Battle of Shiloh

The battles of Shiloh is an event of the American Civil War which took place April 6th and 7th 1862.

Following the failure of the great offensive of summer of the Union along banks of Bull Run, the situation was at the dead point. To the West, on the other hand, the situation of Confédérés was being degraded. April 3rd, 40.000 Confédérés left Corinth to launch out to the attack of the positions of Grant; it was one of the rare occasions where the Southerners profited from a numerical superiority.

involved forces:

Union:

Army of Tennessee: general major Ulysses Simpson Grant.

1 division: general major John Alexander Mac Clernand.

1 brigade: colonel A.M. Hare (casualty), then colonel Marcellus Monroe Crocker.
2 brigade: colonel C.C. Marsh.
3 brigade: colonel Julius Raith (killed), then lieutenant colonel E.P. Wood, major F. Mr. Smith.

2 division: general sergeant William Henry Wallace Lamb (killed), then colonel James Madison Tuttle.

1 brigade: colonel James Madison Tuttle.
2 brigade: general sergeant John Mac Arthur (casualty), then colonel Thomas Morton.
3 brigade: colonel Thomas William Sweeny (casualty), then colonel S.D. Baldwin.

3 division: general major Lewis Wallace.

1 brigade: colonel Morgan Lewis Smith.
2 brigade: colonel John Milton Thayer.
3 brigade: colonel Charles Whittlesey.

4 division: general sergeant Stephen Augustus Hurbult.

1 brigade: colonel Nelson Grosvenor Williams (casualty), then colonel Isaac C. Pugh.
2 brigade: colonel James Clifford Veatch.
3 brigade: general sergeant Jacob Gartner Lauman.

5 division: general sergeant William Tecumseh Sherman.

1 brigade: colonel J.A. Mac Dowell.
2 brigade: colonel David Stuart (casualty), then colonel Thomas Kirby Smith.
3 brigade: colonel J. Hildebrand.
4 brigade: colonel Ralph Pomeroy Buckland.

6 division: general sergeant Benjamin Mayburry Prentiss (captured).

1 brigade: colonel Everett Peabody (killed).
2 brigade: colonel Madison Miller (captured).

Army of Ohio: general major Gift Carlos Buell.

2 division: general sergeant Alexander Mac Dowell Mc Cook.

4 brigade: general sergeant Lovell Harrison Rousseau.
5 brigade: colonel Edward Needles Kirk.
6 brigade: colonel William Harvey Gibson.

4 division: general sergeant William Nelson.

10 brigade: colonel Jacob Heart.
19 brigade: colonel W.B. Hazen.
22 brigade: colonel S.D. Bruce.

5 division: general sergeant Thomas Leonidas Crittenden.

11 brigade: general sergeant Jeremiah Tilford Boyle.
14 brigade: colonel William Sooy Smith.

6 division: general sergeant Thomas John Wood.

20 brigade: general sergeant James Abraham Garfield.
21 brigade: colonel George Day Wagner.

Confederation:

Army of the Mississippi: general Albert Sidney Johnston (killed), then general Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard.

1 body: general major Lenidas Polk.

1 division: general sergeant Charles Clark (casualty), then general sergeant Alexander To carry Stewart.

1 brigade: colonel R.M. Russell.
2 brigade: general sergeant Alexander To carry Stewart.

2 division: general major Benjamin Franklin Cheatham.

1 brigade: general sergeant Bushrod Rust Johnson (casualty), then colonel Preston Smith (casualty).
2 brigade: colonel W.H. Stephens, colonel George Earl Maney.

2 bodies: general major Braxton Bragg.

1 division: general sergeant Daniel Ruggles.

1 brigade: colonel Randall Lee Gibson.
2 brigade: general sergeant James Patton Anderson.
3 brigade: colonel Preston Lays Jr.

2 division: general sergeant Jones Mitchel Withers.

1 brigade: general sergeant Adley Hogan Gladden (killed), then colonel Daniel Weisiger Adams (casualty), then colonel Zacharias Cantey Deas (casualty).
2 brigade: general sergeant James Ronald Chalmers.
3 brigade: general sergeant John King Jackson.

3 bodies: general major William Joseph Hardee.

1 brigade: general sergeant Thomas Carmichael Hindman, colonel R.G. Shaver.
2 brigade: general sergeant Patrick Ronayne Cleburne.
3 brigade: general sergeant Sterling Alexander Martin Wood, colonel W.K. Patterson.

Body of reserve: general sergeant John Cabell Breckinridge.

1 brigade: colonel R.P. Trabue.
2 brigade: general sergeant John Stevens Bowen, colonel J.D. Martin.
3 brigade: colonel W. Statham.

April 6th at 5 a.m. the Southerners melted on the camps of the Union where the majority of the soldiers were still deadened. The hour was difficult for the Northerners and a division of the Union had to move back of one kilometer to a sunken lane passing between a meadow and a wood. To this place, Johnston, on the whole launched nineteen attacks against the Northerners, undergoing enormous losses. Johnston, reached of one ball to the leg, died of a hemorrhage. The Sudiste command returned to Beauregard.

The general Ulysses S. Grant concentrated the essence of his means in the center, while waiting for the reinforcement of Buell. However, after eight hours of combat with Hornet' S nest (the guêpier), the numerical advantage of the Southerners ends up paying; the troops of the Union ebbed and more than 2200 men were encircled and captured. Confédérés wasted time to transfer their prisoners backwards. When they were able to take again the attack, the Grant General had made of new lines between Pittsburg Landing and Snake Creek. Meanwhile Grant profited from the support of two drain-holes. The night was painful for the Southerners, rammed every ten minutes by the northerner shells. At the dawn of April 7th, the Southerners were attacked by fresh troops of the Union. Beauregard estimated that the battle was not balanced any more and ordered the retirement.

Sources

Daniel, Larry. Shiloh: The Battle that Changed the Civil War , Simon and Schuster, 1997, ISBN 0-684-83857-5.
Eicher, David J., The Longest Night: In Military History off the Civil War , Simon & Schuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84944-5.
Esposito, Vincent J., '' West Point Atlas off American Wars '', Frederick A. Praeger, 1959.
McDonough, James L., " Battle off Shiloh" , Encyclopedia off the Civil American War: In Political, Social, and Military History , Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., W.W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X.
Nevin, David, and the Editors off Time-Life Books, The Road to Shiloh: Early Battles in the West , Time-Life Books, 1983, ISBN 0-8094-4716-9.
Hanson, Victor Davis, Ripples off Battle: How Wars off the Past Still Given How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think , Doubleday, 2003, ISBN 0-385-50400-4.
McPherson, James Mr., Battle Cry off Freedom: Civil The War Era (Oxford History off the United States) , Oxford University Near, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
Smith, Jean Edward, Grant , Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April , Morningside Books, 1974, ISBN 0-89029-770-3.
Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing drank Victory: The Army off the Tennessee, 1861 – 1865 , Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.

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