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1 “Difficult and Broken Ground”: The Terrain Factor at Shiloh Braxton Bragg was unnerved, to say the least, about fighting a battle on ground that he did not know well. As the Confederate army moved northward in early April 1862 to attack the Federals near Shiloh Church and Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, “the commanders of divisions and brigades were assembled at night, the order of battle was read to them, and the topography of the enemy’s position was explained, as far as understood by us,” Bragg remembered . That hint of doubt about the lack of knowledge of Shiloh’s terrain was more than verified during the battle. Bragg filled his postbattle report of Shiloh with statements about the effect terrain had had on the Confederate effort. The front line, he wrote, was “necessarily broken by the nature of the ground.” He also included such phrases as “in the broken country occupied by us” and “in moving over the difficult and broken ground,” the latter case resulting in a whole brigade losing contact with the main line. Back in Corinth later in April, Bragg summed up the battle in his report, saying, “Such was the nature of the ground over which we had fought, and the heavy resistance we had met, that the commands of the whole army were very much shattered.” Obviously, the enemy’s resistance will always be a major part of battles, but to Bragg, the terrain at Shiloh was a major factor as well.1 To be sure, the environment plays a significant role in shaping military events, but other factors, such as weaponry, leadership, timing, and political, economic, and social aspects, can help us understand those events on a deeper level. And in some cases, terrain played less of a role than would be expected. At Champion Hill, for instance, the Confederates held a strong position atop high ground yet still took a thumping at the hands of Ulysses S. Grant. Thus environmental history is only one aspect that needs explanation in order to understand military history. And even the field of environmental history casts a wide net. It can include the obvious terrain study or the lay of the land, which was so important at Shiloh. But it also includes other factors, such as weather (precipitation and temperature), river stages, vegetation, soil composition and 2 “Difficult and Broken Ground” ground conditions, sound travel, and even human cultural developments. Thus a wide-ranging effort is needed to explain and understand any particular event such as a Civil War battle. But while all aspects of military, social, political, economic, and environmental history played themselves out in the calamity that was Shiloh, one of the most dominant variables was the terrain on the battlefield. At Shiloh, terrain was the key feature among many others that turned the tide toward Union victory on the Tennessee. Examining the natural and manmade terrain at Shiloh in an exercise in the subfield of landscape history can offer many clues about how the battle was fought and why commanders did what they did. It can also help us understand more fully not only the parameters and significance of the battle but also that it is quite possible the Confederates never actually had a chance to win at Shiloh.2 Braxton Bragg certainly understood that Shiloh’s terrain had more to do with how that battle was fought, who won, and who lost than any other factor. Yet simply saying Shiloh’s terrain affected the outcome of the battle is inadequate . Most Shiloh enthusiasts can reel off the fact that the Confederate plan was to turn the Union left flank and that the large ravines in that area caused the battle to be fought in an exactly opposite fashion. While true, there is much more to the battlefield’s terrain than just those ravines, and that terrain had much more of an impact than that one set of ravines. Shiloh’s terrain contained numerous layers, both natural and manmade, that had a tremendous impact on both how the battle was fought and the outcome. When examined separately as individual items and then as layers constructed atop one another comprehensively, the idea emerges that the physical framework on which the Battle of Shiloh was fought had enormous implications on the outcome. Civil War historiography has been severely lacking in the field of terrain studies, perhaps better labeled geographic or landscape history. In fact, most Civil War publications dealing with battlefield terrain have been in the...

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