Shiloh was the beginning of total war.
According to James M. McPherson in Battle Cry of Freedom:
The 20,000 killed and wounded at Shiloh (about equally distributed between the two sides) were nearly double the 12,000 battle casualties at [First] Manassas, Wilson’s Creek, Fort Donelson, and Pea Ridge combined.
This morning Shiloh (Tennessee) was green and lush and quiet, the opposite of April 6-7, 1862, when it was smoke and chaos and violence. After a brief film (which had to have been produced 50 years ago — its colors faded, its actors stilted and poorly made-up), NewMexiKen and Dad took much of the auto tour, from the Tennessee River at what was once Pittsburg Landing, past the Union’s last line of defense to Shiloh Church (where the 1862 log building sits next to an active church).
Often at battlefields I am able to imagine the scene. How realistically is another question, but at least I can picture what I think it might have been like, or at least feel the sense of the place. Sometimes, however, the imagination just isn’t sufficient, or the place doesn’t move me. For some reason Shiloh National Military Park was like that today.
Background: The Union Army, under Grant, was encamped in a poorly chosen position at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. They were attacked by Confederates under Johnston and Beauregard early Sunday, April 6, 1862. By the end of the day, Confederates had catured the key position of Shiloh church and driven Union lines nearly to the Tennessee River. Grant, reinforced by Buell, counter attacked Monday morning, regained the lost ground, and forced the Confederates to retreat to Corinth, Mississippi. It was ostensibly a Union victory, though Grant was faulted for a lack of precaution that led to the first day’s disaster.
I’m so bummed for you. I know that at Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, you can almost picture the men in the fields. I’m sure you were expecting that same experience at Shiloh.
Maybe it’s because all three of those battles included charges across open terrain where thousands of men were brutally killed. It’s possible that the intensity of what happened there is still in the auras of the places.