How long was battle of shiloh

The morning of April 6th Sunday, Dawned like a day in June at home. The trees were nearly in full leaf, and the woods were full of spring flowers.

We had just got our breakfast, when our attention was atracted to a distant roar like the lake in a stormy November day.

Knowing that we would be called on soon, our band struck up the long roll, and the companies fell into line in their company quarters, and marched out to the regimental line, and stood ready for orders; it came soon as an aid come riding with orders for Lt.

Ellis commanding. James C. Veatch commanding] had been sent to the support of Sherman, and to fill a breach on his right. Soon we got to our place across the main road to Corinth; the batery unlimbered; our regiment put on their bayonets, and laid down on their faces behind the battery. We had not long to wait; the battery in our front opened, firing over a raise, and to the front often varying their aim to the right or left, as they saw troops massing; soon the batery-men began to fall, shot by riflemen from the front.

A rebel batery apeared on their from the right and front, and shell and shot, flew over head like hail—It seemed to me as if the batery was being all cut to pieces, when sudenly four horses hitched to a cason [caisson] ran away and came down the road straight for my company.

I spoke to the men and told them to give them the bayonet; they rose up presented the still [steel], and the frightened horses went around the right of the regiment. By this time too, batery had all gone to pieces, the men mostly killed.

Then a regiment on our right broke and ran; this let the enemy into a space on our right; still the men laid firm. Ellis fell, dead Major Goddard took his place to fall killed that moment as soon—Capt. Wapin went the same way. The confederates came over the brow of the bluffs about fifteen rods in our advanse, and planted their flag between two of the guns left by the baterymen.

Then we opened on them, we were firing them buck shot and an ounce ball to a charge, and at that short range proved very effectual. The southern men disappeared from our front, but those coming in on our right now began a cross fire, and soon the ground was covered with dead and dying.

One of our sargents got a ball in the forehead, and the blood flew all over me; he and I thought him dead, and did not know but that he was until I saw him some half hour afterwards, with a handkerchief around his head, fighting with the rest of the men—Seeing that we could no longer hold this ground, our officers commanded a retreat, and every man jumped for a tree. The firing now was something fearful, one could not see a rod away or hear eaven [even] a fiew [few] feet from ones his face.

I got about eight of my men, and the U. Flag, and helping the wounded as much as I could got out of range. Some half a mile in the rear I found a line forming for another stand, and fell in with some men of the 17th and other regiments—Soon a rebel batery unlimbered and opened on us.

And here I must pause to describe one of the finest artilery duels I ever saw—This confederate batery was a long range rifle one, and rang like a crash of lightening every time it went off at the far end of the cotton field.

Near us was a plain looking smooth bore twelve pound Union battery of all Germans. An aid came and ordered this Dutchman to silence the rebel batery. Does the local know I have only smooth bore guns? Asked the Dutchman. I do the best I can. Then turning to his men he spoke German for about a moment.

Two guns of the German batery took each side of the field keeping close to the fence, while we infantrymen took the woods on either side to support them.

Whirling his guns into position and double-shooting them with canisters he opened on the confederates; and in about four rounds each had completely torn the rebel batery to pieces.

It seemed to me that there was not a man or horse left. Then limbering up the guns he flew back up the cotton lots, which we kept the infantry from following him. I have seen many fights since, but nothing to beat this. All day long, on that eventful Sunday, did we fall back from our line to another, until we found ourselves, a mere squad in what is known as the hornets nest, when all the afternoon we was in the smock of the battle, hungry, thirsty, and tired almost to death.

How often they charged our position! How often we repulsed them! During the day I had been allmost the entire length of the line, and often in no command at all. I had seen colonels of cavalry, and Majors of Artilery, fighting as privates in infantry, with muskets and bayonets. I had myself, in the early forenoon picked up a Springfield rifle and cartridge box, and used it through the entire fight afterwards.

Right closed with a desperate charge of the New Orleans Guard, and some assisting regiments, through our former camp they advansed with our flag, and being clothed in dark colors, got near our line before they threw down our flag and raised their own.

The big guns opened on them, and the flanking infantry and they were repulsed, with fearful loss. In the malee our new sibley tents were completely ruined; being in the midst of this attack. They looked like sives after the fight. I crawled into a vacant tent, and got some sleep. The rain fell in torents; and came through the bullet holes in the tent, and I changed often to keep partly dry.

The ground around the landing was filled covered with wounded, who had accumulated during the day, faster than the surgeon could attend to them; and their moaning caused many a tired soul to lay awake in sympathy. Our field officers had all been killed the day before; and so we had Lt.

Lealin of the 14th assigned to command us, and he did so all day on Monday. The confederates…by Monday night were in full retreat. We rallied by sections and repulsed the cavalry, under cover of this movement the whole command of confederates disappeared into the woods. And so ended the great battle of Shiloh, great in its results; great in casulties of my regiment the regt.

In our company we lost 6 killed and sixteen wounded, some of the wounded were terably so. We had fifty men in the morning of Sunday, and lost 22 killed or wounded. We remained on the field until after dark on Monday, and then went back to camp—to find it full of dead and wounded confederates, left from the fatal charge they made on Sunday afternoon. We managed to get them out of the way so we could lay down, and slept quite well with the dead and wounded all around—I thought I had seen shocking sights at Donaldson [Donelson]; but it did not compare with that of Shiloh.

