Guide to the Battle of Shiloh

by Jay Luvaas (Editor), Leonard Fullenkamp (Editor), Stephen Bowman (Editor)

Overview

As Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman prepared their inexperienced troops for a massive offensive by an equally green Confederate army in April 1862, the outcome of the Civil War was still very much in doubt. For two of the most chaotic and ravaging days of the War, the Union forces counterattacked and fended off the Rebels. Losses were great—more than 20,000 casualties out of 100,000 Union and Confederate troops. But out of the struggle, Grant and Sherman forged their own union that would be a major factor in the Union Army's final victory. For the Confederates, Shiloh was a devastating disappointment. By the time the siege was over, they had lost both the battle and one of their ablest commanders, Albert Sidney Johnston.

Eyewitness accounts by battle participants make these guides an invaluable resource for travelers and nontravelers who want a greater understanding of five of the most devastating yet influential years in our nation's history. Explicit directions to points of interest and maps—illustrating the action and showing the detail of troop position, roads, rivers, elevations, and tree lines as they were 130 years ago—help bring the battles to life. In the field, these guides can be used to recreate each battle's setting and proportions, giving the reader a sense of the tension and fear each soldier must have felt as he faced his enemy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700607839
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	10/10/1996
Series:	U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

How to Use This Book

List of Maps and Illustrations

Introduction

Guide to the Battle of Shiloh

1. The Strategic Situation

2. The Confederate Plan

The First Day

3. The Confederates Attack

4. Rhea Field

5. Cleburne’s Assault

6. Shiloh Church

7. McDowell’s Headquarters

8. Owl Creek

9. Raith Monument

10. McClernand’s Battle

11. Gladden’s Attack

12. The Attack against Stuart

13. Johnston’s Death

14. The Peach Orchard

15. Defending the Flank

16. The Lost Opportunity

17. Ruggles’s Batteries

18. The Hornet’s Nest

19. The Hornet’s Nest (continued)

20. The Final Assault

21. Pittsburg Landing

22. Grant in Control

The Second Day

23. Buckland’s Brigade

24. Union Counterattack

25. Beauregard’s Headquarters

After the Battle

Appendices

I. “The Campaign and Battle of Shiloh, April 1862”

II. The Wallace-Grant Controversy

III. Order of Battle

IV. Recapitulation of Casualties

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

"These guides are the most thorough, detailed, and accurate of their kind. I have used them to lead guided tours of several battlefields, with great success."—James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Era of the Civil War

"I highly recommend this important and valuable series of guidebooks."—Herman Hattaway, coauthor of How the North Won the Civil War and Why the South Lost the Civil War

"These guides can be enjoyed without ever leaving the easy chair, or they can become indispensable companions on tramps over the scenes of the greatest engagements of the Civil War."—William C. Davis, author of Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour

From the Publisher