American History Hit - Battle of Shiloh

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

The staggering casualties of the Battle of Shiloh shocked both the North and South, marking a turning point in public perception of the Civil War's likely length and brutality. It also cemented a name in the public imagination - Ulysses S. Grant.Don's guest is Dr Timothy B. Smith, author of 'Shiloh: Conquer or Perish'.Editor Ayman Alolayan, Producer Sophie Gee, Senior Producer Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. Mount McGregor, New York, 1885. At a quiet, rustic cottage nestled among pine trees,

the late afternoon sun slants across the porch, catching the silver in Ulysses S. Grant's beard. A blanket covers his legs, a knit cap warms his head. In his right hand, a knife-sharpened pencil moves steadily across a sheet of paper as he writes, carefully recounting events from 40 years earlier. The Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburgh Landing, he wrote, has been more persistently misunderstood than any other engagement during the entire rebellion. Grant's memoirs, begun the previous fall in New York City,

would grow into a two-volume 360,000-word work, an astonishing feat completed in just 11 months. It was intended not only to detail his role in the war, but to explain the broader moral purpose of the war. the conflict. Shiloh would be the battle that shattered Grant's illusions about the war. Like so many in the north, Grant had expected a swift union victory. But in that wide clearing in western Tennessee, hemmed in by trees, he witnessed relentless close quarters combat from dawn until dark, as Confederate troops hurled themselves against union lines. By the second day's

end, the field was so thick with the dead that it was said one could walk in any direction, stepping only on bodies, never touching the ground. As Grant reviewed his sentences, he thought back to those horrendous days. Shiloh had made it clear. This would be no gentleman's war. It would be total. Dear listeners, glad you could join us. This is American History Hit, and I'm Don Wildman. Well, today we resume our march. We started with the episodes on Fort Sumter and bull run, undertaking a chronological campaign telling the histories of the major battles of the American Civil War ought to take just about as long as it took to fight the war. But it's worth it, considering the grave consequences and supreme sacrifices made. The civil war would recreate

the United States of America, continuing our great experiment. The war and its aftermath, often called the nation's second founding, shifted the very ground the nation stood upon, so we think it's vital to understand the very grounds those battles were fought upon and why they happened. For now, we find ourselves in the early days, spring of 1862, out in the Western Theater, where the Tennessee River wends its way south past Hardin County, Tennessee, about 100 miles east of Memphis and 20 miles north of Mississippi. These western regions they were called in those days, because that was the West, were considered vital to both the Union and the Confederates, since occupying them meant controlling the vital water routes that ran through them, the Mississippi River,

the Ohio, the Tennessee. So many supplies and troop movements would be delivered by these waterways. So, accordingly, a series of high-stakes battles would be fought at profound cost of men and treasure. April 6th, 1862, was the Battle of Shiloh. And to help us understand this pivotal confrontation, we are joined by historian Dr. Timothy B. Smith, who teaches history at the University of Tennessee at Martin, author of a number of books including Corinth 1862, Siege Battle Occupation, and Shiloh, Conquer or Parish, both from the University Press of Kansas. Hello, Professor Smith, Timothy, nice for you to do this. Hello, thank you for having me.

Greetings. Let's start with the macro viewpoint of the war to this point. Back east, as I mentioned, there had been the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, near the capital, a debacle for the Union, but since then there's been improvements for them. most notably out west. Can you bring us up to date at this point in the war? Sure. At the time of Shalow, we're only a year in. You know, if you compare that maybe with World War II or the Revolution or something like that,

this is very, very early in their stages. So April 1862, there hasn't been a lot of just what I would call huge battles, maybe Napoleonic-style battles. Yeah, you've got Bull Run and no offense to the Bull Run folks. Fort Donaldson, Wilson Creek. things like that, but these are fairly small revolutionary-type battles, revolutionary war-type battles, Mexican War of 1812-sized battles. And as a result, when you reach shallow and you have this massive battle, this is kind of the beginning of the war a little bit. It's when the thing is getting

serious. It's starting to move past the early moves, the initial feeling each other out, the initial mobilization type stuff. And what leads to Shiloh, of course, is the Union forces are moving southward along the Tennessee River, trying to pierce this Confederate defensive line in the West that stretches all the way from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River across all the way to Indian territory, in fact. And the Union Forces move southward,

