My God! We Are Attacked! Disorganized Surprise at Shiloh Church

Civil War Daily Gazette ^ | April 6, 2012 | Eric

[Upstate NY Guy]

April 6, 1862 (Sunday) Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.

The Confederate Army of Mississippi was exhausted. After three treacherous days of marching through cold mud and rain, all 40,000 of them lay quiet, flat against the soaked ground waiting for dawn and the call to attack. As the dawn cast its first light slivers across the eastern horizon, Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard, first and second in command of the army, listened to the incipient tenors of battle developing cautiously in their front. Johnston sent word for a general advance and rode to lead his men. Beauregard remained to organize the corps as they filed into the attack.

The commander of the Union Army of the Tennessee, General Ulysses S. Grant, was ten miles north and across the river in Savannah. He was unaware that the Rebels had marched twenty-five miles to give him battle, as he rose and read his mail. He was unaware that General Buell of the Union Army of the Ohio had arrived from Nashville, as he sat down for breakfast. His second in command, General William Tecumseh Sherman, was on the field, within site of the prostrated Confederates, but was no more aware of them than Grant until the first guns were sounded in the dark light of dawn.

[rustbucket]

Northern monuments were paid by the Federal Government. Southern monuments were by donations. Just FYI.

Thanks. I didn't realize that.

Lots of Southern towns have their Confederate monument near the courthouse, no doubt paid for with local funds. Often the town monument is a statue of a Confederate soldier facing North.

Then there are the pointed tombstones used for Confederate soldiers. The story goes that the tombstones were pointed so that Yankees couldn't sit on them.

[archy]

My God! We Are Attacked! Disorganized Surprise at Shiloh Church

A commander can be forgiven for being defeated, for superior numbers, supply shortages or circumstances may conspire or combine to defeat him despite any ability on his part.

But a commander can never be forgiven for being surprised.

--Napoléon Bonaparte