The Battle of Shiloh

By Larry Holzwarth

The Battle of Shiloh

In March of 1862, Confederate forces withdrew from western Tennessee to the railroad junction town of Corinth, Mississippi, in order to reinforce and reorganize. In response, Union Major General Henry Halleck, in overall command of the Federal forces in the western theater of operations, ordered two Union armies to converge upon Corinth, which afforded a transportation link between Vicksburg on the Mississippi River and the eastern cities of the Confederacy. The Union Army of West Tennessee, under General Ulysses S. Grant, advanced up the Tennessee River by ship, while the Army of the Ohio, under General Don Carlos Buell, advanced from Nashville by land to join with Grant. By mid-March Grant had reached Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River.

Grant’s army was deployed on both sides of the river, with five divisions on the western side encamped around a small log church known as the Shiloh Meeting House. A sixth division was encamped at Crumps Landing farther downstream. Grant set up his headquarters on the east side of the river and awaited the arrival of Buell and his divisions before striking south towards Corinth. Grant’s army remained in bivouac and did not establish fortified positions.

On April 3rd, the Confederate forces at Corinth, newly reorganized and reinforced under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston and renamed the Army of Mississippi, departed Corinth to strike at Grant while the bulk of his army had its back to the Tennessee River and before Buell’s reinforcements arrived. Johnston had over 44,000 men at his command for this thrust, making his force comparable in size to that of his enemy. Johnston was in position to attack on April 4^th, but severe thunderstorms and heavy rains prevented him from being able to move his artillery forward. Not until late in the day of the 5^th were the weather conditions favorable for attack. Johnston decided to strike in the pre-dawn of the following day. How his forces were able to remain undetected by Union troops would lead to severe criticism of Grant in the weeks following the battle.

That same night, April 5th, the first of Buell’s troops began to arrive. Grant, unaware of Confederate activity, ordered Buell’s troops to remain on the east side of the river, which was patrolled by Union gunboats, rather than cross immediately. The remainder of Buell’s army, three full divisions, was still a day’s march away.

The first contact between the opposing forces occurred around three o’clock on the morning of April 6^th between advancing Confederates and a Union patrol. Although the sound of gunfire from this relatively small encounter alerted Union troops, none of the divisions were prepared for the size of the Confederate assault. Grant was at his headquarters ten miles downriver near Savannah when the sounds of heavy artillery fire reached him. After ordering the only one of Buell’s divisions that had arrived in the area to move up river to a point opposite Pittsburg Landing, from which it could cross the river by ferry, Grant crossed to the west side of the river.

Throughout the morning the Union troops were pushed back by the relentless Confederate assault. With Grant absent from the field, and with his division bearing the brunt of the attack on the Union right, General William Tecumseh Sherman took de facto command of the Union troops under attack. Despite stubborn resistance from some Federal units, the Union positions continued to fall back towards Pittsburg Landing. Sherman established a defensive position in the woods behind the Shiloh Meeting House, on the far right of the Union defense line, which by mid-morning was near collapse.

In the left center of the Union line, nearer to the Tennessee River, Union troops held a position along a sunken road in a field where the gunfire was so ferocious that the sound of whizzing bullets led it to become known as the Hornet’s Nest. Confederate General Daniel Ruggles established a battery of more than fifty guns to pound the Union position, which continued to hold its ground. Fighting at the Hornet’s Nest lasted for more than seven hours. Eventually the defensive position was surrounded as Union troops on either side fell back towards the river. By late afternoon the surviving Union troops in the position surrendered.

During this time, Johnston led attacks against the Union left holding their positions in the Peach Orchard. Early in the afternoon, Johnston was shot behind his right knee, a wound which he considered minor, and he refused to leave the field. Unknown to him, the bullet had severed the popliteal artery, the severity of the bleeding was concealed by its collecting in his boot. He died in less than an hour, and the resulting loss of leadership on the battlefield reduced the efficiency of the Confederate attacks. Confederate command was assumed by P. G. T. Beauregard, who directed the resumption of attacks towards the Hornet’s Nest and other positions nearer the Union center, allowing the Union flanks to fall back towards defensive positions nearer the river where they could be supported by the Navy’s gunboats.

Fighting continued all along the lines until after dark. Confederate troops bedded down for the night in the abandoned Union camps, while Union troops worked to realign and strengthen their defensive positions. Wounded men between the two armies remained in the field throughout the night. Artillery duels continued until a late night thunderstorm swept through the area, but even that didn’t stop the continuous bombardment from the Navy’s sheltered guns throughout the night and early morning. Beauregard announced a major victory for the Confederates from his newly established headquarters at the Shiloh Meeting House. Meanwhile, the arriving troops from Buell’s Army of the Ohio were ferried across the river at Pittsburg Landing.

