In Hebrew, Shiloh is a word that means "Place of Peace." On April 6-7, 1862, the woods and fields around the small wooden church that bared the name were anything but peaceful. The Confederate Army of Mississippi, General Albert S. Johnston commanding, locked horns with Major General Ulysses S. Grant and his Union Army of the Tennessee - a force of roughly equal size. These 80,000 Union and Confederate soldiers fell in numbers that had never been seen before on the American continent.

Initially, Johnston's forces were in complete control of the battlefield as they achieved near complete surprise over the Union army - whose soldiers were mostly caught napping quite literally inside of their tents. The Union lines quickly were able to form a front of several miles and fought doggedly against their attackers, who slowly pushed the northerners back toward the Tennessee River.

On the Union right, a division of infantry under the command of a then-unknown William T. Sherman not only was able to mount a spirited resistance to the Confederate onslaught, but even managed to launch a counterattack that achieved fleeting success before the weight of Confederate numbers began to force them back. At the height of the fighting here, Sherman had several close encounters with death that included having multiple horses shot out from under him as well as his aide having his head blown off by a musket ball while engaged in conversation with him.

By late morning the Union defensive line was beginning to come apart and thousands of frightened Federals began streaming for the safety of the rear. Only the division of Benjamin Prentiss, holding firm in the center, kept the Confederate tide at bay. Taking position along a sunken road amidst the Tennessee timber, these Yankee soldiers fought off numerous Confederate attacks. The bullets flew so thick that this area would be forever remembered by the attacking Confederates as the Hornet's Nest.

Confederate General Johnston ordered massed artillery to the area around the Hornet's Nest to soften up the Union position before attacking again. In the largest artillery barrage in American history up to that time, some 50 Confederate cannon blasted the Hornet's Nest. Johnston decided he would lead the subsequent infantry assault on Prentiss and his Union defenders. While riding on his horse, a bullet clipped the artery behind his knee. Unable to feel the wound due to nerve damage in his right leg, the Confederate general bled out until he collapsed off of his horse from blood loss. He went into shock and subsequently died.

Albert Sidney Johnston was the highest ranking officer to die in the American Civil War.

P.G.T Beauregard took over command of the Confederate army and continued to order assaults against the Hornet's Nest. By this time, the Union divisions that had been stationed on the left and right of Prentiss had been forced back, allowing Confederates to cut off and surround the Union defenders. Prentiss and his division were forced to surrender but their defense had given the Union army valuable time.

Ulysses S. Grant had arrived at Pittsburg Landing on the banks of the Tennessee River to find his army in disarray. Tales of disaster confronted him everywhere he went. Rather than panicking, however, the general from Galena, Illinois quickly took control of the situation. Rallying soldiers, riding up and down the front lines trying to steady his men, Grant began to form a new defensive line backed by Union gunboats on the river. By the late afternoon hours of April 6, reinforcements from Major General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio began to arrive on the opposite side of the river and were being ferried across to join in Grant's now nearly impregnable defensive line.

Beauregard ordered limited assaults against the position but called them off due to the gathering darkness. The Confederates pulled back to the site of the Union encampments with the intention of attacking the next day to finish the job.

That night, a violent rain storm wreaked havoc on the battlefield. The sounds of thunder were punctuated by the sounds of the gun boats bombarding Confederate positions from the river. The noise couldn't quite drown out the sounds of the tens of thousands of Union and Confederate wounded moaning and crying for help in the darkness.

Grant had taken shelter from the rain in a wooden shack that had been converted into a Union hospital. The sight and sounds of the wounded, however, drove him near to sickness and thus he left to sleep in the mud with his men. Many of Grant's subordinates favored cutting their losses and retreating back across the river. None of them, however, were brave enough to broach the subject to Grant. So Sherman was enlisted by the Union high command to offer their commanding officer this advice.

Sherman found Grant sitting in the mud, his back against a tree, hat slouched low over his face, a cigar in his mouth. The sight no doubt gave Sherman renewed confidence in a man who was fast becoming his best friend. Walking over to Grant, Sherman looked down at the senior commander and said: "Well Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we."

Grant looked up. And with a puff on his cigar, which lit up his determined face in the darkness, Grant replied: "Yep. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

Thus was the first day of the bloody battle of Shiloh - April 6, 1862. 160 years ago today.

This post was edited on 4/6/22 at 1:33 pm