|
 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
|
Posted on 02/07/2003 5:34:32 AM PST by SAMWolf
|
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
|
| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. We hope to provide an ongoing source of information about issues and problems that are specific to Veterans and resources that are available to Veterans and their families. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.  To list previous Foxhole Threads or to add The Foxhole to your sidebar Click on the Logo
|
|
|
|
April 6, 1862 With the loss of Forts Henry and Donelson in February, General Johnston withdrew his disheartened Confederate forces into west Tennessee, northern Mississippi and Alabama to reorganize. In early March, General Halleck responded by ordering General Grant to advance his Union Army of West Tennessee on an invasion up the Tennessee River. Occupying Pittsburg Landing, Grant entertained no thought of a Confederate attack. Halleck's instructions were that following the arrival of General Buell's Army of the Ohio from Nashville, Grant would advance south in a joint offensive to seize the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, the Confederacy's only east-west all weather supply route that linked the lower Mississippi Valley to cities on the Confederacy's east coast. Assisted by his second-in-command, General Beauregard, Johnston shifted his scattered forces and concentrated almost 55,000 men around Corinth. Strategically located where the Memphis & Charleston crossed the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, Corinth was the western Confederacy's most important rail junction. On April 3, realizing Buell would soon reinforce Grant, Johnston launched an offensive with his newly christened Army of the Mississippi. Advancing upon Pittsburg Landing with 43,938 men, Johnston planned to surprise Grant, cut his army off from retreat to the Tennessee River, and drive the Federals west into the swamps of Owl Creek.  In the gray light of dawn, April 6, a small Federal reconnaissance discovered Johnston's army deployed for battle astride the Corinth road, just a mile beyond the forward Federal camps. Storming forward, the Confederates found the Federal position unfortified. Johnston had achieved almost total surprise. By mid-morning, the Confederates seemed within easy reach of victory, overrunning one frontline Union division and capturing its camp. However, stiff resistance on the Federal right entangled Johnston's brigades in a savage fight around Shiloh Church. Throughout the day, Johnston's army hammered the Federal right, which gave ground but did not break. Casualties upon this brutal killing ground were immense. Meanwhile, Johnston's flanking attack stalled in front of Sarah Bell's peach orchard and the dense oak thicket labeled the "hornet's nest" by the Confederates. Grant's left flank withstood Confederate assaults for seven crucial hours before being forced to yield ground in the late afternoon. Despite inflicting heavy casualties and seizing ground, the Confederates only drove Grant towards the river, instead of away from it. The Federal survivors established a solid front before Pittsburg Landing and repulsed the last Confederate charge as dusk ended the first day of fighting. April 7, 1862 Shiloh's first day of slaughter also witnessed the death of the Confederate leader, General Johnston, who fell at mid-afternoon, struck down by a stray bullet while directing the action on the Confederate right. At dusk, the advance division of General Buell's Federal Army of the Ohio reached Pittsburg Landing, and crossed the river to file into line on the Union left during the night. Buell's arrival, plus the timely appearance of a reserve division from Grant's army, led by Major General Lewis Wallace, fed over 22,500 reinforcements into the Union lines. On April 7, Grant renewed the fighting with an aggressive counterattack.  Taken by surprise, General Beauregard managed to rally 30,000 of his badly disorganized Confederates, and mounted a tenacious defense. Inflicting heavy casualties on the Federals, Beauregard's troops temporarily halted the determined Union advance. However, strength in numbers provided Grant with a decisive advantage. By midafternoon, as waves of fresh Federal troops swept forward, pressing the exhausted Confederates back to Shiloh Church, Beauregard realized his armies' peril and ordered a retreat. During the night, the Confederates withdrew, greatly disorganized, to their fortified stronghold at Corinth. Possession of the grisly battlefield passed to the victorious Federal's, who were satisfied to simply reclaim Grant's camps and make an exhausted bivouac among the dead. General Johnston's massive and rapid concentration at Corinth, and surprise attack on Grant at Pittsburg Landing, had presented the Confederacy with an opportunity to reverse the course of the war. The aftermath, however, left the invading Union forces still poised to carry out the capture of the Corinth rail junction. Shiloh's awesome toll of 23,746 men killed, wounded, or missing brought a shocking realization to both sides that the war would not end quickly.
|
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War
Selected and edited by Ned Bradford
General Albert Sidney Johnston, in command of the Confederacy's armies west of the Alleghanies (except the Gulf Coast), was the very beau idol of a soldier. Physically imposing, stainless in character, with an enviable record in the cavalry of the old army, he was the South's acknowledged best before Shiloh.
But after Donelson fell, even he had no alternative but to leave Nashville to the Federals under Don Carlos Buell and retreat into Mississippi. Grant's army pushed into Tennessee and Johnston marched again to check him.
They met, somewhat to Grant's suprise, near Shiloh Church at Pittsburg Landing. In one of the great battles of the war, and with timely reinforcements from Buell, Grant turned an apparant Sunday defeat into a Monday victory, driving the Confederates back into Mississippi.
