[Music]
250 Union men of ever Peabody's brigade
a fairly unpatrolled for the past 3 days
that pickets had been exchanging shots
with Confederates many worried its
signal
ending the time but no one in high
command had been convinced
that's Sunday morning with an earshot of
their camps they find a monster lurking
amidst the Tennessee timber 9000
Confederates spearheading a surprise
attack
after the next two days at Shiloh our
nation would come to realize the truth
bloody cost of civil war by the spring
of 1862 the union's disaster in the East
had Bullrun the previous summer seemed a
distant memory thanks to a string of
victories in the West in February the
Army and Navy under Union Brigadier
General Ulysses Grant and flag officer
Andrew foot had worked together to
capture forts Henry and damos combined
with the loss at Mill Springs Kentucky
General Albert Sidney Johnston the
western Confederate commander was forced
to move southwest handing over Kentucky
and much of Tennessee including the
crucial supply an industrial center of
Nashville Major General Henry Halleck
commanding the department of Mississippi
ordered federal forces of the Tennessee
River a major conduit into the heart of
the Western Confederacy
the Federals embarked in March using 174
steamboats to ferry almost 40,000 men
toward their eventual target and now
bustling junction in northern
Mississippi in this day rivers and rails
are the key means to move men and
supplies quickly and Corinth Mississippi
is a crucial southern rail link it
straddles the mobile and Ohio Railroad
and sat on the only line connecting the
Atlantic and the Mississippi and by mid
March grants Army was in position to
capture it as they encamped around
Pittsburgh land his was a good defensive
position waterways protected both flanks
and their rear and they were within 20
miles of Corinth but Hallett cautious
has ordered grant to hold until the
30,000 men of Don Carlos Buell's army of
the Ohio arrives from Nashville
[Music]
on April 2nd Johnston learns that
viewers approaching column is near
Savannah Tennessee it is an opportunity
to strike his opponents mouthing are
divided and Johnston seizes it general
PGT Beauregard the hero of Fort Sumter
and Bull Run plans a very complex attack
that attempts to coordinate Johnston's
four core but rainy weather turns the
roads into mush delaying the attack
believing surprise is lost
Beauregard urges retreat undeterred
Johnston declares gentlemen we will
attack at daylight despite warnings
Union commanders are confident that
Johnston's army remains at Corinth
general grant headquarters across the
river at Savannah and few of the
regiment's Manning what is to become his
front lines had ever been in a
full-scale battle
[Music]
[Music]
Johnston's intent is a turn grants left
flank away from the lifeline at
Pittsburg Landing
but it's grants right that receives the
first Confederate attacks as William
Hardy's brigades advance on the camps of
wooden Sherman's division as late as 7
a.m.
General Sherman remains unconvinced this
is a general attack until rebel
skirmishes from Clay burns Brigade chill
is orderly and shoot him in the hand
to a clavering six regiments move around
the swamp they get caught in a vicious
crossfire the intense fighting air is
just south of a church with a Hebrew
name that ironically meant place of
peace Shiloh despite initial resistance
the union's lines are soon stretched
thin
Benjamin Prentiss forms his six division
including 12 guns on the eastern current
Road his untested ranks wither gladdens
per game but around 8:45 Confederate
attacks force Prentiss to fall back many
don't stop until they get to Pittsburg
Landing leaving empty caps hot meals and
all their belongings hungry rebels pause
to Eden look an hour is lost his
commanders including Johnston struggle
to get these men moving again
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amidst the panic Union defensive lines
are patched together with anyone is
shoving deaths and casualties and
terrain unraveled Confederate command
structure by mid-morning the Battle of
Shiloh has become a soldier's fight
[Music]
alerted by the distant Thunder of
artillery grant departs for Pittsburg
Landing around 7:30
he orders bull Nelson's division appeals
army to begin moving down the river but
Nelson is unable to March until early
afternoon grant also orders Lew
Wallace's 7,500 man division to
reinforce his lives but a series of
errors and delays turn a two hour march
into 70 neither will arrive before
nightfall
despite a sprained ankle after arriving
at the landing grant rides the length of
his battle line and rushes men and
ammunition to his defenders
but until Wallace and the elements
imbues army arrived grant will fight
outnumbered
[Applause]
by 10:30 a.m. the Confederate onslaught
starts to overwhelm grants right flank
attacks push Sherman and McClair to the
back first to the crossroads of the 30
and Cora throws and then to Joan's field
a mile and a half Pittsburg Landing
Johnson succeeds in bending grants line
but in the wrong direction toward
Pittsburgh land where the line can be
shorter and stronger with the Union
right flank and retrieval entire
Confederate regiments fall out of line
