Battle of Shiloh - Shiloh, Tennessee

Editor: We are posting on Civil War sites in the South in recognition of Confederate History Month.

As bloody as the fighting was at places like Manassas and Pea Ridge during the first year of the Civil War, a battle that developed along the Tennessee River during the final days before the first anniversary of the bombardment of Fort Sumter stunned the nation with horror that surpassed anything ever seen on the North American continent.

It was called the Battle of Shiloh, the name taken from a small log church on the battleground, and by the time the guns went silent, nearly 25,000 men had been killed, wounded or were missing. As the stunning news spread North and South from Tennessee, it was difficult for many to believe. Until, that is, the casualty lists began to appear in the newspapers. The lists of names went on and on and on.

Shiloh came just one month after the bloody battle at Pea Ridge in Northwest Arkansas and the news was just as bad for the Confederacy. Moving north from Corinth, Mississippi, the Confederate army of General Albert Sidney Johnston struck the Union army of General Ulysses S. Grant. The Federals were camped around Shiloh Church and Pittsburg Landing and Johnston knew that their nearest reinforcements were at least a day away.

Appearing suddenly from across the Mississippi line, the Confederates attacked in three columns. The initial Union lines were shattered as Southern troops led by generals including Beauregard and Bragg drove through the woods and small fields in what must have seemed an attack from from all directions at once. The battle, however, would go on for two days and would end with the Confederate withdrawing from the field, now under the command of General P.G.T. Beauregard due to the death in battle of General Johnston.

In the end, the butcher's bill was more than 23,476 in dead, wounded and missing. Nothing like it had been seen before, but more was to come. To learn more about the Battle of Shiloh and see photos of Shiloh National Military Park, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/shiloh1.

Shiloh Indian Mounds - Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee

The ground on which the Battle of Shiloh was fought was actually of great importance hundreds of years before that Civil War engagement.

Archaeologists believe that a section of the battlefield, overlooking the Tennessee River, was once the central town of a powerful Native American chiefdom that vanished an estimated 800 years ago. Because the Shiloh land was preserved as part of one of the country's first national military parks, the Shiloh Indian Mounds have also been protected from plowing, erosion, looting and other threats. As a result, it is one of the best preserved Mississippian era Native American sites in the country.

All but one of the mounds, which have been designated a National Historic Landmark, are pyramidal in form, with flat tops on which structures of various types once stood. The other mound, oval in shape, was used as a burial site for high status individuals. The entire site was surrounded by a strong palisade made of upright poles plastered with clay.

Surrounding the mounds, the villages of the town were built of "wattle and daub" construction, meaning basically that their walls were made by weaving smaller branches through stronger upright posts and then plastering the whole with clay. When the town was abandoned 800 years ago, the houses gradually collapsed, but the rings left by the falling walls can still be seen today. Shiloh is one of the few places where above ground traces of prehistoric Native American structures are visible.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/shiloh4.

Battle of Shiloh - Shiloh, Tennessee

In April of 1862, Confederate and Union forces mauled each other for two days around a small log church that gave the battle its name - Shiloh.

The Battle of Shiloh was so violent and deadly that it send shock waves across both North and South. The massive battle in the woods of Tennessee left more than 23,000 men and boys dead, wounded or missing. It forever changed the face of war and began to make clear the horrendous cost in blood that the nation would pay before the conflict was decided.

Shiloh today is one of the most pristine Civil War battlefields in the nation. Preserved as Shiloh National Military Park, the battlefield is still in fields and woods just as it was in 1862. Cannon and monuments dot the landscape and visitors can see such places as the Hornet's Nest, where more than 60 Confederate cannon destroyed a Union force of 6,000 men; Bloody Pond, where soldiers of both sides bathed their wounds and turned the water red with blood, and Pittsburg Landing, the objective point of the Confederate army.

To learn more, please visit our new series of pages on the Battle of Shiloh by clicking www.exploresouthernhistory.com/shiloh1. Be sure to check out the additional links at the bottom of the page.