| TRAVELOGUE PT. 5 Wednesday (Shiloh): After Bryce's Crossroads, Bo and I drove up to Shiloh, Tennessee and soaked up the ambience of a battle steeped in blood, valor and bad decisions... We cycled around the massive battlefield until the sun went down, stopping to take pictures and vainly attempting to find the oak tree under which Southern commander Albert Sidney Johnston died... On the morning of the battle, Johnston had ordered a surprise attack that caught the Union command and troops unawares... the Federals were still sleeping in their tents or preparing breakfast and/or coffee when the tumultuous clanging of hardware, Rebel Yells and gunfire sent them asses-and-elbows to the banks of the Tennessee River. It was a rout, interrupted only by Johnston's troops stopping to finish the Union men's breakfast and to pillage the spoils of war. Johnston was appalled at the lack of decorum, as well as the loss of momentum, and began to scold and reprimand the plunderers. This was met with antagonism and near-insubordination and Johnston had to think fast in order to restore protocol. He jumped off of his horse and grabbed a tin cup and told his men that this was his share of the spoils of war. The was met with cheers, whoops and huzzahs and the pursuit of the retreating bluecoats was back on... Johnston personally led his army into battle, and rather than draw his saber, he would raise his pilfered tin cup to the heavens and commandeer the charge. He also sent his personal surgeon to tend to another wounded officer, which was a fatal error. Johnston was shot in the boot, but continued fighting and subsequently bled to death. Not only was his surgeon tending to other wounded, but Johnston was too weak to tell those attending to him as he lay dying that in his knapsack were some biscuits given to him as a token of affection from a Tennessee housewife. The biscuits were contained in a cloth napkin that could serve as a tourniquet and could staunch the bleeding. The first picture shows the Hornets Nest, from the point of view of the 2000 federal troops that fended off between eight and eleven attacks from the Secessionists, who were under the command of General Bragg, a leader who failed to provide his troops with artillery (cannons). Without the cover of artillery, the Confederates were gunned down in droves. The federal line was broken only when a request for artillery was finally heeded. Now loaded with 64 cannons, the Confederates blasted away at the Federal foothold at the Hornets Nest and sent them scurrying back to the Tennessee River. Due to the prowess of US Grant and the dubious judgment of the Southern leadership, the next morning the pendulum swung the other way and the rebels retreated back to Corinth, Mississippi... after Johnston's death, Confederate command was assumed by General Beauregard, who had failed to capture Grant's men before nightfall... That night the rains came and from the Tennessee River, Federal cannons shelled the terrain that the butternuts had commandeered during battle. Beauregard had ordered his troops back to the comfort and shelter of Yankee tents that had been captured during Johnston's surprise attack. This created a vacuum of topography, and we all know how nature feels about a vacuum... The next morning Grant struck first and exploited the vacuum, immediately reclaiming all the terrain the Confederates had fought and died for the day before. Now the Rebels were on the run, back to Mississippi... In order to cover the retreat, the Confederates sent in Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry in a feint. This decoy attack was to mask or cover the general retreat of what was now Beauregard's army. Things got weird during Forrest's attack, however. In an area of Shiloh known as Fallen Timbers, Forrest was so aggressive he somehow got separated from the body of his cavalry and found himself behind Federal lines and surrounded by an armed detachment of Yankee infantry. Startled by the gift that presented itself, the dumbfounded bluecoats began shooting at Forrest at near point blank range. Forrest had to improvise. Legend has it that he reared back on his horse, and grabbed a Northern soldier and used the poor bastard for cover as he fought and galloped his way out of harm's way. The Federal died, apparently, and both Forrest and his horse were in fact shot as well.... The next day the horse died in Corinth, Mississippi. Forrest lived -- and survived the last shots fired at the Battle of Shiloh. |