to eat in pillage this will Lola lies
Sherman and McLaren to regroup and
launch a ferocious counter-attack by
noon they drove over the unprepared
looting Confederates for the next three
hours Sherman and McLaren is determined
Stan will force Johnston to commit his
last reserves and would occupy the
entire Western two-thirds of the
Confederate part
Confederate brigades on Johnson's right
make repeated attempts to dislodge
Steven Horowitz division from a blooming
peach orchard just south of a pond where
the dying crawl for a final drink by two
o'clock robots line begins to give after
Johnston personally rallies his brigades
to attack and maths Johnson had an old
Dueling that kept his right leg numb
most of the time he may not have paid
much mind to the mini ball that severed
his artery by 245 Johnston bleeds to
death he is a highest-ranking officer to
be killed during the Civil War in grant
center the division of whi Wallace and
the remnants apprentices wraps form a
half mouth
and thick overgrowth long
6,200 men and 25 cannon make the names
of the places they're in the sunken Road
the hornet's nest
synonymous with bloodshed
[Music]
thousands of brits men have retreated in
panic Lew Wallace is missing and bull
Nelson mules lead element is in power
out of Savannah low on options grant
orders a new line of defense at the land
around for Sherman and McClaren that
depleted ranks and no fresh troops fall
back confederates cause their attack to
get ammunition to the front lines
Sherman and McClaren reform along the
heights rugged redeemed by 4:00 p.m.
probe on withdrawals forcing Prentiss to
infuse his left flank
with branch right and left flanks and
retreat sounds of heavy fighting in the
center drop Confederate brigades like a
matched WHL Wallace is outnumbered
Federals put up a fierce defense from an
overgrown thicket they're intense fire
thickens the air with whizzing metal
rebels calling the hornet's nest
[Music]
Brigadier General Daniel ruble pounds
the hornet's nest of 60 cannon the
largest concentration of artillery on
the North American continent up to that
time by 5:00 p.m.
elements of fourteen of the sixteen
Confederate brigades on the field
surround the hornet's nest Wallace and
Prentiss start to withdraw then Wallace
is shot in the head and left for dead
over 2,000 men are captured
the day-long federal Stan waged all
across the battlefield at such places as
the peach orchard hornet's nest and
crossroads staves off total defeat and
byes grant another day to fight
grants army has fallen back to miles
and incurred immense casualties heavy
cannon fire from the union timber clans
Tyler in Lexington Esther's the
Confederate lines Grant's last line on
April 6th is formidable Confederates
must cross huge ravines at dill and
Tillman branch stalled the Confederates
withdraw to the captured Union camps
little effort is made to supply
ammunition or reform they're exhausted
ranks that night
heavy rain moves in soaking the living
and the dead the light Beauregard
now in command believes grants
reinforcements are not coming and sends
a dispatch to Richmond proclaiming a
complete victory in fact the lead
divisions of Buell's army had a hand in
defending grant last line and Lew
Wallace's division finally arrived on
the scene about dusk though these
reinforcements had been spotted by rebel
Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest no one in
Confederate High Command took any action
handed his greatest setback since the
war began grant and vows to whip them at
daylight
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by 6:00 a.m. grant has 40,000 at the
ready half of which are peddle fresh the
weary Confederates number around 28,000
despite their exhaustion and
disorganization when grants army moved
to retake the field and drive the rebels
back
Beauregard eventually manages a solid
defense despite his savage
counter-attacks he is forced back two
hours later to a position along the
Hamburg Purdy Road ultimately the Union
numbers are too great for Beauregard's
depleted wrecks a - he pulls back and
retreat to court
Grenn does not pursue until the next day
[Music]
almost 24,000 men are killed missing or
maimed in just two days
Shiloh is the bloodiest battle in
American history up to that time
despite winning Shiloh grant is vilified
for the shocking losses and near defeat
many demand his removal from command
President Lincoln refuses saying I can't
spare this man he fights in Albert
Sidney Johnston the Confederacy loses a
prized leader no general will fill his
void in the Western theater beginning in
May with Corinth the Union Army embarks
on a Western mission of conquest with
many more places to fall Vicksburg
Chattanooga
[Music]
Atlanta
the battlefield is quiet now though a
new fight is on going against the foes
of time and progress nearly 4,000 acres
of land have been preserved
most recently the site of the Fallen
Timbers action once hosts to two of the
bloodiest days in American history
Shiloh is now one of the best preserved
battlefields of the Civil War a
sprawling living monument to the
sacrifices made there a hundred and
fifty years ago
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