The Shiloh Campaign

Introduction

1 introduction Shiloh represented the nation’s first bloodletting on the scale that was to become typical of major Civil War battles. Perhaps its best-known statistic is that more Americans died in that two-day battle than had died in all the battles in all the nation’s previous wars put together. Shiloh also represented the Confederacy’s first great counteroffensive in the western theater, the first attempt to regain all that was lost in the opening debacles of forts Henry and Donelson, and it was also very likely the Confederacy’s last, best hope to turn the tide in the West and save the Southern heartland for the Rebellion. There would be other attempts thereafter, but each would be more desperate and have less chance of success than the one before, until finally such efforts at creating a turning point in a war that, it seemed, simply would not turn concluded in John Bell Hood’s disastrous foray to Franklin and Nashville. If the Confederacy was to turn the tide of the war in its favor, it had few better chances than Shiloh. In a sense, the Shiloh campaign began with the fall of Fort Donelson, February 16, 1862, or at least in the immediate aftermath of that great Union victory and almost irremediable Confederate disaster. The fall of forts Henry and Donelson opened the Tennessee River to Union boat traffic, including gunboats, all the way to northern Alabama, and the Cumberland River to the head of navigation above Nashville. This cut Confederate east-west communication and effectively gave Union forces control of all of Kentucky and half of Tennessee. The next Union goal was the rail-junction town of Corinth, Mississippi. Situated in northeastern Mississippi, Corinth lay at the crossing of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad—the most important north-south line in the Confederate heartland—with the Memphis & Charleston Railroad—probably the most important rail line in the Confederacy. The Memphis & Charleston ran east and west between the cities of its name, but its greatest significance was that it joined at Chattanooga with the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad , thus forming a continuous line of rails between the Confederacy’s main eastern and western armies. Its loss would cripple the Confederacy’s ability to shift men and supplies, both from one end of the front to the other and within the confines of the northern Mississippi theater of the conflict. introduction 2 Like many significant military goals, the importance of Corinth was readily apparent to informed observers of the strategic situation. Several Confederate generals, including western-theater commander Albert Sidney Johnston, recognized the need to concentrate Confederate forces there. On the Union side, Gen. Henry W. Halleck, recently elevated to command of all the Union armies in the West, also recognized the desirability of having Corinth and began laying his plans to take it. The way in which Halleck designed to capture Corinth and the way that Johnston chose to defend it set the stage for the battle of Shiloh. Halleck was methodical, thorough, and very cautious. He determined to unite the three Union armies between the Appalachians and the Mississippi into a single grand force that would crush all resistance in its way. John Pope’s Army of the Mississippi, which had previously cooperated very successfully with Union naval forces on the river of that name, would come east to join Halleck’s campaign. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, which had recently occupied Nashville, would likewise join in the advance. Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee, which had won the victories at the forts that had made Pope’s and Buell’s smaller successes possible, would be the largest component. The three armies would rendezvous at a point on the Tennessee River as close as possible to Corinth, which was about twenty miles from the river’s nearest point. The Army of the Tennessee, which was already operating near the lower reaches of that river, would be the first to ascend it and to establish a position on its banks at which the other armies were to join it. Halleck had a low opinion of Grant and was jealous of the success his junior had achieved. He did his best to claim credit for Grant’s victories but was annoyed that those triumphs had won Grant promotion over other officers whom Halleck much preferred. Grant’s aggressive style of warfare unnerved Halleck—raising...