“Ulysses don’t scare worth a damn.”
—Unknown soldier commenting on Grant’s penchant for finding a way to prevail when things are at their darkest.
In April 1862, well before the battles of Stones River, Chattanooga, and Chickamauga, Corinth, Mississippi, was the prize in the Western theater of the Civil War. Corinth was the strategic crossroads - cross railroads, that is. The vital east-west Memphis and Charleston RR was the only RR that connected the Mississippi River with the Southeastern states along the Atlantic seaboard. At Corinth, this RR crossed the north-south Mobile-Ohio RR. Both were the longest standard-gauge RRs in the Western theater.
Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston’s Army of the Mississippi controlled Corinth. Union General US Grant’s Army of the Tennessee wanted it. To that end, Grant moved his army down the Tennessee River to Pittsburg Landing, about 25 miles north of Corinth. His plan was to wait for General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio to join up before attacking Corinth. The Army of the Tennessee encamped near the rural Shiloh Church, some three miles away from the river. Ironically, Shiloh means “place of peace”.
Johnston wanted to attack Grant before Buell reinforced Grant, so he moved up from Corinth to attack. Bad weather held him up for three critical days. When he did attack, on April 6, it was a complete surprise. Grant’s Army was overwhelmed and was pushed back toward Pittsburg Landing. Fortunately for Grant, General Prentiss’ division and General Wallace’s division made a stand at a thicket that became known as the Hornet’s Nest, due to the continuous buzzing of bullets. This stand gave Grant time to build a solid defensive line near the river.
During the afternoon, Johnston was mortally wounded. He was the highest-ranking Confederate officer to die in the Civil War. General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard (I love that name) took command. By nighttime, Beauregard was pleased with the results. He believed that he could mop up the rest of Grant’s army in the morning. Another irony of the battle is that General Braxton Bragg was a corps commander in the Army of the Mississippi. He seems always to be around when defeat is snatched from victory.
During the night, Buell’s army filtered in giving Grant 20,000 fresh troops. At first light, Grant attacked, completely surprising Beauregard. After another bloody day of battle, Beauregard limped back to Corinth, and Grant’s forces set up camp where they started.
The butcher’s bill was immense. A combined total of 110,000 combatants met at Shiloh. The resulting 23,716 casualties, including 3,482 dead; mountains of amputated arms and legs; and a plethora of nasty diseases from wretched sanitary conditions, shocked both the North and South. This was before Antietam, Gettysburg, and Chickamauga.
All that horror and little was accomplished. The Army of the Mississippi still controlled Corinth and the Army of the Tennessee still had designs on it.
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