the Confederates are trying to defend their port railroads, and some of those are near Shallow, and that's what brings the armies to that battlefield. It's really about transportation, isn't it? the rivers and the railways that are out there. When I call it the West, I should really clarify this for some of the audience. We're talking about as far as Western Kentucky and Western Tennessee, that is the West as defined by the Mississippi River, really, in those days. How is my description of the stakes out there at that time? Spot on. There are different debates over what constitutes the Western Theater. Some include the Trans-Mississippi's the Western Theater. A lot of historians prefer to call this area, Western Kentucky, Western Tennessee. Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, northern Mississippi is really the Confederate heartland, which kind of gets at the importance and the significance here.

All these rivers, all these railroads. I used to joke about the movie Trains, Planes and Automobiles. This is literally railroad, steamboat wagons that connect the two. So the Industrial Revolution has had a huge impact on warfare. You see this not just in America, the Crimean War before this, somewhat in the Mexican War as well in America. But the Civil War, you know, you get into the debate of the first modern war, all that kind of stuff. I happen to believe every war is the most modern war at that point. There is no first modern war. But, you know, the Industrial Revolution

absolutely has a significant effect on the Civil War, and we see that vividly at Chalo. Yeah. This will be the battle that gives rise to several people, but most notably Ulysses S. Grant. This is where he starts to really distinguish himself as a leader. He's under a man. He's under a named General Henry Halleck. Can you talk about that man because he doesn't get much attention? He doesn't get a lot of attention and rightly so. He's not very good. He is America's military theorist. He takes the old Napoleonic Germany mindset and brings that to the fighting men of America. Wrote the book, for instance, you know, the elements of military art and science that a lot of American officers use. So he is very set in his ways, very rigid in doing things.

the way Napoleon would have done it. And as a result, he doesn't turn out to be a very good general. Grant, you know, that relationship, you always talk about jealousy and all of that. I'm not so sure it's jealousy. Halleck biographer John Marzleck basically says that the two spoke two different military languages. Alec just didn't like Grant because he didn't do things by the book. He was kind of sloppy. He was not, you know, a rigid by the book kind of guy.

Just tell you one interesting story real quick. When Halleck shows up after Shahle, he goes. gets all over Grant for fighting this battle and for not being prepared. You're not ready to fight another battle if we have to, all that kind of stuff. And at one point, he tells him, I'm getting letters from your officers and they are not folding their letters correctly. You have your officers fold your letters correctly by military style. And I'm sure Grant's thinking, how are we going to win this war if we don't fold our letters correctly, you know? So that illustrates the difference kind of between the mentalities of how like Ed and Grant.

I said the same thing to my wife about the napkins last night at dinner. It's important to have discipline. So let's talk about Shiloh as a location. As I mentioned earlier, there's a push down from the north. Fort Donaldson, those battles in the days earlier are about the union pushing down, what will eventually become Vicksburg. I mean, the idea here is to take control primarily of the Mississippi River, but many other places as well, and the railroads. What made Shiloh an important location or Pittsburgh landing just north of it? Well, as they say in real estate, location, location, location, of course. Yes, Shallow is very much part of the Mississippi Valley campaign, starting up at Belmont, Fort Henry, Fort Donaldson, all the way through Vicksburg.

Shallow, in fact, is the largest battle in the Mississippi Valley campaign. So it holds that importance. But what makes the ground at Shiloh, itself, important, is basically the landing on the river itself. There's nothing really at Shallow that makes it important in terms of people saying, okay, we're going to fight a battle here. In fact, Shalow has never intended to be a battlefield. It's intended to be a staging area for further union operations southward against Corinth, Mississippi, and those important railroads. So the Union Army will camp there largely because in the spring of 1862, the River, Tennessee River, has risen so much that most of the landings up and down the river are underwater. Pittsburgh Landing being the one or two, there are a couple others around, but the one good one that provides access not only,

to Corinth, but also good camping areas, good fields, to drill the troops, all of that. So the lead elements that are exploring this area figure out this is a good place to camp. This is a good place to land the Army, and that's the reason the Union Army counts there in the days and weeks before the battle. Of course, the Confederates realize, okay, we've got to do something about this incursion, and that's why they march northward from Corinth to attack the Union forces there. So that's why we wind up with a battle there. It's an interesting, very specific contrast

because you have the union bringing in troops via the river, you know, through ferry boats coming down the Tennessee. The Confederates, on the other hand, have the railroad lines. And that, as we say, is a big hub in Corinth. So that's where the Federals are heading towards, but that's the difference in their abilities to supply these troops.

