Thursday, August 10, 2017

Shiloh National Military Park


We passed Shiloh National Military Park on our way to our vacation destination and decided to stop for a while on the way home. It was an impressive place, filled with huge monuments and steeped in blood and history. The numbers of dead at the Battle of Shiloh were greater than any other battles in the war to that point. Union casualties were 13,047, and the Confederacy lost 10,699. The South lost their army's commander, Albert Sidney Johnston, as well as Brigadier General Adley H. Gladden.
"I saw an open field, in our possession on the second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the day before, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing, in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground." —Ulysses S. Grant
Ambrose Bierce fought as an officer for the Union at Shiloh and wrote What I Saw at Shiloh, which includes this:
And this was, O so long ago! How they come back to me - dimly and brokenly, but with what a magic spell - those years of youth when I was soldiering! Again I hear the far warble of blown bugles. Again I see the tall, blue smoke of camp-fires ascending from the dim valleys of Wonderland. There steals upon my sense the ghost of an odor from pines that canopy the ambuscade. I feel upon my cheek the morning mist that shrouds the hostile camp unaware of its doom, and my blood stirs at the ringing rifle-shot of the solitary sentinel. Unfamiliar landscapes, glittering with sunshine or sullen with rain, come to me demanding recognition, pass, vanish and give place to others. Here in the night stretches a wide and blasted field studded with half-extinct fires burning redly with I know not what presage of evil. Again I shudder as I note its desolation and its awful silence. Where was it? To what monstrous inharmony of death was it the visible prelude?
Henry Morton Stanley of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" fame fought for the Confederacy and was captured. He joined the Union army 2 months later.

Here are the gates to the cemetery proper and some sections of grave markers:



I looked for Confederate soldier graves but found none until I came across the mass graves in these trenches:


There are reportedly two Confederate dead interred in the actual main cemetery, but I didn't find them.

Wikipedia has this comparison of the armies:
On the eve of battle, Grant's and Johnston's armies were of comparable size, but the Confederates were poorly armed with antique weapons, including shotguns, hunting rifles, pistols, flintlock muskets, and even a few pikes; however, some regiments, such as the 6th and 7th Kentucky Infantry, had Enfield rifles. The troops approached the battle with very little combat experience; Braxton Bragg's men from Pensacola and Mobile were the best trained. Grant's army included 32 out of 62 infantry regiments who had combat experience at Fort Donelson. One half of his artillery batteries and most of his cavalry were also combat veterans
There are markers throughout the park explaining who was where and what happened when. It's hard to take in how horrible it must have been. Death is everywhere, even now.

photo from Wikipedia



There is a reconstruction of Shiloh Methodist Church, site of the battle and for which the battle was named:


A United Methodist Church congregation continues to be active here in the park:


The Tennessee Monument:


It's heart-breaking. It really requires more time than just half a day. I wish there'd been a restaurant across the road where we could have taken a break for lunch and then returned. Time is required to begin to take it all in. People are stupid, and war is hell, and I wish -oh, how I wish!- we would ever learn.

This is a 20 minute National Geographic video on the battle:



There is a 2-hour virtual tour of the battlefield from C-Span here.

10 comments:

  1. Visiting historic places related to war makes one stop and think doesn't it? All that battle and death. Mankind seems doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. There must be a better way.

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    1. There _must_ be a better way, yes, and yet as I watch the news it looks like we're headed there once again :(

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  2. I have been to that National Park and was simply overwhelmed. I couldn't believe all the graves I saw. It really made me think of (although not during the Civil War) the graves at the Battle of Little Bighorn. War is truly hell and if our president would just button his lip and visit some of these battlefields, especially those where brothers fought against brothers, we might have a safer country. BTW, I bought a book on the battle in the gift shop while I was there.

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    1. He will not learn from the past. I think he reacts, then justifies the reaction. I wish he was coachable. Nobody expected him to know it all to start with, but we hoped he would seek advice from people who had been involved with government at the federal level before. It's scary that it seems he won't listen.

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  3. This military​ park bears a wonderful tribute to those who lost their lives and it's heartbreaking how history seems to repeat itself, I totally agree there must be a better way! J x

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    1. It's a solemn place, and the visitors were fascinated by the gravestones and the number of huge monuments. It is heartbreaking to think we seem to shoot first and talk later :(

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  4. Old cemeteries are fascinating and this one also has a lot of history, too.

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    1. I do find cemeteries fascinating. There's a lot of history even in small family and community graveyards, so this one was definitely worth the stop.

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  5. I didn't know so many people died during this battle.I was at Gettysburg once many many years ago and I tried to picture the battle itself. I don't think I can and only see Hollywood film movies in my head, but I was hoping I could to try to picture how horrible it must have really been. Those battles have had to have been loud and smelly and scary. I am a wimp so I don't think I go fight hand to hand like they often did. Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the visit.

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    1. Gettysburg had more than Shiloh but came after. I can't even imagine what it must've been like to be on the battlefield during or after one of these slaughters. Horrifying! And yet wars continue :(

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