The Shiloh Campaign, Second Edition (Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland)

178 Pages·2009·3.33 MB·English

by  Steven E. Woodworth

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Civil War
CAMPAIGNS
in the
HEARTLAND
steven e. woodworth
series editor
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The
SHILOH
Campaign
Edited by Steven E. Woodworth
Southern Illinois University Press
Carbondale
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Copyright © 2009 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
Chapter 4 copyright © 2009 by Steven E. Woodworth. Chap-
ter 6 reprinted from Grady McWhiney, “General Beaure-
gard’s ‘Complete Victory’ at Shiloh: An Interpretation,”
Journal of Southern History 49, no. 3 (August 1983): 421–34
(copyright © 1983 by the Southern Historical Association;
reprinted by permission from the editor). Chapter 7 copy-
right © 2009 by Charles David Grear. Chapter 8 copyright
© 2009 by Brooks D. Simpson
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Shiloh campaign / edited by Steven E. Woodworth.
p. cm. — (Civil War campaigns in the heartland)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-2892-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8093-2892-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1.Shiloh, Battle of, Tenn., 1862. 2.Tennessee—History—
Civil War, 1861–1865—Campaigns. 3.United States—His-
tory—Civil War, 1861–1865—Campaigns.I. Woodworth,
Steven E.
E473.54.S575 2009
973.7'31—dc22 2008034311
Printed on recycled paper.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum re-
quirements of American National Standard for Informa-
tion Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. ∞
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contents
acknowledgments vii
introduction 1
1. “i mustsave thisarmy”
albert sidney johnston and the shiloh campaign 8
John R. Lundberg
2. aterrible baptism by fire
david stuart’sdefense of the union left 29
Alexander Mendoza
3. anatomy ofanicon
shiloh’shornets’nest in civil warmemory 55
Timothy B. Smith
4. intolerably slow
lew wallace’smarch to the battlefield 77
Steven E. Woodworth
5. soul-stirring music to our ears
gunboatsat shiloh 96
Gary D. Joiner
6. generalbeauregard’s “complete victory” at shiloh
an interpretation 110
Grady McWhiney
7. victory for neither side
confederate soldiers’reactions to the battle of shiloh 123
Charles D. Grear
8. after shiloh
grant, sherman, and survival 142
Brooks D. Simpson
contributors 161
index 163
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acknowledgments
Special thanks are due to Jason M. Frawley, Charles D. Grear,
and David Slay for coming up with the original idea for this
book and the series of which it is part. They know exactly what
I mean when I say that none of this would have happened
without them.
To no less degree, thanks are due, and gladly rendered, to
Sylvia Frank Rodrigue for her patience and gentle persistence
in shepherding the project through to completion on behalf of
Southern Illinois University Press.
vii
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introduction
S
hiloh 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 com-
munication 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 Rail-
road, 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.
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