Grant is camped, as you say, at Pittsburgh Landing, which is sort of northish of where the fight will take place. He's about 40,000 troops. As I say, an eye on Corinth, Mississippi. He awaits reinforcements from the east under a guy named General Don Carlos Buell. Well, this will figure in prominently in this thing. The notion they have is what's very colorfully called the Anaconda Plan, this strangling of the South. How far are they from making that happen? Well, when Phil Scott, of course, the author of the Anaconda Plan is ridiculed at the beginning

of the war. That's going to take way too long, way too many troops. It's going to be a three-month war and the thing's going to be done. Well, the basic formula, that they win the war with after four years is basically the anaconda plant. And so here a year end of the war, they are working through the process of strangling the south, as an anaconda will do. It takes a while to build ship to implement the blockade, of course. One of the major tenets of the anaconda plan is to open the Mississippi River, which again, Shalow is very much a part of that.

It's convenient the way these rivers, you know, we talk about the Industrial Revolution and the rivers and the railroads and all of that. The rivers really play a more important role, at least early, in the Western Theater, than the railroads do, because they are pointed directly, like daggers into the heart, this art land of the Confederacy. And as the Federals move southward, they're trying to move southward along the Mississippi River, but they are blocked at Columbus, Kentucky. But conveniently, they can step over 100 miles to the east, move straight down the Tennessee River

and get where they need to go out, flanking. Columbus and then step back over to the Mississippi and continue on bound of experts. So the rivers are set up perfectly for their operations in the West, and it sets up perfectly to implement this Anaconda plan. And that's another one of the advantages that they have a better Navy. Lots more boats to do this with. Hundreds of ferry boats will be required. I mean, that's the kind of scale we're talking about with these troops. Meanwhile, Southern forces are commanded by General Albert Sidney Johnson, who they are, as we say, concentrated in Corinth, regrouping after a number of union victories to the north. He's seeking

a strike attack before grants reinforcements arrive. That's key to this timing, isn't it? It is. A lot of Civil War actions depend on speed and surprise. The effort is to surprise the enemy, get in the first punch, sucker punch kind of thing. And that's not, you don't need a military academy education to figure that out. If you're going to fight the bully in the third grade, you want to get the sucker punch in. It's not anything new to military history. or anything like that. In fact, what Johnston is doing, since Buell is coming in from Nashville, and Justin realizes

we're going to be way out, we're already outnumbered pretty much, at least parity. And when Buell gets here, we're going to be way outnumbered. And so we better fight one at a time. So it's the classic old Napoleonic central position where you get in between the two, you drive a wedge

of troops, your army, in between two separate enemy forces, and you fight one at a time. And that's exactly what Johnson is trying to do. It's a gamble. He says we've got to, you know, we will conquer or perish. This is do or die. And he decides to fight Grant, hoping to rid himself of Grant before Buell arrives. I got one more question before we talk about this battle. William Tocompsa Sherman figures into this team here. This is the beginning of what will play out to be Sherman's March on Atlanta.

That's a ways away. But I mean, this is how these chess pieces are putting into play. How much does Grant rely on Sherman at this point. Grant relies on Sherman a great deal. A lot of historians talk about the friendship that is born at Shiloh. In fact, it goes back a little earlier than that. Sherman is supplying Grant during the Fort Donaldson campaign, sending him troops, sending him supplies, so they lean on each other then. I think it is, though, at Shiloh, where, you know, this friendship is born in fire almost.

They really start to depend on each other. It may be overplayed a little bit. I think Sherman, if you know about Sherman, he's kind of a wily guy, you know, I'm convinced that he even as late as the summer of 1862 and maybe a little bit later when Grant is kind of under cloud a little bit. Grant stays under a cloud a lot. He's still hedging his bets. He's very friendly with Halleck, right? And Halleck gives glorious letters. He's very friendly with Grant.

