The Battle of Shiloh began on this date 161 years ago...

It was at Shiloh that the gloves really came off and people realized for the first time that battles like First Manassas weren't just random one-offs. In that brutal, two-day battle along the banks of the Tennessee River, nearly 24,000 Americans were either killed or wounded - more battle casualties than in all previous American wars to that point....combined.

Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee - with the assistance of Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio - were able to defeat Albert Sidney Johnston's Army of Mississippi. During the course of the battle's first day, Johnston was killed in a musket ball (likely the result of a friendly fire incident) clipped the artery in his leg. He was the highest ranking general to die in the Civil War.

While Grant had been hailed a hero for the capture of Fort Donelson just two months prior, the appalling casualties suffered in the battle led to very public calls for his removal from command. Indeed, Grant was temporarily removed from field command when his boss - Henry W. Halleck - promoted him to the position of second-in-command of the Department of Tennessee. Partly as a punishment for how he handled the Battle of Shiloh but mostly to remove a potential rival from the playing field.