at Shiloh, but only a few to battle wounds.  The water was bad, and most of the losses were due to typhoid and other camp diseases.  After a month, the Confederates abandoned this position.    

Bronze reproductions of soldiers' items were imbedded on and beside the walk to the interpretive center as if they had remained there for 150 years.

This depiction of the union battery stood at the top of the hill above Corinth.  Six months after its fall, Confederate forces, under the inept leadership of General Sterling Price, attempted to retake Corinth.  Despite the equally inept leadership of General William S. Rosecrans, the Union repulsed the attack.  Casualties were high, but nowhere near the same magnitude of those suffered at Shiloh.   

Almost on cue, this Norfolk Southern, train passed.  The Southern railroad, which later became the the Norfolk Southern obtained the assets of the Memphis and Charleston, in 1894.

A few miles northeast of here, a camp of liberated and runaway slaves was established.  This sculpture depicts a union soldier teaching a female slave to read.

 

 

While the central issue of the Civil War was the egregious institution of slavery, it was far from the only factor leading to this conflict.  It was the result of decades, indeed centuries, of inability of our leaders to right a horrible wrong.  Even such great minds as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson admitted defeat in their attempts find a solution.  It remained for brave men on both sides to suffer and die here in order to resolve this conflict.  We come here to honor their memory.     .