And so it's almost like Sherman is saying, okay, I'm going to bide my time, be friendly with both until I see which one I need to hook my wagon to, you know, to go far. but very much developing a friendship here with Grant, and a lot of that comes out of Shalom. Sherman does not get the attention he deserves, in my opinion. I mean, people do not talk enough. He's got a lot of statues, nice ones, and a tank that's named after him, but he is critical to all of this. It always surprises me he wasn't running for president one day. Of course, he has that famous saying that if nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve. He doesn't want to get involved in the politics, and I can certainly understand that.

And he probably is the kind that would have made a much better dictator than president. There you go. I hope we've established that the stakes are high here. There's no out plan for grants. That's key here. You know, he's backed up by the rivers, the Snake Creek to the north and the Tennessee to his east. This has to work out. Or he spent a lot of his army on this thing.

So let's talk about this battle. It happens over a period of two days, primarily, as we say, April 6th, 1862. Sinney Johnson has brought his troops. within four miles southwest of Pittsburgh landing on the Tennessee. But his idea of a surprise has been delayed by the weather. It's been a lot of rain, slog in the roads. Still, he launches an attack on April 6th. How much of a surprise was this, or is that a myth? Well, it depends on your definition of surprise. Yes, the Confederate Army is delayed. We talk about the Industrial Revolution and the steamboats and the railroads. All of those worked fine during the rainy, wet weather, muddy, and all that. It breaks down,

of course, in between the two, where you have to go back to the old-fashioned wagons and horses, you know, moving the same way Julius Caesar did 1862 years before, kind of thing, you know. So it does delay the Confederate advanced Borgard, the Confederate Second in Command, is absolutely convinced that the enemy will know they're there, says, let's turn around and go back to Corinth. Johnson says, no, we're going to do this. We came. This is the great gamble. We have to fight Grant before Buell arrives.

So they launched the attack and miraculously it is more of a surprise than Borgard predicted. But again, their definitions of surprise strategically or operationally, it is very much a surprise. No federal woke up the morning of April the 6th thinking that they were going to fight the largest battle in American history that morning, that it was that much of a surprise. Now, you get down to tactical level on the battlefield itself. the Federals are, of course, not expecting to fight the battle, but there is a patrol that sent out to, you know, a skittish Union brigade commander sends a patrol out. That uncovers the Confederate advance about a mile out from the camp.

And as a result, they have warning and they are in line of battle, ready to meet the enemy as they're coming toward their camps. And they meet them where they were camped, which, as we say, was the Shiloh. Shiloh, is a name of a church. I want to make people understand. It translates in Hebrew as a place of peace, so much for that. But the real key strategic point to make at this beginning is that it's not where the federal's planned to stage this.

And so they are catching up on this thing real fast. Tell me about the first day. How does that go? Well, yes, it's never intended to be a battlefield. It's a staging area. But I've always said if you have to get surprised and caught and ambushed and play the defensive, Grant couldn't have picked a better place to do it because of the terrain. in the battlefield.

And so essentially, the way the battle will play out on the first day, and it's a mirror image on the second day, but the first day, Grant will fall back gradually from creek system to creek system, using those as defensive areas. In an effort, basically, the old cliché is to trade space for time. So he's falling back trying to eat up daylight. He'll hold the initial major line at the initial camps at shallow church, for instance. then he'll fall back to the major line where we get the famous areas such as the Hornets Nest and the Peach Orchard and the Crossroads, Bloody Pond, all of that. Eventually he'll fall back behind another set of creeks called Dill Branch and Tillman Branch.

These are huge ravines that the Confederates will have to go through if they're going to attack the last line of defense. It's a much more compact line that allows Grant to defend this position. The reason the line is there, however, is that a steel will hold Pittsburgh land. as well as the Snake Creek Bridge on opposite sides of the battlefield. And that's the key. He's falling back, trading space for time, eating up daylight, so that reinforcements can arrive. And of course, Buell will come in at Pittsburgh Landing. Lou Wallace will march in over the Snake Creek Bridge.

