Battle of Shiloh (1862): Grant's Bloody Test in Tennessee

The Battle of Shiloh, fought on 6 and 7 April 1862 around Pittsburg Landing in south-western Tennessee, was the first great bloodbath of the American Civil War. A Confederate army under Albert Sidney Johnston surprised Ulysses S. Grant’s Union troops in their camps and nearly drove them into the Tennessee River, but Union reinforcements turned the battle on the second day. With about 23,700 casualties, Shiloh shocked both North and South and ended hopes that the war would be short.

Background: the Union advance into the West

In February 1862 Grant captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, taking some 12,000 to 15,000 prisoners at Donelson alone. These victories broke the Confederate defensive line in Kentucky and Tennessee, forced the evacuation of Nashville and opened the rivers to Union gunboats.

Johnston, the senior Confederate commander in the West, pulled his scattered forces together at Corinth, Mississippi, where two important railways crossed: the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio. He was joined by P. G. T. Beauregard, the hero of the First Battle of Bull Run, and by reinforcements from the Gulf coast, building an army of about 44,000 men.

Meanwhile Grant’s Army of the Tennessee, about 48,000 strong, camped at Pittsburg Landing, roughly 20 miles north-east of Corinth, waiting for Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio to march from Nashville. The combined force was then to advance on Corinth. Johnston decided to strike first, before the two Union armies could unite.

The surprise attack of 6 April

The Confederate march from Corinth was slowed by rain, poor roads and inexperienced troops, and the attack planned for 4 April was postponed. Several Confederate officers, including Beauregard, feared the noisy approach had given the game away and urged a withdrawal. Johnston insisted on attacking.

The Union camps were not entrenched, and senior officers, including Grant and William T. Sherman, did not expect an attack, dismissing reports of Confederate activity. Early on Sunday 6 April, a Union patrol sent out by Colonel Everett Peabody of Benjamin Prentiss’s division ran into the advancing Confederates. The warning gave some units time to form, but waves of attackers soon overran the forward camps around Shiloh Church, a small log meeting house that gave the battle its name.

Grant was at his headquarters at Savannah, about nine miles downriver, when the firing began. He arrived by steamboat in mid-morning and spent the day organising a fighting retreat towards the landing. The Confederate attack was powerful but disorderly: Johnston’s corps were stacked one behind another, and as they advanced through woods and ravines the units became badly mixed.

The Hornet’s Nest and the death of Johnston

In the centre of the Union line, the divisions of Prentiss and W. H. L. Wallace held a wooded position along a farm lane later called the Sunken Road. Confederate soldiers named it the Hornet’s Nest because of the intensity of the fire. For several hours the Confederates attacked it piecemeal, rather than bypassing it, and failed to break through.

Around 2.30 p.m. Johnston, directing attacks near the nearby Peach Orchard, was hit behind the right knee by a bullet. The wound cut an artery, and he bled to death within about an hour, possibly because he had sent his personal surgeon to tend wounded soldiers. He was the highest-ranking officer killed on either side during the war. Beauregard took command.

Late in the afternoon Confederate General Daniel Ruggles assembled more than 50 guns, one of the largest concentrations of artillery yet seen in North America, and pounded the Hornet’s Nest. Confederate infantry surrounded the position. Wallace was mortally wounded, and at about 5.30 p.m. Prentiss surrendered with around 2,200 men.

The long defence had bought valuable time. Grant formed a final line on the high ground near Pittsburg Landing, backed by massed artillery and the gunboats USS Tyler and USS Lexington. A last Confederate push at dusk failed, and Beauregard called off the attack, believing that Grant’s army was beaten and could be finished the next day.

The Union counterattack of 7 April

During the night the leading divisions of Buell’s army crossed the river to Pittsburg Landing, and Lew Wallace’s division of Grant’s army, which had taken a wrong road during the day, finally reached the field. Heavy rain fell, and the wounded of both sides lay in the open.

On the morning of 7 April the Union forces, now with fresh troops and a clear numerical advantage, counterattacked. The tired and disorganised Confederates fought hard but were slowly pushed back over the ground they had won. By mid-afternoon Beauregard ordered a retreat to Corinth. On 8 April Sherman’s pursuit was checked at Fallen Timbers by Confederate cavalry under Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was wounded there.

Key people

• Ulysses S. Grant: commander of the Union Army of the Tennessee; surprised on the first day but held his position.
• Albert Sidney Johnston: Confederate commander who planned the attack and was killed on 6 April.
• P. G. T. Beauregard: Johnston’s second-in-command, who took over and ordered the retreat.
• Don Carlos Buell: commander of the Union Army of the Ohio, whose arrival decided the second day.
• William T. Sherman: commanded the Union division at Shiloh Church; slightly wounded during the battle.
• Benjamin Prentiss: Union division commander who held the Hornet’s Nest before surrendering.

By the numbers

Consequences

The casualty lists stunned the public. Shiloh’s toll was greater than that of the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War combined. Grant was widely blamed in Northern newspapers for being caught unprepared, and rumours that he had been drinking circulated, although there is no reliable evidence for them. His superior, Henry Halleck, took personal command of the combined armies and advanced slowly on Corinth, which the Confederates abandoned at the end of May 1862.

The battle also changed how its commanders saw the war. Grant later wrote in his memoirs that after Shiloh he gave up the hope that the Union could be saved without complete conquest of the Confederacy. On the Confederate side, the loss of Johnston, then regarded as one of the South’s ablest generals, was keenly felt. The same day, 7 April, Union forces captured Island No. 10 on the Mississippi, and New Orleans fell later that month, confirming the Union’s growing grip on the Western rivers.

Myths and facts

• Myth: the Union soldiers were bayoneted in their tents. Early newspaper stories made this claim, but most Union regiments had time to form lines before the Confederates arrived, thanks partly to Peabody’s patrol.
• Myth: the Hornet’s Nest alone saved Grant’s army. Its defence delayed the Confederates for hours, but historians also stress the defence of other sectors, Grant’s final artillery line, the gunboats, Confederate disorganisation and Buell’s arrival.

Timeline

• 1862, 6 February: Fort Henry falls to Union forces.
• 1862, 16 February: Fort Donelson surrenders to Grant.
• 1862, 3 April: Johnston’s army begins its march from Corinth.
• 1862, 6 April: Confederate surprise attack at Shiloh; Johnston is killed; the Hornet’s Nest surrenders.
• 1862, 7 April: Union counterattack with Buell’s army; the Confederates retreat.
• 1862, 8 April: Skirmish at Fallen Timbers ends the pursuit.
• 1862, 30 May: Confederates evacuate Corinth.

Why it matters

Shiloh showed Americans the true scale of the Civil War’s killing and convinced leaders on both sides that the conflict would be long and total. It secured the Union’s hold on western Tennessee, opened the way to Corinth and the Mississippi Valley, and made Grant, despite fierce criticism, a commander who would go on to win at Vicksburg and, finally, at Appomattox.