Bloody Shiloh
On this day in 1862, the first day of the battle of Shiloh (or Pittsburg Landing) saw a tremendous defensive effort by Union troops under the command of Brigadier Generals Benjamin M. Prentiss and W.H.L. Wallace in what became known as The Hornet's Nest. For seven long hours the Union troops stood their ground, giving the rest of the Union forces time to stabilize their defense positions under massed artillery at Pittsburg Landing. The next day, the Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant counterattacked all along the line, driving the Confederate forces from the field. I posted about this last year and Crosspatch provided a link to Grant's autobiography.
The Confederate assaults were made with such a disregard of losses on their own side that our line of tents soon fell into their hands. The ground on which the battle was fought was undulating, heavily timbered with scattered clearings, the woods giving some protection to the troops on both sides. There was also considerable underbrush. A number of attempts were made by the enemy to turn our right flank, where Sherman was posted, but every effort was repulsed with heavy loss. But the front attack was kept up so vigorously that, to prevent the success of these attempts to get on our flanks, the National troops were compelled, several times, to take positions to the rear nearer Pittsburg landing. When the firing ceased at night the National line was all of a mile in rear of the position it had occupied in the morning.
In one of the backward moves, on the 6th, the division commanded by General Prentiss did not fall back with the others. This left his flanks exposed and enabled the enemy to capture him with about 2,200 of his officers and men. General Badeau gives four o’clock of the 6th as about the time this capture took place. He may be right as to the time, but my recollection is that the hour was later. General Prentiss himself gave the hour as half-past five. I was with him, as I was with each of the division commanders that day, several times, and my recollection is that the last time I was with him was about half-past four, when his division was standing up firmly and the General was as cool as if expecting victory. But no matter whether it was four or later, the story that he and his command were surprised and captured in their camps is without any foundation whatever. If it had been true, as currently reported at the time and yet believed by thousands of people, that Prentiss and his division had been captured in their beds, there would not have been an all-day struggle, with the loss of thousands killed and wounded on the Confederate side.
With the single exception of a few minutes after the capture of Prentiss, a continuous and unbroken line was maintained all day from Snake Creek or its tributaries on the right to Lick Creek or the Tennessee on the left above Pittsburg. There was no hour during the day when there was not heavy firing and generally hard fighting at some point on the line, but seldom at all points at the same time. It was a case of Southern dash against Northern pluck and endurance. Three of the five divisions engaged on Sunday were entirely raw, and many of the men had only received their arms on the way from their States to the field. Many of them had arrived but a day or two before and were hardly able to load their muskets according to the manual. Their officers were equally ignorant of their duties. Under these circumstances it is not astonishing that many of the regiments broke at the first fire. In two cases, as I now remember, colonels led their regiments from the field on first hearing the whistle of the enemy’s bullets. In these cases the colonels were constitutional cowards, unfit for any military position; but not so the officers and men led out of danger by them. Better troops never went upon a battle-field than many of these, officers and men, afterwards proved themselves to be, who fled panic stricken at the first whistle of bullets and shell at Shiloh.
24,000 casualties were recorded in the two days of Shiloh. Wikipedia details the Union casualties as 13,047: 1,754 killed, 8,408 wounded, 2,885 captured/missing.
By Blackhawk, Sunday, 6 April , 2008 @ 9:19 am
I toured Shiloh many years ago. It’s a great battlefield, well preserved.
Also, the Hornet’s Nest is impressive…so many casualties for such a small piece of ground. Many Iowa regiments were chewed up there.
By Largolarry, Sunday, 6 April , 2008 @ 5:04 pm
If Union General Lew Wallace had not taken a wrong turn and missed most of the battle, maybe he would not have survived to write the novel Ben Hur.