And so by the time nightfall comes and those reinforcements start coming in, Grant is in a position to win the battle. A lot of his stories say he's won it at this point. he could have still lost it. He could have pulled a McClellan and retreated and thrown it away. But the decision to stay and fight a second day gives Grant the victory. That's the key point here, isn't it? Taking note of the fact that you have now a general who's not only willing to stand and fight, which famously comes out of this, out of Lincoln's mouth, but also has the strategic mind to have chosen a field of battle. well, it wasn't supposed to be a field of battle, but he's always looking at how to defend. And so he's really playing chess as he falls back. I mean, you watch materials online and it looks

like it's a terrible day. It's like, oh, my God, the union line is just collapsing. But indeed, he was really playing a game of chess, wasn't he? He was waiting for those reinforcements to arrive. Absolutely. He knows what he's doing. He lets his generals fight the tactical action while he gives the overall direction and he'll trade space for time. And you get that very famous incident, of course, when Sherman, a lot of others are counseling retreat during the night. Let's put the river between us and them. We're beaten. And so Sherman comes to Grant's headquarters, and Sherman, of course, enters a room,

mouth first kind of thing. He just blurts out, well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day today. And Grant responds, yeah, lick them tomorrow, though. And so he chooses to stay and fight. And this kind of brings out for the first major time, Fort Donaldson notwithstanding, this Grant under pressure that he's not going to give up, He's not going to give in like so many other Union generals did and high-tailed northward. He's going to stay and fight it out.

You chomp enough cigars. You can get through anything. Sidney Johnson is a key casualty on the Confederate side. That general is shot in the knee, bleeds out and dies. Major loss for the Confederacy. They never replace him. He was one of those famous Mexican-American War generals, as was Grant. So many of them came out of that time, didn't they?

Lots of them came out of the Mexican War and will large. learn a lot from the mix this is the only experience really that they have in the in the field and you know the field experience this is this is why we send you know education majors out to do student teaching to get some experience and this is their student teaching in the mexican war and francis grant learns he watches zachary taylor and he watches winfield scott and he takes the best of both he takes zachary taylor and kind of his nonchalance and uh you know don't worry about pomp and circumstance and all that but But out of Winfield Scott, who's very much pomp in circumstance,

he takes kind of the manner of fighting, flanking, out, maneuvering the enemy, that types of. So, Brantler's a lot. Sidney Johnston did, does fight in the Mexican War, particularly at Monterey. Fortunately, Johnston doesn't learn from Mexican War experience and proves to be, I think, a lesser general. He's just not really fitted. To be a good general, you have to have a little bark and a little bite

to make people do things that you need them to do. I like Albert Cindy Johnson. I think he's just too nice of a guy. He's too leant to methodical, probably to be a good commander. And so when he's killed at Shaloh, I'm not sure that his death at Shaloh really makes that much difference at the battle itself due to the terrain situation that the Confederates are facing. But I think it does have a larger impact later in the war

because, as you say, nobody really ever replaced. Laces M in a way that everybody takes the new commander to be the head and shoulders above everybody else. In fact, what they wind up doing is promoting one of the core commanders from Shallow above the rest of them, which institutes a lot of jealousy, and that's Prax and Bragg, of course, and the three main enemies that Bragg later has are the three other corps commanders at Shallow that didn't get the promotion. So Beauregard being one of them, right?

Well, Boregard is the seconding commander, and he's got a whole lot of other issues with Jefferson Davis. They don't like each other. And so when Borgard gives up Corinth, after Shalow, that basically ruins it for him. Borgard will never hold a major Army command rest of the war. So there's more than just military ability involved here. There's politics, there's personality, a lot of the unbaugh. Just to put a cap on the Mexican, it's a very interesting perspective on the Civil War. 1865, Civil Wars ended 1848, the Mexican-American War. That's a 20-year, not even 20-year time period between. So we're speaking, in the end of 2024, I mean, that would be like 9-11, that time period. You know, that's as recent

as the Mexican-American War has been for these guys. They were in their 20s when they were in that action. So that's really, they all know each other very well. You know, it's pretty fresh in their minds. By the end of April 6th, Beauregard, for one, assumes he's won. I mean, by nightfall, they have pushed the Federals way back. They think they've won this battle. It's in the night going into April 7th when everything changes. Buell's forces have arrived at night. I'm not sure when Wallace gets there, but the Union Army just swells in numbers.

By dawn, they're ready for an offensive and to take the ground right back. Yes, Buell and Wallace combined will provide Grant with about 24,000 fresh troops. And when I say fresh, that means not engaged the day before. And they have marched a long way the day before. So they're not totally fresh. but they weren't engaged the day before.