They retreated under Beauregard, for Johnston had been killed the first day, another serious blow to the hopes of the South.
In her inimitable diary, when she heard the news, Mrs. Mary Chestnut wrote, "There is grief enough for albert Sidney Johnston now. We begin to see waht we have lost. We were pushing them in the river when he was wounded. Without hiim there is no head to our western army."
This following excerpt was taken from:
"Regiments Broke at the first fire"
by Ulysses S. Grant, General, U.S.A.
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War
Selected and edited by Ned Bradford
The position of our troops made a continous line from Lick Creek, on the left, to Owl Creek, a branch of Snake Creek, on the right, facing nearly south, and possibly a little west. The water in all these streams was very high at the time, and contributed to protect our flanks. The enemy was compelled, therefore, to attak directly in front. This he did with great vigor, inflicting heavy losses on the National side, but suffering much heavier on his own.
The Confederate assaults were made with such disregard of losses on their own side, that our line of tents soon fell into their hands. The ground on which the battle was fought was undulating, heavily timbered, with scattered clearings, the woods giving some protection to the troops on both sides. There was also considerable underbrush. A number of attempts were made by the enemy to turn our right flank, where Sherman was posted, but every effort was repulsed with heavy loss. But the front attack was kept up so vigorously that, to prevent the success of these attempts to get on our flanks, the National troops were compelled several times to take positions to the rear, nearer Pittsburgh landing. When the firing ceased at night, the National line was all of a mile in rear of the position it had occupied in the morning.
In one of the backward moves, on the 6th, the division commanded by general Prentiss did not fall back with the others. This left his flanks exposed, and enabled the enemy to capture him, with about 2200 of his officers and men. General Badeau gives 4 o'clock of the 6th as about the time this capture took place. He may be right as to the time, but my recollection is that the hour was later. General Prentiss himself gave the hour as half-past five. I was with him, as I was with each of the division commanders that day, several times, and my recollection is that the last time I was with him was about half-past four, when his division was standing up firmly, and the general was as cool as if expecting victory.
Cheers
Lew Wallace was born April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana and moved to Indianapolis in 1837 when his father was elected governor. He received very little formal education and left school at sixteen. He became a copyist in the county clerk’s office and studied law in his father’s law office. When the Mexican War broke out in 1846, Wallace organized an army of volunteers and served as first lieutenant of the 1st Indiana. After the war, he returned to Indianapolis and was admitted to the bar in 1849. He began practicing law and served two terms (1850 and 1852) as prosecuting attorney of Covington, Indiana. In 1853, he moved to Crawfordsville and was elected to the Indiana Senate in 1856. Governor Oliver P. Morton appointed Wallace state adjutant general when Fort Sumter was bombarded and, on April 25, 1861, colonel of the 11th Indiana, a three-month regiment which was re-enlisted in August for three years. Wallace served in West Virginia and advanced to brigadier general of volunteers on September 3, 1861. He took part in the capture of Fort Donelson and was made a major general to rank from March 21, 1862. Shortly after, at Shiloh, General U. S. Grant told Wallace to march his division from Crump’s Landing to the battlefield. Unfortunately, he got lost and arrived at the battlefield too late and could do no more than assist the following day. In 1863, he prevented the capture of Cincinnati and was awarded the command of the Middle Division and the 8th Army Corps in Baltimore. In July 1864, he helped defend Washington, D. C. against the forces of Jubal A. Early even though his troops were outnumbered by over 22,000 men. In November 1865, Wallace served on the court martial panels that tried men implicated in the assassination of President Lincoln as well as Henry Wirz, commander of the confederate prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia. Following the war, Wallace spent several months in Mexico fighting against Maximilian and the French. He returned to Crawfordsville where he practiced law and ran unsuccessfully for Congress. In 1878, he assumed the governorship of New Mexico, a position he held until President Garfield appointed him to a four-year term as minister of Turkey. Lew Wallace is best known as an author, with the most famous of his works being Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ published in 1880. Wallace died in Crawfordsville on February 15, 1905, and was buried there in Oak Hill Cemetery
I recall the Lew Wallace study in Crawfordsville home of my alma mater Wabash College.
As governor of New Mexico, Wallace remarked, "Decisions based on experience elsewhere fail in New Mexico."
Twenty years after Ronald Reagan's call for SDI (March 1983) Kirtland is the focus of Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) tests.
A century after Wallace's death, the star of Ben Hur heads the National Rifle Association.
The bravery of the American fighters at Shiloh--in the face of buzzing death--lives on as Hornets converge on Hussein.
Godspeed swift victory and safe return to the finest fighting force on earth.
She and her children put up a monument to him in the old Carmel Presbyterian Church cemetery in rural Cherokee County, AL:
My ggg grandfather lost two sons as well. My gg grandmother died in childbirth in 1862, leaving one daughter (my great grandmother) alive out of five babies. We believe that ggg grandfather died of a broken heart.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
