on Sunday, April 6th, initiated ironically by a Union patrol sent by Colonel Everett Peabody from Prentiss's division, which discovered Confederate skirmishers in Fraley Field, on the outskirts of Sherman's camps. Sherman won lasting fame for his scorched earth strategies in Mississippi, Georgia, and the Carolinas.įiring began about 5 a.m. Beauregard was decidedly wrong.Īn inept battlefield commander, William T. Instead of being surprised, they would be found "entrenched to their eyes," he said. Beauregard, had wanted to retreat to Corinth on April 5th, believing the enemy surely had been alerted by the noisy, delayed Confederate march over three days. Ironically, Johnston's senior subordinate, General P.G.T. The Confederates were led by General Albert Sidney Johnston, the former regular army brigadier who had been Jefferson Davis's choice for top commander in the West. Poised at that very moment on the brink of the outer Union camps were about 35,000 determined Confederates, eager to reverse the tide of war that had resulted in key Yankee victories at Forts Henry and Donelson and led to much lost Southern territory in Kentucky and Tennessee. Compared with what was to come, this scene could not have been more ironic or more tragic. It was a standing joke among the men that it was a Union cardinal who had enlisted in the regiment to sound reveille and retreat. Wallace of Illinois had ridden out to Sherman's camp on the evening of April 5th and found "everything quiet and the general in fine spirits." Another Union soldier noted how the woods were filled with "Johnny-jump-ups," - wildflowers that carpeted the ground in a river of color, and at a camp in Prentiss's division a redbird appeared to serenade the idle soldiers from a black oak tree. Despite occasional fire from the pickets in the adjacent woods, and a brief skirmish on April 4th in the outlying timber, the Union army was at ease. While Grant remained nine miles downriver, at Savannah, Tennessee, awaiting Buell's arrival from Nashville, Sherman's men and the army's other divisions busied themselves amid the backwoods tableland, camping, cooking, and drilling. Sherman had moved his division two miles inland the following day to occupy ground near Shiloh Meeting House, a rustic one room, hewn-log church. Grant's friend and subordinate, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman was the nominal commander at the Pittsburg Landing camps, since he had originally recommended the site on March 16th. It was to be merely an offensive base, from which the combined Union forces of Grant and the Army of the Ohio - under Major General Don Carlos Buell who was then en route from Nashville would advance upon the enemy rail center at Corinth, Mississippi. Across a rough triangular plot of land, about three miles across at the base and bordered by Snake, Owl, and Lick Creeks, five divisions of the Union army, about 40,000 men, were comfortably if temporarily encamped. Their campground was backwoods farmland, an uneven tableland with timbered ridges and steep ravines, interspersed by plots of cleared pasture and small but mellow orchards of peach and cherry. The timber is getting green as midsummer the leaves are almost as thick as they will ever be, and wild flowers have gotten to be an old story." Wrote one at-ease Illinois volunteer on Saturday, April 5th, "The weather here is almost as hot as August there and the boys are enjoying themselves hugely, lying in the shade when off duty, barefoot, pant and shirtsleeves rolled up, collars unbuttoned and thrown open, thus presenting the most complete picture of laziness I ever saw. Grant's Union Army of the Tennessee were lolling amid an idyllic setting during the first week in April 1862. In camp along the banks of the Tennessee River at Pittsburg Landing, 22 miles north of Corinth, Mississippi, the soldiers of Major General Ulysses S. Tennessee was ablaze with bright sunshine, fragrant flowers, and verdant, spring green vegetation. Saved Land Browse Interactive Map View active campaigns.Protect Virginia Battlefields from Massive Data Centers.New Battlefield State Park Coming to Virginia.Skyline of Gettysburg National Military Park Could Change Forever.Support Outdoor Classrooms at Seven Key Battlefields.Help Preserve 64 Acres Across Three Revolutionary War Sites.Help Preserve 311 Acres at Four Historic Battlefields.
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