Summary of the Battle of Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh was the first major battle in the Western Campaign during the American Civil War. It was fought in the area surrounding Tennessee's Shiloh United Methodist Church, a small log church that managed to survive the battle only to be destroyed in the weeks to come. Today, the log church stands resurrected on its original location, although the Shiloh congregation now meets elsewhere.
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Background
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Union Brigadier General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "Whatever nation gets ... control of the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri Rivers will control the continent." Union General Ulysses S. Grant was assigned that very task. The Western Campaign had gone easily for Union troops as they marched through Kentucky and into Tennessee. Grant had captured Paducah, Kentucky, and secured access to the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers.
On Feb. 6, 1862, Grant took Fort Henry in Tennessee and set his sights on Fort Donelson. Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest and his 700 horsemen narrowly escaped the besieged fort. U.S. Grant declared he would accept no terms other than immediate and unconditional surrender, earning him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, and the fort, including 15,000 Confederate troops and 65 cannons, fell on Feb. 16, 1862.
Preparation
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Little more than skirmishes took place from February into March in the Western Campaign, but the mission was to destroy railway communication west of Corinth, Mississippi. In order to accomplish this task, Union troops were ordered to the area around Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River.
By April 5, 1862, the battle lines were drawn. Sherman was three miles from Pittsburg Landing, along a ridge surrounding Shiloh Church. Brigadier Generals John McClernand and W.H.L. Wallace were between Sherman and the river. Brigadier General Benjamin Prentiss was on Sherman's left, and Brigadier General Lew Wallace was about four miles behind the lines at Crump's Landing. They were ordered to wait until Gen. Don Carlos Buell arrived with the Army of the Ohio.
Meanwhile, General Albert Sidney Johnston, who had been given the title "General Commanding the Western Department of the Army of the Confederate States of America" by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, was aiming to overrun the Union army at Pittsburg Landing before Buell could arrive. After the fall of Fort Donelson, the Confederate forces had fallen back to Corinth and were now, with 40,000 troops, in a position to push forward and mount an attack.
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Day One: Morning
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The fighting began at approximately 4:55 a.m. on April 6. Confederate skirmishers clashed with a Union reconnaissance party attached to Prentiss's division and began firing. The Union troops fell back into their own lines and gradually picked up reinforcements, but it wasn't enough.
By about 9:30 a.m., the Confederates were overrunning Sherman's position at Shiloh Church. Gen Pierre R.T. Beauregard, Johnston's second-in-command, set up his new headquarters in Sherman's own abandoned tent. Johnston rode forward with the attack, leaving no instruction for Beauregard on how to handle advancement and division of the troops.
The advancing Confederates had not eaten in more than a day, so they were stopping to ransack the Union supplies. This, along with a general lack of command, left them almost as disorganized as their Union counterparts. The Union army fell back, centered on Prentiss, toward the landing. Johnston wanted a hard attack on the flank to cut the Union army off from the river and its supplies, but Beauregard was sending the troops piecemeal into the fight and attacking the whole line evenly. Prentiss was eventually reinforced from W.H.L. Wallace, and the Union army dug in.
Day One: Afternoon
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By noon, a stalemate ensued across the entire battle line. The center of the line, made up of Prentiss's men and reinforcements, concentrated so much fire on their locations that the Confederates called that area of the battle the "Hornet's Nest." Johnston, Beauregard and their generals led at least 11 unsuccessful charges into the Hornet's Nest during the afternoon.
In the midst of this, at around 2:30 p.m., Johnston ordered and led a charge on the Union flank to cut them off from their supplies. The attack was initially successful, but Johnston was fatally wounded. By the end of the day, however, the Confederate Army had won the Hornet's Nest, with the Union's W.H.L. Wallace fatally wounded. Approximately 2,300 of Prentiss's and Wallace's men were captured and moved to the Confederate rear.
Beauregard made a final attempt to cut off the Union army, but the disorganization in his own lines and the addition of the Tyler and Lexington gunboats forced him to cease all attack at around 6:30 p.m. His intelligence informed him that Buell's Army of the Ohio was still days away, so he sent a dispatch to the Confederate government announcing a complete victory.
The Second Day
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During the night, the Union gunboats continued to shell the Confederate lines while Union reinforcement began to arrive. First, Lew Wallace arrived with about 6,000 fresh troops. Around midnight, Buell's forces began to arrive, bringing in 25,000 fresh troops by morning.
When dawn broke, Beauregard's exhausted and disheartened army of 30,000 was facing an army of 50,000--almost three times the size it had been at dusk. The two miles the Confederates had gained the day before disappeared back into Union hands, and by mid afternoon, Beauregard was in full retreat to Corinth. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry rode rear guard to hold off Sherman's skirmishers.
Aftermath
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On the Union side, about 13,000 soldiers were reported killed, wounded or missing. The number for the Confederates was over 10,500. Corinth was ultimately evacuated before the Union army could advance. The city would later serve as an outpost for Union reinforcements in the attack and siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last major battle of the Western Campaign.
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References
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- Photo Credit Lindsey T on Flikr; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