On the morning of April 7^th Beauregard, unaware of Buell’s arrival, planned to renew the assault. Grant beat him to the punch with a dawn attack using troops which had not been engaged the preceding day. Fighting raged around the Shiloh Church with the same ferocity as the day before, but this time it was the Confederates who were steadily pushed back by the advancing Union army. By late afternoon, the Union camps abandoned on the first day were back in Union hands and Beauregard’s army, exhausted by two days of combat and low on ammunition, withdrew towards Corinth.

The two-day battle of Shiloh, which is a Hebrew word for “place of peace,” was the bloodiest battle yet fought on the continent of North America, a distinction which it would hold for just over a year. Confederate casualties were more than 10,000 killed, wounded or missing, including one of their most capable commanders, while the Union lost over 13,000 men. The battle established the reputation of William T. Sherman as a fighting general and brought Grant under severe criticism both for being caught off-guard and for the appalling carnage. One who would not criticize Grant, and would continue to demand he be given greater strategic and tactical control in the western theater, was Abraham Lincoln.

The Siege of Corinth

After Shiloh, Beauregard withdrew his army to defensive positions around Corinth, Mississippi. Corinth contained the junction for two railroads critical to the Confederacy, as they linked the Mississippi River with Charleston, South Carolina, providing essential supplies for the defense of Vicksburg.

The Union forces, under Henry Halleck, consisted of three armies: the Army of the Tennessee, the Army of the Ohio, and the Army of the Mississippi. Halleck reorganized the command structure in a manner which effectively put Grant out of a job, although he remained with the Army as Halleck’s deputy commander. Halleck issued orders to the three Army commanders himself. He also reacted to the heavy casualties at Shiloh by demonstrating an abundance of caution. Under Halleck’s command, the Union force required three weeks to advance six miles, fortifying each new position against the possibility of Confederate attack.

The Confederate forces at Corinth were in no position to attack, and Beauregard was advised by his staff that they were too weak to hold the town against an assault by superior forces. By May 25th, Halleck was ready to attack the town by siege. Over the next three days, actions occurred between the opposing forces as the Union troops established siege lines from which they could reduce the Confederate forces. The size of the Union force and the comparative weakness of his own troops, coupled with the rising dysentery and typhoid in the ranks, convinced Beauregard to abandon Corinth. After using the railroad to move heavy equipment and wounded and sick men, during which time an attack by Halleck would have destroyed what remained of the Confederate Army, the remainder of his troops withdrew to Tupelo Mississippi. On May 30^th Union troops realized the defenses of Corinth were devoid of troops, and Union forces occupied the city.

Battle of Corinth

As Union troops occupied Corinth, several changes took place in the Army’s command structure. Henry Halleck was recalled to Washington to assume the post of General in Chief, essentially becoming Lincoln’s chief of staff. Grant assumed overall command of the western theatre and immediately ordered the defenses around Corinth be strengthened. This included the construction of six redans built to house artillery and the fortification of rifle pits built earlier by the Confederates.

Union troops were also faced with a growing influx of escaping slaves. No decision had been made regarding the freedom of escaped slaves in the summer of 1862, and the Union army classified them as enemy contraband. Camps for their containment were constructed near Corinth, as well as in other sections of the South now in Union hands, eventually numbering over one hundred. In the camps, the former slaves were allowed to grow crops, using tools provided by the army, which also provided rations and clothing. Men occupying the camps were also used to assist in the construction of fortifications and other military facilities.

With the number of casualties from the battles of Shiloh and the Siege of Corinth, the Corona Female College in Corinth was seized by Union troops for use as a hospital. The three story building would continue to be used as a hospital until the Union troops left the area two years later.

In September 1862, Confederate forces under Braxton Bragg moved north from Tennessee into Kentucky. Confederate troops under General Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price attempted to support Bragg by striking into western Tennessee, preventing Grant from moving against Bragg. Grant ordered William Rosecrans, commanding at Corinth, to expect an attack. Rosecrans defeated Price at the Battle of Iuka in September, after which he moved his troops to Corinth. Price united his command with Van Dorn, and in October the combined Confederate troops attacked Corinth. Rosecrans’s infantry occupied the older rifle pits, and much of the fighting, which occurred northwest of the city, was severe. Confederate troops drove the Union lines back during the first day’s fighting but were unable to seize the supporting redans.

The following day, October 4^th, the Confederate assault continued, this time managing to seize one of the Union redans, although a counterattack by Union troops recaptured the position. The carefully constructed Union defenses, which provided several areas of interlocking fire where multiple defensive positions could sweep the same areas of open ground, proved to be too much for the Confederate infantry to overcome, and by early afternoon it would be in full retreat to the south and west.

Grant would later use Corinth as a headquarters location during his initial stages of the Vicksburg Campaign, and Union troops would continue to occupy the city until January 1864, at which time they abandoned it after burning any buildings which could be used by Confederate troops, such as roving raiders under Nathan Bedford Forrest. One of the buildings burned was the Corona Female College, which never reopened.

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