The ground in many places for half a mile was so thick with dead men one could walk the entire distance and step from one to another. On Tuesday morning we gathered our dead together and buried them in a long trench close to the camp, Col. Ellis at the head; after him the officers according to rank, and the men in regimental order; just as they had marched out to battle that glorious Sunday morning only a fiew days before.

I was detailed on Wednesday to take charge of a burial party to take care of the confederates, and it was a big job. We were not quite so careful of them—A long trench about twelve feet wide and five or six feet deep was dug; government waggons were hauling them to the place, while some men were packing them into the trench, until nearly full, then the dirt was rounded over them.

The dead horses was next looked after; and there were hundreds of them. Wood was piled on them, and set fire; if a horse was pretty fat he would burn; but if lean he would only half burn. The balance would lay them, and soon, the whole country smelled like a tan yard. I was glad when after a week or ten days we were ordered to move to the front on toward Corinth. One had but little idea of the amount, of wreckage there is left on a battle field.

I saw many cannons marked, captured from Army of Potomac at this or that battle—Also one that belonged to the Washington Artilery of it a captured by this organization them from Mexicans at Monte Ray [Monterrey]…. You can immagine they would never have left it if possible to save it. I want to say one word here as to the attack at Shiloh being a surprise.

It might not have been so to the Generals; but it certainly was to the men whom I saw running to the landing carrying their pants in their hands; and many others in various disable condition, as late as when we were going out to take our place at the front—now began the advanse on Corinth. Every day there was fighting at the front; often amounting to small battles. That at Monte Ray being quite severe. Hallock had assumed command, and adopted a conservation policy, and made the men throw up fortification in the heavy timber at every move; and get up every morning before daylight, and stand to arms until he was satisfied the rebels was not going to attack him.

Pope was stationed on the left and could see the movement, and we could hear the thunder of his big guns, as he tried to stop the movement. The next day all had left the works, and I went into Corinth without opposition—Our old man Hallock had been outwited and Beauregard had gone back to fight in the eastern army.

If they had let Grant alone, or given Sherman the command the confederate army under Beauregard never would have gone back east again. As it was Pope followed the remnants of the army south a ways, and then came back to look at one another. For another Union perspective, click here. For a Confederate perspective, click here. Battle of Shiloh. World History Group Archive.

The Battle of Shiloh in April dashed any hope the war might end quickly. Shiloh, however, was a personal setback. Allowing his 49, troops to camp haphazardly around Pittsburg Landing, Grant seemed oblivious to the possibility of a Confederate attack. Reinforcing Grant overnight, Maj. Grant was heavily criticized in the press, and even temporarily demoted.

Dispirited, he contemplated resigning. But after a pep talk from his friend William T. Sherman he reconsidered, and two months later, after the Federals had advanced into Mississippi, Grant was restored to command. Death of Gen. Albert S. He hoped to restore his reputation by forcing a showdown near the railroad town of Corinth, Miss. Johnston was confident he could defeat Grant at Pittsburg Landing before Union reinforcements arrived.

But the general was shot during the fighting near the Peach Orchard, suffering a wound behind the knee that might have been treatable with a simple tourniquet. Oblivious to his injury, Johnston fought until he bled to death—becoming the highest-ranking battle casualty of the entire war. Sherman: Sherman was publicly humiliated when removed from command in late , but the Battle of Shiloh proved to be his great redemption.

Serving as a division commander under his friend Ulysses S. On May 1, Sherman was promoted to major general. By the end of the war, his name would be cursed by Southerners everywhere. William H. Instead she arrived mid-battle. Word came that William had been killed, but he was found alive the next day. The widow Wallace resumed life in Ottawa, Ill. She never remarried. Stanley was taken prisoner on April 7. Feeling no particular loyalty to the Confederacy, he pledged allegiance to the Union and switched uniforms.

He became a renowned journalist and African explorer. Livingstone, I presume? Wallace, doomed to be struck down that afternoon, gave his horse to Powell in order for him to seek medical aid. Powell accomplished all of this with a stunning impediment; his right arm was amputated as a result of the wound he received at Shiloh.. With reinforcements at hand, Grant was able to overturn the southern advances made on April 6 the next day and secure a bloody victory, if only because the southern army was compelled to leave the field and retreat to Corinth, Mississippi.

Civil War historian Shelby Foote summarizes the battle:. Confederate losses were killed, wounded, missing: total, 10, Of the , soldiers engaged in this first great bloody conflict of the war, approximately one out of every four who had gone into battle had been killed, wounded, or captured.

Yet Waterloo had settled something, while this one apparently had settled nothing. And while this fight may have settled nothing immediately, this thin victory and southern capitulation would provide the Federal army with a keen path toward the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the summer of , at which time the western theater of the Deep South would be effectively removed from the war.

The victories forced the Hoping to seize Corinth Grant in the spring of Grant and Commodore Andrew Foote In May , Confederate forces clashed with the advancing Union Army in the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, which lasted for the better part of two weeks and included some of the bloodiest fighting of the Civil War.

After an indecisive battle in the dense Virginia woods The battles of Cold Harbor were two American Civil War engagements that took place about 10 miles northeast of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital.

It pitted Confederate General Robert E. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. Battle of Shiloh. Battle of Fredericksburg. Battle of Chancellorsville.