The Confederates, on the other hand, get one regiment of reinforcements, 47th Tennessee. That's 741 men. So 741 men on one side, 24,000 on the other side. You can see which way this thing is going. And it's not a hard decision then for Grant to decide, yeah, we're going to stay here and we're going to fight it out. That certainly helps. But even if you compare this with other commanders, often think if George McClellan had been in

command of the Union Army here, what would he have done, given what? he did at the peninsula and other places, you know, and the failure to pursue it, Antietam. I'm not sure of what he would have gotten out of there. Joseph Hooker, Chancellisville, you know, would Hooker have fallen back? And again, people are counseling Grant to do this. But Grant said, no, we're going to stick and fight it out. And that's where he wins the battle. He could have still thrown it away during the night. He's also supported by the Navy, which is gunboats on the river, on the Tennessee River, which are a source of artillery. That last line of defense at shallow. There's some 50 pieces of artillery in the first third of a mile inland from the river.

And you've got the two gunboats, Tyler and Lexington, in the river itself firing up Dill Branch ravine. The area is so strong. And this is one of the key things for battlefield preservation. And the federal government did it a long time ago in the 1890s. The American Battlefield Trust is a wonderful organization still doing it today. But to be able to go to those battlefields and to see the terrain And you really can't understand it until you go there. You know, there are a lot of people that argue, oh, the competitors have just had one more hour of daylight. If Johnson had just lived, they would have swept over Grant's last line of defense and won that battle. And I dare say, the vast majority of those folks that argue that have never been to shallow and looked at Dill Brant's Rehn and looked at the terrain.

You can go out there and cross that thing on foot and put yourself in that position facing 50 cannons in front of you and the gunboats to the side and all of that. and this thing filled with backwater and the steep fields and all that, there is absolutely no way. And so I've quit arguing with people until they go out there and actually see it. And then we can discuss, you know, from a level playing field kind of thing. But to you go to Shalowlo and actually see this, you're really not in a place to even comment on it, really. Well, maybe this podcast will settle this once and for all, for God's sakes. You mentioned that April 7th is the mirror image of April 6th. The complete opposite happens.

Predictably, when you consider the numbers, a Confederate retreat is forced by the Union by 3 p.m. that afternoon. It's over pretty much that afternoon. The Confederates all sort of head down to Corinth, Mississippi, to gather their forces and prepare for the next thing. There is a counterattack by the Confederates. Forests charge into Union troops. There's a bunch of famous events here.

But when all is said and done, this battle is a two-day battle, and it's done on April 7th, And we're on to take account of the casualties. Yes, day two is very much a mirror image of the first day, just in reverse, because they're fighting back over the same areas. And so for all practice purposes, the hornets desk, peach orchard, all those same areas that become so famous on the first day become famous on the second day. But what is really remarkable, I think, about the second day is really the fight

to the Confederate Army that fought all day yesterday puts up. And in fact, they will stop cold turkey. the vast majority of the union advances, even by Buell's Fresh Army, if you call it fresh, all across the battlefield except on the extreme Confederate left, where they are outflanked, not once, not twice, but three times by Lou Wallace's division. And so Lou Wallace is really the fulcrum that puts the pressure on the Confederates and forces them to fall back incrementally, just like Grant had fallen back incrementally the day before. But the Confederates will continue to resist, and even as they fall back off the battle,

field, even on April the 8th there, you mentioned, Forest, and kind of this rear guard action a little bit that I think sometimes gets blown out of proportion. You hear a lot of this thing about forest gathering one of the union soldiers and pulling him up on his horse and using him as a shield as he rides away and all that kind of stuff. I'm convinced that's a bunch of hogwash that there's no evidence whatsoever. I found a lot of manuscript material in writing the book that described fallen timbers, this little battle on the 8th and nobody mentions this. If I had seen that in real five, I think I would have mentioned that to mama as I'm writing home to her, you know, but nobody mentions it. I'm convinced

that's a fabrication. The band would have done a big number about that one. So the costs are enormous on both sides, but it's pretty equal. I mean, more so on the union than the Confederate, but it's 13,000 union casualties. When I say that, I mean 1,700 plus killed, 8,000 plus wounded, etc., missing and captured. On the other side, it's kind of the same thing. 1728 killed on the Confederates, 8,012, wounded less missing or captured. But nonetheless, it's a pretty even battle, really, when it comes down to it. What's the key is the ground that is gained by the Union troops, ground they didn't even expect to gain that day. Shallow will be the real fight for Corinth in the railroads. Later in May, when Hallett comes down and gets on Grant for not folding his letters

