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7 The Forgotten Inhabitants of Shiloh: A Case Study in a CivilianGovernment Relationship James Wood could tell something was amiss. He lived in a small house on the Corinth Road some three miles inland from Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. There, he labored hard at his nearby cotton gin, working the fibers for the few cotton farmers who were his neighbors in the area. There was no ginning on this day, which was not surprising in early April, but there was no other type of work either. Nor had there been for weeks, because an entire United States army was camping on the surrounding land. Wood had seen column after column of blue-clad soldiers march past his house for several weeks as they went about maneuvers, training, and drill. There had even been some loud skirmishing in recent days as a few Confederates surveyed this Federal presence.1 But what was happening on this afternoon of April 5, 1862, was different . Now there were more than just a few roving bands of Confederate cavalry in the vicinity; thousands upon thousands of Confederates were gathering near Wood’s house and were beginning to deploy in line of battle. Wood soon realized that something bad was about to happen, and fearing for his home and gin, but fearing more for the safety of his loved ones, he gathered his family and what possessions he could carry and set out south along the Corinth Road. What he saw confirmed his suspicions. Behind that initial line of Confederates were countless soldiers, in fact, the entire Army of the Mississippi. As the family slowly traveled southward against what must have seemed like an unending tide of Southern soldiers moving northward, they saw the Confederate army commander, Albert Sidney Johnston, who had set up headquarters under a post oak tree in a small glade. Surely Johnston would not be there if battle was not imminent.2 Johnston was indeed there to give battle to Ulysses S. Grant. It began at dawn the next morning, April 6, 1862, and has become known to history as the Battle of Shiloh. Yet as compelling as this scene is, few people stepping 108 The Forgotten Inhabitants of Shiloh onto the battlefield of Shiloh or reading about the battle itself think of the civilians who lived on the field and endured the hardship of war. Few if any battle studies mention them, and when they do, it is normally in reference to some military aspect. But the study of the Shiloh civilians can offer a lot of knowledge about the terrain on which the battle was fought, the civilian surroundings of the area, and even about the battle itself. To be sure, the armies fought the Battle of Shiloh on common, everyday land where common people lived. Their houses, barns, and countless other trappings affected the battle to at least some degree, and the battle certainly affected them. Shiloh is a great case study in which to examine the impact of Civil War military operations on civilians. But there is a larger story concerning the civilians of Shiloh than just the battle itself. Common people lived on the land that became the battlefield long before the conflict took place, and they have lived there ever since. Studying Shiloh’s civilian population in a broader context can offer insights into governmental relations with the general public within the context of battlefield preservation and the larger issue of conservation. Shiloh’s civilians were thoroughly affected by the battle as well as the commemorative results that came from those two days of conflict. Granted, they were probably more affected than the normal citizen in either 1862 or 2012, but their story, when examined as a case study of how the federal government has dealt with its citizens regarding the issue of conservation, can offer important clues into the historic civilian-government relationship in the United States. The Shiloh civilians have endured more than just a normal amount of government intervention in their lives. The earliest settlers received government grants for land. As war loomed a couple of decades later, these people were forced to endure not only a horrific battle between huge contending armies but also weeks and weeks of Federal army occupation. After the war, the citizens of the area received a permanent government presence with the establishment of a national cemetery in their neighborhood, with a much larger national military park coming several decades later. Modern citizens of the general...

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