correctly and all that kind of stuff. He will move on southward to Corinth. The Confederates will retreat without a battle. And this is part of what dooms Boregarde. Just days before Borgard has sent a message to Richmond that says, if defeated here, we lose the Mississippi Valley and probably our cause. And this days later, he retreats without fighting a battle. So Jefferson Davis is thinking, if Corinth is so important, why don't he fight for it? And so he'll remove him for other reasons as well. But this ends Borgard's career. in a lot of ways. At any rate, so Shalo, yes, is the battle

for current and for those railroads and the largest battle in the Mississippi Valley campaign. So that is extremely significant. Also significant, of course, is the cost of this thing. We mentioned the 23,000 casualties. There's some evidence that that's even

higher than that. Those are the reported numbers, but the evidence points to even a larger casualties maybe. But what this produces is the first first really big battle of the war. I often say, you know, America collectively gasped at the casualty figures of child. Because we never see anything like this in American history.

The Revolutionary War, War, making to have Mexican War battles. These are more cavities than really the size of armies. Winfield Scott didn't have an army this large, as large as the casualties at Shalow in the whole Mexican War. So it's a huge shock to the nation. The only thing Americans have to compare this to are Napoleonic battles. And so they referenced Napoleon and Austerlitz and Waterloo and Yana and Magrham and some of those. So this absolutely gets the nation's attention.

And instead of this whole, you know, three months in the war is going to be over type thing, they start figuring out we have got ourselves into a mess here. And we don't see any way out of this anytime soon. And indeed, it'll take another three years to get out of this. Exactly. And a year to get down to Vicksburg or so. and that will coincide with Gettysburg as when the whole war really turns.

But you're right, this is when this becomes world history and not just American history, this is a global event. Even Grant writes in his magnificent memoirs, quote, up to the Battle of Shiloh, I as well as thousands of others, believe that the rebellion against the government

would collapse suddenly and soon if a decisive victory could be gained over its armies. Such was not the case, as he soon realized afterwards, as he's looking back. Johnson's death was a major strategic blow, as I mentioned before, Jefferson Davis wrote after the war, when Sidney Johnston fell, it was a turning point of our fate, for we had no other hand to take up his work in the West. The irony, of course, is that Grant was vilified for being unprepared for this action for the massive amounts of casualties and so forth.

Where was this criticism? What was it based on? Well, there are a lot of rumors about Grant. He had left the Army before the Civil War, of rumors of drunkenness. He had failed in his attempts to even support his family. You know, he tried real estate, he tried farming, he tried everything in the world and failed. But at the beginning of the war, he's working for his father in Delina, Illinois. And so, you know, he was down and out. But, you know, this is the old idea to people make great events or to great events make great people, both ways, of course. But in this case, the event, and we could dare say this about Abraham Lincoln as well, the event made the great person.

Because in three or four years, Grant will be commanding the entire Union Army. He's in seven years. He's president of the United States. So completely changes his fortunes here. But there are some pretty low points in Grant service here. And after Shallow is absolutely one of those during the Clark campaign. He thinks of residing and going home. And it's Sherman, by all accounts that talks him out of him and says,

no, you've got to stay. And how things would have been different had Grant quit and going home. And we'd never heard anything else out of him. you know, but he continues on through the Vicksburg campaign, winning more. He's on a little bit of a short leash even then, but then on through Chattanooga and moving to the east and all that, he makes his name there. Yeah. And those battles are yet to come in the chronology we are covering of Civil War battles. Dr. Timothy B. Smith teaches history at the University of Tennessee Martin.

And if you've wondered how this man knows this story so well, not only has he written multiple books on Civil War actions, but he was also a National Park Ranger at Shiloh National Military Park in Wurton. Western Tennessee. There you go. That's a good summer job to get. Head on out there to the National Park. Get that hat. Proud positions to play. Thank you, sir. What's next on your horizon working on a new book? Yes, I'm actually working on a comparative history of Napoleonic battles with Civil War battles and how they compare in contrast and all that. It's really interesting. Oh, cool. Well, we'll get you back to talk about that soon enough. Thank you so much, Tim. Bye-bye. Thank you for having me. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit.

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